When I was 18, the winter after I graduated high school, I got pregnant. The boy I was seeing was only 17 and still in high school. I didn’t have a job, I wasn’t going to college, I was just figuring myself and my life out. I was at my friend’s apartment, and told her I think I needed to take a pregnancy test. I wasn’t sure if I was even late, because I wasn’t great about tracking my periods. It was just a hunch I had, maybe my intuition. We went to the store and bought a test, and went back to her apartment to take it. We were young, and weren’t sure how pregnancy tests work, so as soon as the control line popped up, my friend looked at it and said “oh Jess! It’s negative.” I took a huge sigh of relief and we started drinking wine. Like five minutes later she looked at the test again and said “oh.. wait.. no this is positive.” I thought she was messing with me at first, then I saw the two lines. Positive. I read the instructions about five times before I believed it.

I went home to my parents house where I lived at the time, asked my mom to come up to my bedroom and talk to me. When she did, I handed her the positive test. She just calmly said “okay… well what do you want to do?” All I could get out at the time was “I don’t want to.” She gave me a hug and said “okay, then you don’t have to.” A week later she drove me an hour and a half away to a clinic. On the way, she shared with me that she had an abortion when she was my age. She told me her story. And it broke my heart that she didn’t have someone to help her, like I had her. When we got to the clinic, she held my hand as we walked in, anti abortion protesters were trying to hand me prolife propaganda, one couple offered to “adopt my baby” my mother fiercely protected me from the invasive protestors. She is my hero. After the procedure, all I felt was relief. No guilt. No shame. No regret. Just relief. And admittedly a tad somber, despite knowing that I had made the right decision for myself. My mom told me on our drive home “your time for motherhood will come one day… on your own terms.” Several years later, my time for motherhood did come. On my own terms. And under much better circumstances. I can’t imagine being that 18 year old girl, and not having a choice.