Being a dad has always been something that I was told that I would be great at, and I’ve always wanted to have the experience of raising a family and being a good father. But, in today’s society, with the amount of adversity waged against Father’s rights, that dream, for me, has always had to be something I’d only be capable of imagining, and never being able to actually live out in real time. No matter how hard I’ve fought for my rights as a father, they’ve been denied by several sources that are supposed to help protect your rights instead of constantly deny them the ways that I have experienced.
Seeing men march the streets holding signs that support what I would call the murder of innocent unborn children, and them yelling the words, “my body, my choice” is appalling to say the least. Witnessing a grown man donning a shirt that says ‘Pro Roe’ written across the chest of it, and him claiming in the Facebook post as the best $15 he’s ever spent, and thanking the person who suggested this purchase to him was an extremely skin-crawling experience. This all has proven to be some of the most infuriating things to see recently, among the many other things meant to upset people like me, who, at this rate, can only dream of being the good father that he’s always been told that he would eventually grow up to be. And even though I’m over 40, and I’ve had many instances of being proverbially slapped—down by people online, in court, in law enforcement, and working for CPS, I still believe that one of these days, my dream will still come true.
Even though it’s plain for me to see that there’s been a handful of times where my rights as a father have been consecutively denied, you won’t truly understand what it’s been like for someone like me until I explain to you exactly what all I went through just trying to bring a child into this world and raise it properly, and the effects the following tragedies have had on not only me, but also on the people involved in what I would say has been my worst nightmare to ever come true.
When I decided to settle down with someone that I had met in my younger years, they were pregnant with a child that I was not even sure was mine, because in her own words, she had been raped one night when she was drunk and partying with her aunt that was only a few years older then her. And the alleged rapist was her aunt’s friend that my significant other had never met before that night. When she told me what happened, I struggled to even believe her. But, this was because of the email that I found that she had sent out inviting people to come play an x-rated version of Twister with her and her aunt. Looking back, I know understand that her aunt was a bad influence on her. And at this current time of the story, my girlfriend’s mom moved to California to be with her new husband and they took her little brother, but left her behind. My girlfriend moved in with her grandma and was now living in the same house as her aunt. Even though, without ever talking to me, her grandpa clearly didn’t like me. But, we still carried on a relationship together like we had been doing for the past year and 8 months. That’s when she started getting into trouble a lot, and was acting out in very questionable manners. This was a bit much for me to take in at the time, so I had spoken with her grandma and suggested that my girlfriend be moved away from Las Vegas to Temecula, California to be with her mom and new stepdad after they had relocated their family there. That was around the time that she had decided to tell me that she was just going to have an abortion and kill the child that we were supposed to have together.
This was when things started to downward spiral for us as a couple the hardest. I told her that it was just as much my choice as it was her choice in the matter. But, much to my dismay, that was the first time that I ever heard the words, “my body, my choice,” as she was coached by Planned Parenthood to say to me. At the time, I was so young and naive as to what was even going on, and I had no idea on how to even come back from hearing her say that. So, as you can imagine, these words would haunt me for the rest of my life. After proclaiming that I had no say in the matter, and the fact that I wasn’t there to even be able to stop her, that’s when the conversation was abruptly ended, because it started to get so heated that we had to hang up the phone, before things went too far. But, looking back, I should have kept trying.
This was the last time I heard from her for a while, until the day that I got the dreaded call that I will never forget in all my years of this life. When she was visiting the OBGYN, she had a sonogram taken, and had sent me a photo of our child, and from time to time, I would sit there and just look at it, amazed with what I was seeing. I had never seen a real sonogram before, and I had never actually expected a child in my life, so this was special to me, and I hung on to this photo the entire time this went on, because in my mind, this was my child, and I already loved it.
I was hanging out with a couple of friends one day, and our fun was cut into with a phone call from my girlfriend at the time, and during this phonecall, I went to a more private area to speak with her. The first thing she told me that was she went through with the abortion, and I was immediately in shock, and the more those words went through my mind, the more devastated I had become. My emotions were immediately drained, my smile had disappeared, and my feelings were suddenly out of control. I couldn’t take knowing what she had done. I couldn’t take the fact that there was no more expectancy of a baby in my life. And I could live with what she had just told me. But, I still tried to maintain my composure over the phone, because she had just been through an operation, and I didn’t even know how to respond to that.
She said that, even though she had went through with the abortion, as soon as she woke up, all she could think about was me. And, when her mom asked her what she wanted as soon as she came to, that she said she wanted me. But, I couldn’t get over the words that were stating to me that she just did the unthinkable. That she had just went through with the abortion. That she had just killed our baby. That she had done this anyways even though I begged her not to the last time that we talked. But, you’re going to have to excuse me now, because to say that I was devastated by those words is an understatement, and that there are no words to describe the way I was telling at the time as a father who had just lost the baby that he was so excited to one day meet, and hold in his arms.
I couldn’t be on the phone with her anymore at this point. Here she was telling me that she loved me and that she only wanted me, and all I could do was hang up the phone and be in my feelings that were now sinking down into my gut. I excused myself from being in the living room with my friends after I briefly explained what just happened. I went into my bedroom and shut and locked the door behind me, I headed straight to the drawer that held the photo of our unborn child, and I climbed onto my bed, knelt in the middle of my bed over my covers, stared at the picture, and just cried to myself, knowing that we would never get to meet, that my dreams of being a dad were crushed.
I was too young to understand that her and I could have started over again from there, and I was too hurt at the moment to be a forward thinking individual. All I could think about was the feelings of betrayal, was the utter disbelief, and the fact that this baby was just murdered in cold blood by some heartless doctor that probably gets off on doing something like this, or in the very least, stand to profit from the act. When I look back on this moment in time now, I always think that this was the greatest mistake that I’ve ever made in my entire life because of what would come in the following years.
Time went by, and she started partying at what she was saying were “Pimps and Hos” parties in San Diego. Hearing this only further turned me off from wanting to be with her, and I just wished her well. But, the reality of this was that these were screams for help. But, I didn’t understand this and I didn’t know how to help her back then. I saw this as just bad choices she was making, but this was her life, and these were her choices, and I couldn’t hold myself responsible for the decisions that she was making over her own life at this point. But, that is what I am now convinced was the mistake that I was making, because, knowing what I know now, I could have stepped in and been the man I thought I was. But, I chose otherwise. I kept telling myself those words she told me, this is her life, these are her choices, and that I can’t make any of these decisions for her.
The thing that I could never understand back then is that she ultimately looked up to me, and that she looked to me to step in and save the day all the time. And I very well could have, and the survivor’s guilt in me tells me every day that I really should have. She had returned back to Vegas after some time, and told me that she was back, but, I couldn’t be effected by what she was saying back then anymore. She had hurt me, and I couldn’t see past any of the pain and trauma that I was feeling. And, these next moments… these are the moments that have the tendency to send me into the deep end when I catch myself thinking about the memories of what happened.
She started hanging out in Parumph, and called me, asking me if she could come over with a friend. She got there, and it was a guy that she was with, and she was asking me if I knew where to find any heroine. I tried telling her no, I tried putting it off, but she kept pushing the issue and was very persistent. She spoke with me privately for a moment, and begged me to help her find it, showing me the track marks on her, and telling me that I don’t understand what these people are like when they don’t get what they want. I took the tough guy route and started making threats, saying that I didn’t care who they were and that I what I would do to then if they even tried. I told her that I would throw the guy out of the house and defend myself if he decided to get crazy, and she begged me to please just stop. And, she kept pushing the issue of getting her and her friend some heroin.
This is when I made another mistake that I wish I wouldn’t have made, I made the call to someone that had told me that they were an addict, I introduced them to each other, and that was the last time that I ever heard from her, ever again. The next thing I heard about her was that she died from an overdose, and still to this day, I can’t even believe it. I’ve been living in denial for years now that she’s passed on. I’ve been convinced for years that she was sex trafficked and that her death was faked, and that she was shipped to another country that she couldn’t get back home from, but this could just be me wishfully thinking.
I never got over her death, I never got over her words, I never got over her raid decline ever since the day she had the abortion, and this is why I will fight for not only father’s rights, but also the rights for unborn children everywhere. I’ve never been the same since the abortion, her life was never the same since the abortion, and I wouldn’t wish this experience on even my worst enemy. I’ve cried for years about this, it’s a very touchy subject for me, and this is something I never speak of because if I do, I’m afraid it might kill me. The traumatization, the shock, the horror, the loss, the grief, the fear of missing out, the dreams that were crushed, the feelings we had of not being good enough, they’re all too much for me to remember or even speak of…. But, if I don’t tell my story, no one will ever know, and it’ll just keep being perpetuated until someone else finally decides to speak out. But, I am proclaiming that this ends here, and that I be the one of many to speak out about my experience with abortion, and how it’s ruined the lives of everyone that knew her and doesn’t understand what even happened to her.
The part that hurts the most about this is the fact that she was so smart, funny, loving, fun, and had such a great personality that many of you will never even know, because she was taken from us all way too soon. That she won’t be raising any children that would have the opportunity to be as awesome and as cool as she was growing up to be. That I will never have the experience of being her husband and helping her to raise any of our kids together. And to this very day, I’m thoroughly covered that this was all because she was conned into having an abortion by Planned Parenthood. That was the very moment that everything in our relationship and love life fell apart, and I will never forget that phone call, and the feelings that came with those words that day, and the effects this abhorrent act has had on everyone involved.
