I was 19 when I had an abortion.

I was in my first sexual relationship and we were living together.

My father was addicted to crack cocaine and I didn’t move out of my childhood home so much as flew from it as fast as I could.

We had one episode of unprotected make up sex. The next day, I made an appointment with an OB/GYN to go on the pill.

I was told I couldn’t go on the pill until I got my period. I insisted that I couldn’t possibly be pregnant.

My period never came.

I remember my boyfriend walking in on me sobbing after I got a positive pregnancy test. I told him I’d had a bad day at work.

The only person I told was my best friend. She was supposed to go to the clinic with me, but her car broke down. I didn’t drive, so I took the bus by myself.

I remember walking around the local shopping mall afterward in a daze, by myself.
I remember trying to remember the instructions I was given for what I could and couldn’t eat or drink with my antibiotics.
I remember being scared.
I remember being by myself.

With the exception of my best friend, I told no one for years.

I knew with absolute certainty what I was going to do even before I saw that plus sign.

I knew that if I had a child I wouldn’t finish college and would be returning to the life I had fought so hard to escape from.

It’s twelve years later.
I’m 31.
I finished college.
I finished medical school.

It’s startling to me that, theoretically, I could have an eleven year old child.
It’s strange that it even happened because that life seems like another lifetime belonging to someone else completely.