At 19, I found myself pregnant, after a drunk night where I was positive my 27 year old boyfriend of 3 months had assured me he was wearing a condom. He was not. At first I denied reality. Things like this didn’t happen to girls like me.

Middle class, private high school, good college. I didn’t live at home at the time, and my parents seemed to be headed for divorce, so I decided it was best not to tell them. My mom would be supportive but my dad would be unbearable. I told my boyfriend, the alcoholic bad boy, who would invite the local drug dealer over to his place. The boyfriend would sit and do coke by himself, while I’d have a beer with the Drug Dealer and talk him through his problems with his stripper wife. I hadn’t pictured having kids with this man. This was not someone who was capable of being a good father and at 19, while I knew enough to know that I also knew that I could not be a good mother. In a strange twist on the story, the boyfriend wanted to have the baby. He was hoping a child would save him from himself and that is not a fair weight to put on any person’s shoulders. I declined, and while he did drive me to and from the clinic for the abortion, he would not give me even half of the $350. He called me a murderer and many other horrible names. He seemed to enjoy the pain I went through after. Despite the emotional and verbal abuse I went through with him, I never regretted my decision. It was hard, but I look at the two kids I have now, in my healthy marriage with the man I love and know that I did the most responsible thing I could’ve given those circumstances.