No. #12

"Going to college, this is the poorest I've ever been in my entire life as an adult. I had to step back and jump into pretending like I was in my early 20s financially. I want to go to school so therefore I have to make $14,000 a year. And oh shit, I just got pregnant."

I had to choose between having a baby or going to school and finishing my degree. We were diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome in our family, so the fact that there was an unwanted pregnancy that even showed up in the first place was extremely rare. I had to make a decision: am I gonna finish the thing that I just spent too much money on, or am I gonna stop everything and bring a life into this world? That is a question that many people have to ask themselves on a regular basis. I know multiple students who've chosen the opposite of what I did, and I think it sat well with them. I couldn't justify knowing that I would be putting myself in a compromising situation. Bringing somebody else into this planet knowing that I couldn't fully take care of them. It was the hardest decision I've ever had to make in my entire life.

You can be pro-choice or pro-birth and still find yourself making one of those decisions. Until you're faced with that, you don't really know what you're gonna do. You don't really understand exactly how hopeless you feel, knowing that you have to make a decision for someone else who doesn't even have a choice.

The first thing that I did was call and ask about my options. To ask if this was something feasible. The fact that I even had to include money into that equation is devastating, because there are a lot of people who are forced with no choice. I don't have any money, there's no way that I would be able to pay for an abortion. There's no way that I would be able to pay for a kid, and there's no way I'd be able to do anything. Knowing that poverty is a limitation for a lot of people and if they're having a kid or not seems like such a terrible choice. I'm not able to do this thing because I don't have the money, but bringing somebody into the world when you have no money, no way of taking care of them and having to have that choice, it's devastating.

Going to college, this is the poorest I've ever been in my entire life as an adult. I had to step back and jump into pretending like I was in my early 20s financially. I want to go to school so therefore I have to make $14,000 a year. And oh shit, I just got pregnant. Awesome.

There's a fund in Oregon and if you need any sort of emergency medical help they'll set you up an appointment. They'll weigh out your options appropriately, and they'll help you in any way that you feel like you need help. I needed to not have a kid, and I needed to be able to finish my education, and it destroyed me to know that I had to do something like that.

It still sits pretty heavy on me, but I don't regret it at all. I think I knew that that was gonna be the smartest choice for my situation. I knew that if I wanted to even plan a future, that this would've completely annihilated where I was hoping to go. I was never really much of a mom anyway. It's not really my role. I'm supposed to be the cool aunt. I'm really grateful that I got that option. All things considered, I think it will always be the toughest decision of my entire life. I'm glad that I had a choice, cause I think it's really important for people to understand that not everyone's gonna deal with it the same way. I know that I can sleep at night knowing that I wanna make a better future for someone. We need to build a better future, and if an unplanned pregnancy would keep me from making the world a better place, then sometimes you have to make those really devastating sacrifices.

I'm still going to therapy for that. I probably will for a long time. I still don't regret it. Knowing that I live off of $400 a month, you don't bring a kid into that. You don't do that to someone. No kid deserves that at all, and it's not up to the state to help me raise someone that I wasn't prepared for. It's not fair.

It was tough. They always have those moments that kinda take a picture in your head and you're never ever gonna be able to forget it. I remember when I finally made the decision and I went to the clinic. It was two days before Christmas. I took the pill for dilation. I had to just tell myself that I was doing it for a reason, that I was gonna finish my education. If I wanna have another kid I can have another kid at another time. It was really important for me to finish out my task. The lady had to ask me all the questions and needed to know that I was gonna make a definitive decision and wasn't gonna back out. A lot of people get shaky feet right there. I remember just being 100% steadfast in knowing that I didn't wanna fuck up someone else's future. I want to make sure that if I do have a “someone else” then they're gonna be okay, they're gonna have a good childhood. That's all I can ask for anyone.

We have so many people out there who have so many kids that they don't fucking care about, and I think it sucks. I would never wanna put anyone in a compromising situation where they didn't feel like they were loved and they didn't feel like they got enough attention. It's not what you do, so I knew that I couldn't do that. I remember it sitting really well in my head, and it still does. I can't fuck up someone's future for political reasons. The sanctity of life is something that you really understand on a different level when you are choosing a path to terminate. It's not easy, but nothing worth doing is.

I didn't tell anyone. I told two people, and one of them was my boyfriend, which he has a right to know. That's not something that anybody should have to hide from their significant other. My boyfriend was amazingly supportive of the situation. We had just moved into his mom's house. I could barely afford $225 a month for rent, just for me to get through school. All of my money goes to my education. He knew, we both knew, there's no way that we can do this. That we can bring a life into this situation where we are basically being supported by someone else. That is so selfish on so many levels. But he was just a champion about the whole thing, but his family doesn't know. My family doesn't know. I was raised Mormon so that's a big fat no-no. Of course, my chain smoking is a big fat no-no too.

The only other person that I told was my former roommate at the time. He had just gone through something like that about a year before. I didn't know who else to call. He drove me there and then back home. He even bought me little Christmas presents.

No one's alone in this. It's one in two pregnancies. Either you make the decision to keep or you make the decision to not. No one should tell you what you should or shouldn't do in that situation. Everybody is different, everybody feels differently about it, and I respect that right 100%. Just like I hope that people would respect my right 100%.

It's a tough thing. I don't wish that decision on anyone. But they're saying statistically that people with higher education are opting out to have children because they understand what that actually means. We have a lot of people who don't care about their kids on this planet. I figure if you don't choose to have kids there are plenty of people you can help. There are plenty of people who you can help enrich their lives. I lived with someone who can't even take care of her four kids, and I don't feel like pushing that on someone else. My kid, my responsibility. It's not somebody else's. I made a choice. If I choose to have a child live, then I'm gonna make sure it's a good life. That's all anyone can ever ask. There are a lot of people who forgot that and it sucks. It makes me sad every time. People should care about their children if they choose to have them.

That's the part that's really frustrating to me politically. Everybody's pro-birth. But what happened to the pro-life part? You wanna cut government funding for people who do choose to have this, even if it was an accident. You're not helping them out with the kids. You're constantly threatening to cut off welfare. Yet you're not giving people the appropriate opportunity to choose. Why aren't you taking care of that life after you decide that it's pro-birth? That's the thing that's always infuriated me. Don't cut off people's options. It's really frustrating because I know that once that happens and they do have their kids, there's a lot of options that are given to them and taken away from them at the same time. It's a whole big hot mess.