as a teenager (and kind of embarrassingly, as an adult), i took the morning after pill several times. when i was 26 and had been in a serious relationship for almost a year, i got pregnant. we had been using the pull out method because i had had bad side effects with hormonal birth control and we both didn’t like the way condoms felt.

i got pregnant. for some reason i never really believed it would happen, but it did. i took two tests a couple days apart. even though it had only been a couple weeks, i started to get teary and my breasts got bigger and sore. neither of us were ready for a baby—i had just finished grad school and was looking to start my career. i had an abortion. i still wonder what our baby would have been like (we are still together), but i know it wasn’t the right time for me, or for him.