“Everybody is different, and a smooth experience is completely normal too.”
This client shares their positive experience having a medical abortion (abortion with pills), after they couldn’t find any medical abortion stories that matched theirs. They hope that it comforts other people going through the same thing.
I wanted to share my story because it was so completely different from all the medical abortion stories I found online. Based on what I’d read, I was expecting dramatic bleeding, intense pain, and lots of massive clots. My experience was the exact opposite, and during the process, it actually made me panic.
I took the first pill on a Friday afternoon. I felt absolutely fine, went to bed as normal, and woke up the next morning. On Saturday morning, I had some light cramps and bleeding. Then, I had a couple of really strong cramps. It was the most painful part of the whole experience, but even then, it just felt like a sudden urge that I needed to rush to the toilet. Right then, I passed a couple of clots about the size of a strawberry.
“I started getting really worried overnight. Everything I had read online said I should be in pain.”
After that, I carried on as normal and took the second set of pills as planned. After taking them, I had minimal bleeding. I had some cramping that felt like a bad period pain, but nothing more than that, and some ibuprofen managed it completely.
Because of this, I started getting really worried overnight. Everything I had read online said I should be in pain passing massive clots. I was convinced the abortion had failed. Sunday came and went, and again, nothing really happened – just minimal bleeding.
“Immediately, all my pregnancy symptoms vanished.”
When I woke up on Monday, I essentially started what felt exactly like a regular period for me. I had some small clots, and the bleeding just continued at a normal pace.
The biggest relief was that immediately, all of my pregnancy symptoms vanished. The nausea and fatigue disappeared, and my breasts stopped feeling sore.
I’m sharing this because when I was sitting there over the weekend, barely bleeding and convinced it had failed, I desperately searched for a story that matched mine and ended positively. I couldn’t find a single one. If you are going through this right now and your experience feels “too mild” or like a normal period, please know that everybody is different, and a smooth, experience is completely normal too.
**Every person is different and will experience different levels of pain and bleeding throughout the process. Find out more about pain and medical abortion here.
Read more abortion stories
Sharing stories is at the heart of ending the stigma that too many people still feel when it comes to abortion.
