Abortion is still legal in all 50 states, but that doesn’t mean it’s accessible. As of 2017, 89 percent of U.S. counties had no abortion clinic, and about 40 percent of women of reproductive age live in one of those counties. An abortion with pills, or a medication abortion , costs an average of $535 in a clinic, similar to the cost of an aspiration abortion. Often, private insurance doesn’t cover the cost of the procedure.

VICE spoke to three women in the U.S. who chose to do their own abortions with pills. They all said cost was the number-one reason why they self-managed their abortion rather than visit a clinic, but for some, ending their pregnancy in the comfort of their home was a preference . Some said this idea appealed to them because they wanted more privacy: Two women told VICE they hadn’t told anyone else they were pregnant and didn’t want anyone to know they were having an abortion. Some women also liked the convenience of the method because they either didn’t want to—or couldn’t—take time off work for an appointment at a clinic.

The Guttmacher Institute found that during a month-long period in 2017, shortly after President Donald Trump took office, people in the U.S. ran more than 200,000 Google searches for information on how to give yourself an abortion. More than a quarter of them said that information which included the term “abortion pill” best matched what they were looking for. And subsequent studies have also shown that rates of requests for abortion pills online are often higher in states that are hostile to abortion , where patients face the most barriers to accessing care. Factors like cost and distance to a clinic also play a huge role in people’s decisions to attempt their own abortions.

Under these conditions, it’s not surprising that people who need abortions might consider doing it themselves , a method that no longer involves coat hangers or crude objects, but is now done with pills. People usually buy these pills online , and take them at home early in pregnancy to induce what is effectively a miscarriage. Over the last few years, we’ve gotten a better understanding of how many people are choosing this option, known as self-managed abortion, and why.

But then I started feeling sick, my relationship was going haywire, and my finances were dropping. I was like, OK, this is not the time. But since I’m in Mississippi there’s only one place here that provides abortions. It was just way too expensive and it was also hard for me to schedule with work.

I found out I was pregnant on New Year’s Day [2020]. That first week after I found out, my mind was all over the place, like, what do I want to do? Do I want another kid? I just moved to Mississippi recently and I have a three-year-old.

“ I took the first pill about an hour after I got the package. I couldn’t miss another day of work so I took the second set of pills the next day around 6 pm, on the way to my son’s school.”

The Food and Drug Administration’s restrictions on mifepristone —one of two drugs involved in the abortion pill regimen—make it illegal to sell abortion pills online, and some states have laws explicitly criminalizing self-managed abortion . For that reason, VICE has gone to lengths to protect our sources’ identities, using a first name, first initial, or a pseudonym to identify the women who shared their experiences. VICE has also removed the names of the online support groups where sources sought help, so as not to make those forums a target for shuttering by tech platforms.

Each of the women VICE spoke to bought the pills from the same site: Aid Access , an online abortion pill retailer run by the Dutch doctor Rebecca Gomperts . The site is currently the only abortion pill service operated by a licensed physician who counsels patients and writes the prescription for the pills. Patients send the prescription to Aid Access’s overseas pharmacy, which ships the medication to the U.S.

I reached out to Aid Access and they got back to me, and shipped my pills. On January 7th my pills arrived in Customs, but then the package was stuck there for an entire month . I asked Aid Access to send another package and that one reached Customs on February 1st. So I felt hopeful, but then that package didn’t leave Customs until the 8th. The next day I got a notification that the first package was at my local post office, but when I went to pick it up they told me it was actually in transit to my house. I took the rest of the day off and camped out, waiting for the mail to come.

Then I started getting really sick and wasn’t really able to eat anything. I found a support group [online] and asked for advice. There are a lot of women in the group, and they tell you to do what’s best for you and there’s no type of judgment or anything. One woman said, “Have you ever considered Aid Access?” They told me it was a good option if you’re having trouble getting to a clinic. Even though I’m only 30 minutes away from the clinic here, I didn’t have anyone to come pick me up after the procedure, and I definitely didn’t have $650 to pay for it .

I got an advance on my tax returns that I could have used on the procedure, but I had promised my son that we would redecorate his bedroom for his birthday. It made me upset to think that [if I used the money for an in-clinic abortion] I wouldn’t be able to do that , but I knew I wouldn’t be able to raise another kid by myself.

When I initially ordered the pills I was four weeks and five days along. But when I finally got the pills I was nine weeks and three days—I was super worried because they say you can take the pills up to 13 weeks, but it can be a little more complicated after the 10th week. This is my second medication abortion; I had one last year, but I went through a clinic that time. With this one, I didn’t know what to expect because the last time I was about five weeks along, and I was doing this one four weeks later.

_Did you end a pregnancy on your own? If you feel comfortable sharing your story, y_ou can reach Marie Solis securely at_** marie.solis@protonmail.com_**__.__

I took the first pill about an hour after I got the package. I couldn’t miss another day of work so I took the second set of pills the next day around 6 pm, on the way to my son’s school. I put them in my mouth and let them dissolve, and by the time I got to his school to pick him up I swallowed the rest. When I got home I had terrible cramps and threw up as soon as I walked through the door. For about four or five hours I was cramping really bad and I was in the fetal position on my bed. Then I sat on the toilet for about an hour. At some point I felt like I had passed a really big clot and I didn’t want to look, but after that the cramps started going away. I went to sleep and when I woke up the next morning I wasn’t nauseous anymore and I didn’t have any symptoms and I went to work.