Dear Self,

I will always recognize your strength. You found out you were pregnant on the third of October, your favorite month. Your darling, sweetheart of a partner of three months held you in more ways than one. Your abortion was complicated. Your relationship with your abortion is complicated, messy, and most of all, ever-evolving. Not one step, but two, but three. You took mifepristone and misoprostol. A deeply personal experience with your beloved Mom, who held you, naked in the bathroom, as you wailed in down-dog, as you contracted. Incomplete, you were still pregnant. Two hospital runs and two procedures later and the only tangible reminder of your abortion was your silly Nuva ring, stuck to a lime-sized blood clot, which shot out of you as you haemorrhaged in the shower on that rainy Sunday night. It’s an odd feeling to be completely out of control. To wonder how much more blood exists in your body. Some of the nurses and doctors minimized your pain and your bleeding and I’m deeply sorry that that happened to you. In December, you were no longer pregnant. Abortion is safer than getting your wisdom teeth taken out, but you were just really fucking unlucky & ill-managed.

Dear Self,

This love letter to you is more about reminding you of your strength rather than evoking your trauma. I am here for you. I’m truly happy and proud of you for making the decision you did. Your abortion allowed you to understand yourself deeply & boundlessly; to get to know this vessel of yours ever so intimately and cosmically. To reckon with your needs. Your desires. To contemplate your relationship. To recognize your capacity for self- determination. Every time you bleed is a new invitation. An invitation to revel in the resilience of your body, of your womb, of your ability to heal. You’re still grieving in bits. When you find out expecting folks will give birth to Gemini’s. When folks tell you their abortion was easy, quick, and that they don’t really give it much thought anymore.

Dear Self,

You amaze me by your strength. Every single day. May you connect with the beautiful community of souls who’ve had abortions. May you celebrate this radical act of self-love, your abortion. May you trust. May you partake in intimacy and pleasure. May you release shame. May you say the word abortion to not only family and friends but also to strangers. May this love letter free you of your weighted fears. Your story deserves to be told, just as everyone’s does.

Abortion truly is love.