I was 23, working minimum wage, and I really wanted to go to college, and I was only one year away from qualifying for the federal funding I needed. He didn’t want to stay with me unless I made 40,000 a year. He also said that he’d help me raise it if we kept it. Taking everything into account that he was jealous, that he wanted to limit my artistic life (I’m an artist, so that’s extremely controlling), that he wanted kids more than I did, that he wanted a wife who would make 40,000 a year and I hadn’t even started college yet– it seemed like an unwise decision to fully commit to having him as part of my family unit. I was totally in love with him though, so I thought maybe it would all change later on along the road. (It didn’t and I’m so glad I dumped him and his controlling ways two years later.)

He respected my choice. I took the RU486 pill and passed the fetus at home. It was a serious/somber day, but ultimately fine. I wanted a hamburger. It was around Christmas time…I was pregnant at Thanksgiving and not by Christmas and it was a strange secret we kept from his family. My boyfriend and I had a funeral and invited the child’s spirit to revisit earth another time. But I didn’t feel “guilty” really because I knew that the life that child would have had would have been filled with my grief for my own life, and I would have resented them. Though I wanted the relationship to thrive…I had that niggling feeling that it wouldn’t, and I also did not want to be linked to the father for my whole life. Not to mention I was poor and had no job prospects.

I’m so glad I didn’t have that baby. Afterward, I got a copper IUD. Obviously, not getting pregnant in the first place is preferable to an abortion. However, given that I was pregnant and did not want to be: Abortions: 9/10, would recommend. It’s a choice I made that really doesn’t haunt me at all. But not breaking up with that asshole boyfriend sooner does.