Hey everyone, thank you in advance to anyone who reads this, I’m feeling so alone and isolated. I had a SA two days ago and I’m really in the trenches since. My partner (44m) and I had been dating just a couple months and neither of us were certain about kids when I unexpectedly became pregnant. He was against keeping it but said he’d support me if I wanted it. The entire time I was pregnant I felt confused and brain fog. We use protection and falling pregnant (no prior pregnancies) shocked me. I didn’t have a strong maternal urge or a strong urge to get rid of it I was just in shock at being pregnant. I also had very bad fatigue and morning sickness. Logically abortion seemed the best option given no strong maternal urge - a child should be 100% wanted.
The actual termination was overwhelming, I woke up from the anaesthetic basically mid-panic attack - weeping uncontrollably, shaking, unable to breathe or speak or move. After about ten minutes of this the nurses got annoyed that I wasn’t “cooperating” and kept telling me to “try”and calm down, drink water,I felt embarrassed, dismissed and ashamed. I did hold the water but it went everywhere due to the shaking and my throat couldn’t swallow due to the weeping. After about an hour and a half of me weeping and shaking alone in front of everyone (other patients, occasionally nurse coming over to tell me to “try and stop”) I asked to speak to the anaesthetist who said I’d woken up crying and shaking and this was common (nobody else on the recovery ward was experiencing this and I wasn’t told this was a possibility beforehand). After about two and a half hours the nurses said we are discharging you now. By then I’d stopped weeping but was still crying (quietly), still couldn’t really walk, hadn’t eaten/drunk, was still shaking. Luckily one of the other patients took pity on me and helped me down the stairs where I basically lay in the front reception crying and shaking for a further hour with my partner before being able to physically leave the centre.
Since getting home I’ve been incredibly emotional, I feel like I wasn’t properly looked after or supported, and I have so much confusion over whether I’ve done the right thing. I feel completely disconnected from my emotions and have done since I saw the positive test. I still feel in shock that I became pregnant and like I haven’t had a chance to think about what I want, except now I can’t because it’s over. MSI discharge booklet doesn’t even mention hormonal crash and there was zero info about possible emotional reactions to anaesthetic (despite the anaesthetist saying this was common) other than “you may experience intense emotions which will pass after 10-20 minutes, a nurse will be on hand” well they didn’t pass and a nurse wasn’t on hand! It also says the most common emotion people feel is relief. I so wanted to wake up feeling relief, instead all my confusion intensified. I also just feel like a complete freak for how I woke up, just humiliating, how disgusted and annoyed the nurses/some of the other patients seemed to be with me. (Not that I can judge the other patients who obviously had all just gone through the same thing, I wish I’d not been left on a group recovery room though while I was struggling). I’m also now scared that my age could mean that was my one chance and I threw it away without really thinking it through.
Does this get better? Will this pass? Is there some way I can help myself process this? Thank you to anyone who reads this