It was Wednesday, May 6th, 2015 when I found out that I was pregnant. I had been taking birth control religiously for about two years, but it was difficult to get my prescriptions
regularly since I moved to a different city for college.

The cheapest way to keep my prescription was to drive back and forth every three months to my hometown after calling in for a refill. But one month I waited too late and ran out of pills during the week of my period. My boyfriend and I had just fell off the wagon, so to speak, of practicing safe sex, which was idiotic! On top of failing to get my refill in time, he also failed to pull out ever! And the sex was so great, and I didn’t want to stop to tell him I wasn’t taking my pill anymore because I didn’t want the sex to stop, and I had never been pregnant before so I thought I was invincible, and the list of excuses goes on. Because of the series of bad decisions I made, I got pregnant and this whole time I’ve been trying to navigate my feelings and trying to forgive myself for this mistake, but its really hard. Before any of this happened we both had an understanding that in the event of pregnancy we both wanted to abort, and I’ve always been pro-choice. But the day-to-day thoughts of what the child could have been tortured me still, right up to the very moment of the procedure. Laying still on the bed with my feet dangling in the stirrups, I closed my eyes and desperately huffed the laughing gas, hoping that I’d blank out and it’d all be over. More than anything I wanted to run away from myself, from the decisions that I had made that got me here, and from the entire awful situation entirely. I know I made the best decision I could for myself and my partner. I’m not ready for the responsibility of parenthood at all, maybe never. But there’s a big part of me that knows if circumstances were different, I wanted the life the we created. I don’t regret my choice, but I will always wonder what if.

F.