Basically, a year after she had me, she got pregnant again. She was already so "tired and stressed and overwhelmed" that she couldn't handle another child, and so, in 1974, she had a "perfectly safe and legal" abortion.
I was horrified, and spent a lot of time in my teens feeling like I was such a difficult baby that it was my fault that she killed her baby.
It drove a permanent wedge between us.
Thank all of you for your stories.
My son was involved in a cable talk show in Austin a few years ago as a young teen. The topic was post-abortion trama.
The first call-in was male, who shared his story about allowing a girlfriend to abort nine years earlier. He said he never got over it. Everytime he saw a child about the age his would have been, his heart broke.
After that, all the call-ins were males who had had similiar experiences. It has had a profound effect on my son.
The victims of abortion go way beyond the baby.