i was seventeen years old and in an abusive relationship with a man who was twenty-five, enough said there! i got pregnant and thought to myself, i don’t want to be tied to him for the next eighteen years and i also don’t have any business trying to raise a child. i was still in high school! i had to call my dad to have him sign for permission, i was afraid my mom would be too pissed off to deal with it. ironically, i called my dad on father’s day to ask for his help. it all worked out but i would have been in such an awful place if my dad hadn’t been willing to sign. it’s not something i’m proud of but it was necessary at the time. if i had been denied that opportunity, i don’t know what my life or the child’s would have become.