Submitted: May, 19, 2000

Name: o

I'm going to skip most of your questions, as I am relating a story of experiences from years past, and I don't remember all the details of the timing of it.

Back in 1988 I belatedly discovered I was pregnant. My period had never been regular, and so I did not pay much attention to it being late, until it was very late and my breasts had been feeling oversensitive, for a while. I had recently moved to a new city, (Vancouver, Canada) and I was not on the health care plan, and did not have money for an abortion. A local free women's clinic confirmed my fear, I was pregnant. Possibly about two months pregnant, by that time. I remember the events of the weeks that followed, as the hardest time of my life. Unemployed, in a strange city where I knew no-one, and unexpectedly pregnant from the abusive fella I had left behind.

I set about researching methods of inducing a miscarriage. I read that aloe vera juice would work, and drank a pint of it mixed with jello power to reduce the awful taste. It did not work. I spoke to my body and prayed for a miscarriage. The days kept ticking by.. my belly was starting to show swelling.. Finally, a friend sent me enough money for a train ride back to my hometown, to get an abortion that would be covered by medicare.

In the course of my research, I had read that African women induce a miscarriage by prolonged pressure on the uterus. I zipped myself into my tightest jeans, and got on the train. I wore the jeans, even sleeping in them for 4 days, curled up so that my tight jeans put maximum pressure on my uterus. I then began to spot, and had a very messy and painful miscarriage, two days before my appointment to get an abortion.

I went to the emergency room, and the Doctor did a D&C. to make sure the miscarriage was complete and I would not get an infection. I had arranged to have my tubes tied while I was under anesthesia for the planned abortion, but the emergency room doctor refused. Goddess intervened, and in hindsight, that was for the best. Had I known I was infertile, I probably would have been a lot less cautious about using condoms, in the early days of AIDS.

Several years later, I became pregnant again, but recognized the signs a lot sooner. My breasts often get tender for several days just before my period, because I have cysts.. but they got tender and stayed tender, for about a week or more, I think.. with no period happening.

I did not get a test to confirm it, as I remember. I was certain. By then, further research had led me to read about pennyroyal, and I was able to get bulk dried pennyroyal at an herbal store. I made an enormous pot of tea, about 1/4 cup leaves to about a quart of water, put the results into a plastic bottle and went off to the beach for the day, to sip my tea and meditate. My period started the next day..

That is the best I can recall, it has been quite a while since it happened.
Goddess blessings on your work..