The Choices We Make

So many things can go through your head when you discover you’re pregnant. Often there is fear, a lot of fear. How can I go through with this? I’m too young. I’m not ready….statements all centered around ourselves. The songs our loved ones sing to us when we reach out sometimes only serve to encourage our fears. What we often don’t realize is that those thoughts, as real as they seem at the time, do not compare to reality nor to the pain of a bad choice.

I found out I was pregnant when I was 19. I was frightened. At the time I don’t know that anyone could have talked me out of the decision I made the second I found out. I was not going to keep this baby. I chose to abort my child on Oct. 30th, 6 weeks pregnant.

Within months I began to sleep 18 plus hours a day, I gained 30 lbs. out of sheer depression – I was without joy, I was beside myself in an agony I didn’t recognize. I misplaced my feelings and, at the time, never associated them with the loss of my child.

Abortion is an option like cocaine. At the time, it seems perfectly acceptable – a conclusion to a dilemma that seems unfaceable. No counselor can ever prepare you for the years that will lie ahead.

Although I have forgiven myself and accepted what I did alone I have not forgotten the child I lost.