I always felt like I had my life all perfectly planned out. Graduate Highschool. Get a college degree. Marry the man I love. Have 2 or 3 kids by the time I’m 35. Well, I’ve quickly figured out life doesn’t always work out the way you plan it.

I will be twenty in November and I just started attending college. I’m pursuing nursing and I absolutely love it. I found out a couple days ago that I am pregnant with my boyfriend of 9 months. We’ve been living together for as long as we have been dating and it has been great. Yes, sometimes, I want to shake him really hard but that’s normal in any relationship and we both know we absolutely love each other.

I was with my mother at the time that I found out I was pregnant. She was very calm about it, but she pushed abortion. She is already trying to set up an appointment this week. My mother had me when she was 17 and she has been the most amazing mother I could ask for. She’s always been there and she has been my true best friend. I really would not have gotten where I am without her. She has a Doctorate degree and she says that she was very lucky to have gotten as far as she had being a young mother. (My stepfather is pretty well off and he helped her out tremendously.) She had 2 abortions (by my stepfather) and during the second one, she had her tubes burned. She says she does not regret any of her abortions.

I am my mother’s daughter, and I have always been pro-choice. I’ve always been a strong believer in waiting to have children until you are really ready to support another life. I have always said that if I ever got pregnant before I graduated college, I would have an abortion. But it’s easier said then done. My mother can be very controlling over my life. I’m her only child and she still sees me as her “baby”. When I had moved out of her house and in with my boyfriend in December, she was quite pissed. But my mother eventually got over it and she was happy for me until I got pregnant. Now she wants me to move back in with her, abort the baby, and then in the future, transfer to a four year university so I can party and pursue my degree. She says she knows what’s best for me. I used to think she did but now I feel as if she’s trying to make me live the life she never had the chance to.

Now my boyfriend will be 26 in December. (Our birthdays are 6 days apart.) He does not believe in abortion and he really wants me to keep the baby. When I had told him about the pregnancy, his face lit up and he wanted to tell everyone. He’s even talking about maybe getting married and I feel like I’m way too young. What aggravates me the most is that my boyfriend had an abortion when he was 19 with another girl he had a one night stand with. A few months ago when he told me about it, he said he wasn’t ready at the time and he’s happy she had it done. He felt that if he had that child at 19, he wouldn’t be able to give the child what he/she deserved. And yet, he’s telling me that if i get an abortion, he will be very angry and he will not want to see me for a while. He claims the reason why he has a different perspective with me is because he actually loves me and I’m not just a one night stand. (obviously) I’ve told him that I’M 19 right now and he’s at a completely different stage in his life. He’s had his chance to hang out with whoever he wants, do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and however he wants at a younger age. I’m just now getting started. I told him that if I was his age then I wouldn’t even think about having an abortion and I would have the baby but since I’m not, it’s a different situation.

I want to make them both happy but I know that’s not possible and in the end, it’s really something that I will have to live with, Not them. I feel that college will be a lot harder and I will miss out on some of the things I would want to do but yet I do have some of the giddy feelings a woman has when she knows she’s expecting. I absolutely LOVE children and I know I will try to be the best mother I could be to any child I have. But I don’t know if I could be the mother I want to be at this moment. My goal when I have kids is to give them all the opportunities I had and more. That’s going to be a hard thing to accomplish at this time of my life, both financially and emotionally. I feel pressured from both my mother and my boyfriend. Both of them have great points. My mother worries that I’m way too young to be settling down and starting a family. She says that I can have a baby anytime I want to and what I need to do now is focus on myself and get my degree and get my life started.

Then there’s my boyfriend who I absolutely love and adore. He says he will be there for the baby no matter what and he loves me and thinks it’s a sign and everything happens for a reason. (We break up due to arguments (hence the preggo signs & neither one of us was happy about it) on the day of our nine month anniversary and the next day we find out I’m pregnant.)

I’m sittin’ on the fence… and I know I have to make the choice soon.  I’m just scared to make that leap.