When I worked at a clinic, I always did my best to talk only medical facts and help women make the choice that they were most comfortable with. I never voiced my opinion, and tried to be a sounding board for every woman I talked to.
But on a personal note(ie, my personal opinion) to anyone reading these comments...
Many women who called the center initially preferred the medical or "pill" abortion (not to be confused with Plan B or oral contraceptives) because it:
But here is my experience assisting with providing abortions: a surgical abortion takes between 3 to 5 minutes, which you can choose to be unconscious for, and all the work is done by a trained and licensed surgeon. The pill can take between 6 to 12 hours and you will experience an medically unsupervised miscarriage in your home in which your uterus is doing all the work.
With a surgical, you will likely never see or deal with products of conception. With the pill, you will be passing them yourself.
There is NO cutting in a first trimester surgical abortion. It is vacuum aspiration(a wand is inserted through the cervix and sucks the uterine lining and products of conception out). There are no side effects(if you choose to go under anesthesia, you may experience the side effects associated with anesthesia). The recovery time is however long it takes you to come around from the anesthesia. You can go back to work the next day.
With the pill, the recovery time is a couple of days. You will likely experience vomiting and diarrhea. You will be told by your doctor that you must be supervised by another adult the whole time.
You will be asked to come back in for a follow up ultrasound with both procedures. If any products of conception are found in the ultrasound, you will have a surgical abortion, regardless of if you had the pills the first time.
The pills are only approved for women between 6 and 9 weeks, and have a slightly lower efficacy rate than a surgical(both are in the high 90s).
But the biggest thing to me is what I already said, and what was said to me by one of the doctors at the center: with the pill, your body, your uterus, your muscles will be doing all the work. Or you can have a trained medical professional do it for you.
I never "recommended" a procedure to any woman while I worked there, but if asked by a friend, I would recommend the surgical. If I needed a procedure, I would choose to have an anesthetized surgical abortion.
If you choose to be asleep(would also recommend), someone will have to come with you to the clinic to drive you home, and you will have to come in fasting. If you choose to be awake, you can eat what you want and drive yourself home. You will be numbed during the procedure. Most women describe the feeling of the procedure as pressure, but some do describe a pinching sensation or pain. The procedure lasts 3 to 5 minutes, but can be even less.
When finished, everything that was removed from you is passed through into another room and sifted by a technician who will verify the presence of all parts of the fetus. If the technician has any doubts, they will err on the side of caution, and in recovery you will be told to come back in a week's time to have a second procedure. This was rare but did occur.
As with any surgical procedure, there are potential complications. However, a surgical abortion is statistically the safest or patient procedure you can receive.
You may still pass some clots after a surgical. With both procedures you will likely have to wear a pad(no tampons) for a day or two afterwards.
As with ALL abortions, miscarriages and live births, you will experience INCREASED fertility afterwards. Your chances of becoming pregnant again will be higher until your cervix returns to its normal state.
OP, sorry for hijacking your post, and I wish you a swift recovery. This is just info I wish every woman had access to, and if there are any women reading this week need info for themselves or a friend, I wanted to leave this here.
Obviously there's going to be done variance in laws and policies, state to state, country to country, and clinic to clinic.