Not Yet

I was 21 and it was mother’s day, ironically. I was using my break at a dead end retail job where the manager mocked me behind my back and did everything she could to make me quit to take a pregnancy test…and then another. I was pregnant and I knew that a termination was my only choice. I was half way through university and struggling to make ends meet. I had to dip into overdraft every month to make the rent for my illegal suite (I couldn’t afford the price of a legal one) and was still dealing with the fallout from years of psychological and emotional abuse at the hands of my own parents. I could not be a mother yet for I wasn’t even sure who I was. I told my long term boyfriend (now husband) and he agreed. We were not ready. It’s three years later and I thank god for being born in a place where abortion was a simple, safe, free, and accessible option for me. In that time I have graduated, moved back to my home town, published a book, became a writer with close to 20 million collective views on my published work, figured out who I am and want to be, made peace with the past and found a way to not let it affect my future, got engaged & married, and am starting to plan having children. I was an accident myself and grew up in a family that made it painfully obvious that I was an unwanted burden. And though I would have loved that child with every fiber of my being had I kept it, I never wanted a child of mine to doubt whether or not it was wanted, even for a second. When I do have children, they will know that their arrival was an utter blessing from the start and they deserve a mother that is confident, recovered, happy, and capable. Not the scared, confused, and overwhelmed kid I was three years ago. I am so beyond grateful that I was able to say “not yet” and will fight for everyone’s right to do the same.