There are two pink lines. Amid the chaos of this spring – the pandemic, lockdown, looming economic crisis – just one thing is certain: I am pregnant.

I am 36 and, strictly speaking, single. Before lockdown, I had secretly started seeing my ex, Jon, again. It wasn’t perfect, but freed us from pressure to define our relationship to anybody. Then lockdown hit. The arts industry in which I work vanished overnight. I was alone in my tiny flat, depressed, desperately missing my work, friends, family … and Jon. I craved the feel of skin. He believed he had already had Covid-19, and we both lived alone, so surely it couldn’t be so bad if we met up?

So he came over, about once a week. We had sex, using our usual method of contraception. When in late May my breasts began to hurt, I put it down to PMT. Then my period was running late, then really late. I felt hot, couldn’t sleep, and kept needing the loo. Stress, surely? But I took a pregnancy test just in case.

I was baffled when I saw those lines. Why now? Our sex life hadn’t changed, though the world outside had. Was this a karmic kicking for breaking the rules? How would I explain how I’d got pregnant? Well, I wouldn’t; there was no way I could have this baby. Whatever else Covid had robbed me of, it put a final, practical seal on this decision.

Still, I leaned back on my cold bathroom tiles, wishing for a woman – any woman, but ideally my best friend, shielding miles away – to hug me and say: “You’re doing the right thing.”

I have always been resolutely pro-choice, but uneasy about the term. It sounds too open, too even – like a choice between bike or car, or which chocolate bar to eat. A third of all UK women have an abortion by age 45, according to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS). I’d always suspected that for most it doesn’t feel like a “choice” at all.

My GP surgery was only doing phone appointments during lockdown. The doctor was perfectly nice and acknowledged the strangeness of doing this by phone, and had a list of questions, ranging from practical ones, including my future contraception plans, to emotional issues. Had I thought about the fact that at my age, it might get hard to get pregnant in the future? Did I think that I might regret termination, later? Always possible, I said, but I knew it would be better to regret an abortion than a child.

She explained that she needed to refer me to hospital for a scan to confirm that I was under 10 weeks pregnant. Then the termination options would broadly be: medical, the clinic giving me pills to effectively cause a miscarriage, or surgical – removal under local or general anaesthetic.

It soon became clear that lockdown affected many parts of this process. When a letter arrived confirming my first appointment: “Scan and consultation, but not any treatment”, it also said “as parking is limited, please use public transport”. Three months into lockdown, government advice was still to avoid it. And that wasn’t all that was wrong with this letter.

Household “bubbles” had now been announced and I had to deflect family invitations to go “home” (the other end of the country) for a while. Then, two days before my appointment, I had a surprise call from the hospital. The nurse asked me to explain (again) my reasons for wanting the termination. I was shaken – why wasn’t I warned about this call?

She said I should, in fact, have someone drive me to the appointment (though not come in) so that treatment could begin right then, if I chose medical abortion. Because of the pandemic, this hospital was offering a new compressed procedure, whereby the two sets of tablets needed could both be administered that day, instead of the usual two days apart. Then I would “bleed” at home that same day. Everything suddenly seemed to be moving very fast.

The hospital was quieter than I had expected, the only visible sign of the pandemic the security staff on the door checking that everyone was wearing a mask. There were two discernible types of women in the ultrasound waiting room. Most were around my age, with protruding round bumps and carrying pink folders. Then me and several younger, flatter women, folderless, trying to be invisible. It felt as if we had neon signs on us. I caught myself mentally lockdown-shaming the teenager (“No way does she live with her partner”) and slapped myself down.

Then my turn came. After the scan, I was given a printout to take to the next department. “Heart pulsations clearly visible”; “viable pregnancy”. I felt hot in my mask, and sicker than ever.

I have since learned that I never needed to have the scan or set foot in any clinic. I was early enough in my pregnancy to qualify for the new “at home” service, approved because of Covid-19 and available on the NHS and from Marie Stopes or BPAS.

Consultation is all by phone or video, with pills posted to the patient or picked up from a pharmacy. More than half the abortions provided by Marie Stopes since April have been of this “telemedical” kind. Ironically, we have coronavirus to thank for this positive innovation, but also for adding extra layers of confusion to services that already vary according to where you live.

Back at the hospital, the nurse recapped my options, saying the choice was entirely mine, depending on how I “felt” about each method. In other times, I would have chosen surgical abortion, with its relative cleanliness and finality. But that meant returning to the hospital next week, and I felt guilty, in this climate, about the extra medical resources this would require. I chose the “all the pills today” route and agreed that I would have an adult with me for the next 24 hours, who could drive me back to hospital in an emergency.

I took the first tablet, which blocks pregnancy hormones. The nurse inserted the four vaginal tablets, which cause contractions to “pass” the pregnancy. I was told pain and bleeding would start within four to six hours, that the foetus itself wouldn’t be identifiable, and that I should only worry if I was soaking through more than one sanitary pad per hour. I called Jon to take me home.

My miscarriage started very fast, perhaps because of the condensed method – all the descriptions in the paperwork I’d signed were of the old two-appointment system. The bleeding started within an hour and the pain got much worse than the literature had suggested. For a while, I was bent double on the toilet, explosive diarrhoea and blood clots flowing out of me, while I vomited bile into a bowl. I was sweating and so weak I could barely tear loo roll.

By 7pm, the pain was more like having an uncomfortable period. I was able to eat and drink and have a much needed cuddle. I was going to be fine. I sent Jon home.

Over the next two weeks, the bleeding tailed off as it should. I often felt lonely, sometimes bleak, but not regretful. I have a lot of love spare to give to someone, but it’s unlikely I’ll change my circumstances and my mind about children in time for it to be my own baby. I could resign myself to being lonely, if necessary, but not to being a resentful mother. I don’t doubt I did the right thing, both for me and morally. That’s a choice I can stand by, for ever.

I do feel guilt, but it’s for this: I’m staying anonymous. On the one hand, I want to stand up and be counted, express solidarity with that significant third of women who have had abortions. I’m part of that third. Abortion services are more crucial than ever during the current crisis, with many women losing incomes or trapped with abusive partners, and feeling shame can never help the cause.

But that same crisis keeps me silent. With lockdown came new versions of shame and judgment for rule-breakers, and I dread the extra explaining (for Jon, too). Might my most lockdown-observant friends think “served you right”? Some day, maybe I’ll risk it.

Until then, the words “social distancing” and “isolation” will always conjure for me things unsaid, the cold of bathroom tiles, and two pink lines.