i got my answer…
in the form of two pink lines. pregnant. at 19, i am going to be a mother.
i’m only five weeks along, so i have some options. i always thought it would be easy to choose abortion, just check the box and move on with your life. but in this uncertainty i feel like clinging to the tiny cells inside of me that will one day make up my firstborn son or daughter.
i called my sister just now, who wasn’t much older than me when she got pregnant and asked her through my tears what she would do if she could do it over. she told me that she was four months pregnant and waiting to get an abortion but was told she was too far along, it was too risky, they couldn’t do it.
she told me she felt it was god’s way of helping her get her life on track, by giving her a purpose and something to live for other than herself. she told me she has always loved her son and never regretted keeping him. but given a do-over, she would choose abortion.
she told me that she knew i had big dreams for myself, and a bright future ahead of me… they were words i suspected she thought but she had never spoken to me. all she’s ever told me are mean things in the way older sisters typically do. she told me i had a choice, one that she didn’t. she told me to think about myself.
i want so bad to just get it over with and ‘squeegee the sucker out’ as i often joke. but the reality is much more grave- i will probably never fully recover from the loss of this baby. i will never forgive myself for this, and i will never forget the brief excitement i felt when the second line appeared. i could be a mom.
but for now, i want to be myself.
