Erin Lichy is sharing her story.
Weeks after the Real Housewives of New York City star shared she is pregnant with baby No. 4, reflected on her experience getting pregnant at 18 and why she decided to have an abortion.
“I literally remember the feeling washing over me in my dorm bathroom, and I just lost it,” the 37-year-old told Glamour in an interview originally conducted back in May that was published Nov. 26. “I was sitting on the floor for maybe an hour and a half hysterically crying, just like, ‘What am I gonna do? Oh my God.’ It was so terrifying to me.”
Erin—who is mom to Levi, 9, Elijah, 4, and Layla, 7, with her husband Abe Lichy—said that she visited a Planned Parenthood clinic with her then-boyfriend at her side, calling the experience “traumatic.”
The situation marked the end of her relationship as the reality star said she never spoke to him again.
“I couldn’t,” she admitted. “Something broke inside me, and I just didn’t even want to have any connection to it.”
She initially kept the abortion a secret until the following year when she confided in her mother Dorothy Somekh.
“The most beautiful part about it was that she said, ‘It happened to me too,’” Erin recalled. “It felt like women supporting women. Like, even though she’s my mom she wanted me to know…Everybody has a story. I would bet that most girls have a similar story, even if it’s [about using] Plan B.”
Decades later, Erin found the courage to tell her father Eliahu Yitzhari prior to his death in October.
“I did wind up discussing my story with my dad, and his response was even more beautiful and heartwarming than I could have ever imagined,” she noted. “I went into this conversation with him hoping for acceptance and support, which I was lucky enough to receive, but beyond that, he gave me friendship. It shows how incredibly supportive he was and how he was such an open-minded man.”
Despite knowing she couldn’t be the mom she is today if she’d continued with her pregnancy as a teen, Erin admitted to feeling guilt over her decision after Levi.
“I remember when I had my first child,” she said, “looking at him and thinking, ‘How could I have done that?’”
However, she felt compelled to speak out and share her experience due to her platform.
“I felt like if I didn’t have this conversation and open up about it, what kind of woman would I be?” she said. “I think the more stories that are out there, especially from influential people, the more relatable this becomes and the more people can understand it.”