There are countless ways to invest in your health! From staying active to investing in your nutrition to getting regular checkups, National Women’s Health Week (May 12-18, 2024) is set aside to encourage women of all ages to prioritize their health. Each woman’s personal health journey is unique, and oftentimes that journey includes pregnancy (planned or unplanned).
All of Clearway’s services exist to equip you to invest in your health and wellness, especially when facing an unplanned pregnancy.
Pregnancy Testing & Confirmation Ultrasound
You might be thinking, “I didn’t plan this pregnancy, and I don’t intend to keep it. Why would I want an ultrasound?” It is very important to have an ultrasound whether or not you intend to continue your pregnancy. Ultrasound imagery provides you with key information that will help you to protect your reproductive health. The necessary information an ultrasound provides includes:
- The status of your pregnancy. Miscarriage is the spontaneous loss of a pregnancy before 20 weeks gestation. Miscarriage is quite common; estimates show that as many as 26% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage, and up to 10% of clinically recognized pregnancies (1). Having an ultrasound allows you to identify if you are in the process of miscarrying or if you are experiencing some other early pregnancy complication. If you are considering abortion, confirming the status of your pregnancy via ultrasound allows you to determine if your pregnancy is viable before you go through the termination process.
- Determining when you got pregnant. Gestational age is measured in weeks from the first day of the woman’s last menstrual cycle to the current date. Conception usually happens two weeks after the start of your last period, but due dates are calculated using gestational age (counting ahead 40 weeks from the first day of your last period). Ultrasounds are used to determine the gestational age of the pregnancy. If you experience irregular periods, you may have trouble identifying when you got pregnant based on the symptom of a missed period alone. An ultrasound can help date your pregnancy as accurately as possible. If you are considering abortion, gestational age is the key piece of information in determining what types of abortion are available to you.
- Protect your reproductive health and peace of mind. Ultrasound imaging will confirm if the pregnancy is growing in the right place (inside the uterus). This is called an intrauterine pregnancy. If an intrauterine yolk sac is identified, it greatly decreases the likelihood that you may experience an ectopic pregnancy (a pregnancy that is growing outside the uterus), which can be life-threatening and requires emergency treatment. (Be familiar with the symptoms of an ectopic pregnancy and seek emergency care if you’re experiencing these symptoms, regardless of ultrasound results.)
- An ultrasound can help you identify the status, location, and gestational age of your pregnancy. When it comes to making lasting decisions about your reproductive health (such as whether or not to have an abortion, or what type of abortion to have), it is best to do so in light of good information. This knowledge helps to protect you physically and serves to protect your peace of mind. Knowing what’s going on with your body, understanding various symptoms, having the input of a professional clinician–all these can calm your spirit as you move forward with your pregnancy decision.
Clearway Clinic offers free limited obstetric ultrasound scans after a positive pregnancy test. These scans will:
- Determine the viability of the pregnancy
- Determine the location of an embryo or fetus
- Determine the gestational age of the pregnancy
We will provide you with proof of pregnancy and referrals to local physicians. We do not provide or refer for abortions.
STI Testing
STI testing matters for anyone who is sexually active. Even if you’ve only had one partner, you could still be at risk for acquiring a sexually transmitted infection based on their sexual history. People who are infected with STIs usually appear healthy and may have mild symptoms or none at all. As a result, they’re often unaware that they are infectious to others. Having an untreated STI can have lifelong consequences.
The following quote from the World Health Organization highlights some of the potential impacts untreated STIs can have specifically on women’s health.
“STIs can have serious consequences beyond the immediate impact of the infection itself.
- STIs like herpes, gonorrhoea and syphilis can increase the risk of HIV acquisition.
- Mother-to-child transmission of STIs can result in stillbirth, neonatal death, low-birth weight and prematurity, sepsis, neonatal conjunctivitis and congenital deformities.
- HPV infection causes cervical and other cancers.
- Hepatitis B resulted in an estimated 820 000 deaths in 2019, mostly from cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma.
- STIs such as gonorrhoea and chlamydia are major causes of pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility in women.”
Getting tested for STIs after any risk of exposure is essential for protecting your reproductive health. As the WHO mentioned, pelvic inflammatory disease (an infection of a woman’s reproductive organs) is one of various health issues that is often the result of untreated STIs, such as gonorrhea and chlamydia. For these two common bacterial STIs, the most common symptom is no symptom at all.
At Clearway, we offer free testing for gonorrhea and chlamydia. Our registered nurses are available to answer all your questions and to ensure you receive treatment. In addition, they will usually refer you for additional STI testing near you.
Prenatal Health Education
During your first visit to Clearway Clinic, our registered nurses will begin educating you on the various aspects of a healthy pregnancy. This includes what vitamins to take, what substances to avoid, what to expect in each trimester, what signs to watch for and how to take care of yourself during pregnancy. They will also help you get insurance and a doctor if you need one.
After an initial consultation, our registered nurses can provide prenatal health education classes to help you to prepare for having a child. These classes include Labor & Delivery and Newborn Care. If you will be parenting together with a partner, we encourage them to join you! Classes take place individually or in a small group setting. This gives you the opportunity to ask all kinds of questions and learn from others.
The more you learn, the more confident you can feel as you enter this new stage of life! Informed + supported = empowered.
After-Abortion Healing Support
At Clearway, we care about your overall health–physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Feelings of pain, grief, and loss after an abortion, though common, are not feelings that most people expect to experience. Since people often lack sufficient information before an abortion, many don’t realize how common this response is. They are then left surprised by their reaction and wondering, “Why am I feeling this way?” Any experience of an unexpected/stressful event or a sudden loss can be traumatic. It shakes up a person’s sense of stability. The world isn’t the way you expected it to be, which can complicate the grieving process.
Know that you are not alone. Research shows that women who have an abortion may experience emotional pain in relation to it (2). If you are struggling with a past abortion experience, you are not the only one. Your Abortion Experience is an online resource where you can hear and share abortion stories anonymously. If you are looking for help, they will connect you to resources.
Clearway offers healing groups to help process abortion-related grief and pain with support and guidance. We offer this program in groups to provide an opportunity for you to speak with other women who share similar experiences.
Even though one in four women will have an abortion by age 45, everyone’s journey is unique. You may feel like your feelings are different from those around you. If that’s the case, it’s okay. Try not to compare your grief to someone else’s or judge yourself for your feelings. Your feelings are valid, and trying to convince yourself that you shouldn’t feel this way won’t change those feelings. Instead, allow yourself space to process and work through them.
In our healing groups, participants are guided through the process of mourning the loss and accepting hope. These feelings can change, but they may not go away. Women who have received grief support decades after their abortion(s) have overwhelmingly said that they wish they had gone through a healing group sooner. At Clearway, we offer 11-week healing groups and 4-day healing retreats. We can also refer you to a therapist with an understanding of your type of grief for mental health support.
Receive your healing and move forward in freedom. There is space for all different abortion stories here–your voice matters. Your story matters. Even if you feel like you’re the only one, you’re not alone.
If you recently found out about an unplanned pregnancy, schedule your pregnancy confirmation and options consultation appointment today.
If you are interested in learning more about our after-abortion healing programs, email clearpast@clearwayclinic.com for more information.
Reviewed by Deana G., BSN RN
- See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK532992/ for more info.
- NIH: National Library of Medicine, Relationship between induced abortion and the incidence of depression, anxiety disorder, adjustment disorder, and somatoform disorder in Germany; July, 2019, Jacob, L., Kostev, K. Gerhard, C. Kalder, M.
