i was 17 and accepted to the university of michigan. i was the first one in my family to go to college. that summer i worked and spent time with my boyfriend who was a year ahead of me and was home from ann arbor for the summer. yeah we had sex, and condoms were not fool proof. when i was late in july i knew and i was pregnant. this was 1978 so things were legal. i really had no discussion with my boyfriend. i was like “the test came back and this is what we are doing.” i didn’t tell my mother. i couldn’t have faced it, there would have been no talk of abortion from my mom. i didn’t give my boyfriend a choice, but his family would have flipped too. i was still underage, so the woman at the clinic reminded me to say i was ’18’. it was hard to come up with the cash. i had to use my savings from my job. i felt ashamed about the whole thing, but relieved my family didn’t know. it turned out the the boyfriend left me that fall, so freshman year i was figuring out a lot of things on my own. my mom died the following year, so i missed my only change to give her a grandchild. it was a pretty bad time in my life, but i have always been clear that it was the best choice i could have made at the time. i wouldn’t have been able to go to school and he was outta there pretty fast so it would have just been me. i have a girl now with my husband and that doesn’t replace anything but it helps fill the hole in my heart. she’s 14 now. i think this is one story about her mom she won’t be hearing. in 1978, everything was pretty simple. if i had to be forced to look at pictures and ultrasounds and be lectured, it would have been harder on me, but i was determined to go to college and i don’t think the state could have discouraged me. my family would have been more involved though, since i was only 17.