I was 18 years old, naive, terrified but unwavering, living with a friend or out of my car, the person who I slept with we had dated for a year or so then we broke up but still saw each other, it was not by any means a healthy relationship. He was in the process of moving across the country when I found out and I was more alone than I had ever been. I always said to myself that if I wrote a book this is where I would start. I had no money, I stole from my loved ones to survive and I had no help. My parents didn’t support what I wanted to do. My mom wanted a grandchild so bad that what I wanted was ignored and she pretended it wasn’t happening. My dad still doesn’t know and could never accept it but I lied to him about needing surgery to get some money for the procedure, not my proudest moment but I was desperate. I knew what I wanted and I knew it was the only way for me to ever get out.

I had to lie to so many people, my close friends, to get the money to able to afford it and I still think about that to this day and I am sorry to those people but I also need to thank you, thank you for saving me without even knowing. There was one person, a friend’s mom, I still feel to this day that she saved me. She supported my decision and gave me the rest of the money that I couldn’t come up with and told me I was doing the right thing.

The details of that day are like flashes in a dream. My mom wouldn’t drive me, she arranged for one of my cousins to drive me… who I barely knew but again I was desperate. It was a deafeningly silent hour drive. It all happened too fast but it felt like a lifetime. I remember sitting and waiting, and being questioned, and the anesthesia being administered and waking up and feeling relief but also sick and the sickness from a bad reaction and the blur that was the ride home to a place where I couldn’t talk to anyone and the constant reminder that my mom gives to me this day of how old said child would be and thinks it’s ok… I have since shouted my abortion and I am now happily married and we just had our first baby. And I am extremely grateful to be able to have made this decision for myself, as difficult as it was. I will tell my daughter about my abortion one day so that she never has to hide anything from me.