(note: when I say "most" and "some" or "many" in this post I am referring to statistics that are gathered in countries where abortions are legal, and safe. It is not an assumption I am making and I am not projecting personal beliefs)
with great respect... there are several assumption by those who look at abortion as causing pain or death with intention to (or disregard for) causing pain.
In most cases, when a woman chooses to terminate a pregnancy she is doing it out of love either for the child she carries, or her other children. Most often a woman knows she cannot keep the unborn child safe and give him or her a good life. Sometimes she has other children, or hopes one day to have a safe environment in which to have her children, but having this child puts all of them at risk.
there is also an assumption that she walks away from that choice unchanged and unbothered. In truth she will make and re-make that decision every day for the rest of her life.
The child does not suffer, it knew only the perfect life in the womb. But the mother suffers every day the pain of not having the child to love. There is loss but not comfort from that loss. There is no end to the mourning because the woman sees herself as the agent of the child's death, and never as the grieving mother to be comforted.
most abortions are had by women who already have children and cannot feed one more without taking food from those she has. most women if they could find a way to feed and care for all of them would be willing to take food from her own mouth if she could keep this one too.
In this case, I see a woman who made a very brave choice to not bring a child into an unsafe environment. The child will be born into a different life, and did not suffer in this one. This child lived a perfect safe life in a blissful place. The second child also did not suffer, they both lived lovely experiences of floating warm and safe, never knowing hunger or pain.
You were trusted to bring a perfect experience of being carried in great love to two small beings who only had a tiny spark of life to live. You lovingly nurtured these children for every moment they had, and now they have returned. Perhaps they will be born at another time, perhaps this is all the consciousness they required. We are not made to understand all things, but we are here to understand love and how to protect a child. In both cases you did that.
You will be a wonderful mother. You sacrificed your own piece of mind to protect the first child from a dangerous life where he or she would not have been safe.
You did not hurt either child, you are the only being who suffered. But now you need to put away the pain and think only of the love. Your next child, whether it is born of your body or it arrives in your life from another womb, will need all of your love and attention. You cannot be consumed by the pain of the grief, it distracts you from bringing love.
whenever you feel the grief rising, think instead of the love you have for all of the children in the world.