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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/shewarf on 2026-02-26 09:11:18+00:00.
TW: Childloss/abortion
I, (26F) became single last summer, and have been going on dates for the past few months, which has been fun, and i've met some good people on the way. Due to some mental issues, i do have a tendency to engage in unprotected s3x (sometimes as a form of SH, i'm working on it...) and one of these times ended up being right before i began ovulating... and because i had taken a plan B recently, I thought that it would be harmful for me to take another this soon after, and yeah... i ended up becoming pregnant...
It was very easy for me to decide to have an abortion. I am not in a long term relationship, I am in no way financially capable to care for a child, I suffer from mental issues that would make it impossible for me to become a single parent. (I luckly live in a country where abortion is provided as basic healthcare, and the procedure is free under global health insurance)
I have only told my very close friends about this situation, I have been very afraid to tell my parents, and even wanted to not tell them at all. I do have a close relationship with my parents, and i talk to them often. But they do have a history of disproportionate reactions to these kind of things (ie. not caring at all when i came out as bi (a moment where i needed support), but then becoming very angry at me for buying a pregnancy test (a moment where i needed discretion)) I've kinda grown up to become a perpetual people-pleaser and struggle to be honest and vulnerable in front of my parents, since they often worry about me and coddle me, to a point of frustration for me.
Because of this, I've been going through the abortion process "alone" (only talking to a few friends about it) and feeling very lonely, wishing i had a mom who could just sit beside me and quietly support. But my assumptions got in the way, and that's where i fucked up...
I had planned to tell my parents after the procedure had been done, as i had dinner plans with the 2 of them a few days after the procedure. But i ended up having to rescedule the procedure as it was too soon for anything to show up on the scan... But the dinner plans caried out as planned. During dinner (at a big street food hall) my back was absolutly killing me, and i couldn't sit comfortably, of course my parents noticed and they asked about my back. I hesitated a bit, but then i caved, i asked them to not have a big reaction and then told them everything...
I had a huge knot in my stomach and felt so so ashamed, i feared that they would hate me and lecture me endlessly... but no... they responded casually and softly, told me that they were sorry to hear about it and... that my mom had also been through 2 abortions... i was absolutely stunned, my stomach dropped, they had never told me about it before. they told about how she had gotten pregnant about 30 years ago, very early on in their relationship, and they had decided that they were nowhere near ready for a child. But the kicker for me? her mom (my grandma) had picked her up from the hospital, without knowing what had happened, and my mom never told her to this day... i felt awful, i know my mom never really had that kind of support from her mom, and i know that she wanted to change that dynamic with me, and now i had hindered her from supporting me through the same situation... They told about how the second abortion was intented to be a third sibling for me and my brother, but it ended up being ectopic and they stopped trying after that.
It was a huge relief for me to have that conversation, and i think for my parents as well. They had never told me or my brother about it, and i think their parents had very limited knowledge about it. I feel much closer to my mom now, and i wish i had told her from the beginning, i could have had her support through the whole thing, but my assumptions and teen-like annoyances came in the way, and made it so much more lonely and shameful of a situation.
TL;DR: I didn't tell my parents that i was pregnant and needing an abortion, and i ended up missing out on their support, because i didn't know that they went through the same thing.