i was 19 when i had an abortion.

i was in my first sexual relationship and we were living together.

my father was addicted to crack cocaine and i didn’t move out of my childhood home so much as flew from it as fast as i could.

we had one episode of unprotected make up sex. the next day, i made an appointment with an ob/gyn to go on the pill.

i was told i couldn’t go on the pill until i got my period. i insisted that i couldn’t possibly be pregnant.

my period never came.

i remember my boyfriend walking in on me sobbing after i got a positive pregnancy test. i told him i’d had a bad day at work.

the only person i told was my best friend. she was supposed to go to the clinic with me, but her car broke down. i didn’t drive, so i took the bus by myself.

i remember walking around the local shopping mall afterward in a daze, by myself.
i remember trying to remember the instructions i was given for what i could and couldn’t eat or drink with my antibiotics.
i remember being scared.
i remember being by myself.

with the exception of my best friend, i told no one for years.

i knew with absolute certainty what i was going to do even before i saw that plus sign.

i knew that if i had a child i wouldn’t finish college and would be returning to the life i had fought so hard to escape from.

it’s twelve years later.
i’m 31.
i finished college.
i finished medical school.

it’s startling to me that, theoretically, i could have an eleven year old child.
it’s strange that it even happened because that life seems like another lifetime belonging to someone else completely.