Since we still love each other though, and both love sex, we weren't going to stop that. I've been using the fertility awareness method for five years now, since I'm pretty much regular and can tell by discharge when I ovulate. He has wanted me to go on the pill since we've been together, but since there is breast cancer in my family, I have been strongly advised against it. In November, though, I went to a friend's for a quick visit to return a borrowed sweatshirt and meet his new girlfriend, and while I was there I had two small, bong hits. Even though that is not enough to feel it at all, I forgot that it can mess up your schedule and that it has messed up mine in the past (I very rarely smoke at all), and then forgot that I even had any (stupid step #1).

I was expecting to ovulate before Thanksgiving, so like normal I had my boyfriend stop coming inside of me 5 days before I was due to ovulate, but the "egg" didn't come (as I call it when I ovulate). Finally it came 2 or 3 days late. Normally I wait until the discharge goes back to normal and then wait another day or two before I let my boyfriend come inside me again. This month, though, with the busy-ness of Thanksgiving and my sister being home from college, and other busy things over the long weekend, and my boyfriend asking and asking when he could start again, and me feeling bad that my chosen method of birth control was taking more time than usual away from regular sex this month, I waited only until the day after I finally ovulated, and after a very quick check, figured ok, the discharge is normal, it's safe now. (stupid, stupid step #2. this is what I'm so mad at myself about, that I could have done so much better - that I forgot about the bong hit, and that against my better judgment I didn't wait another couple of days after ovulation like I always do.) So, I'm fairly positive the date of conception was about Nov. 24 or 25th.

I had been getting my period on the 7th and 8th of the month, but when it didn't show up Dec.8th I wasn't worried because since the egg was two or three days late, my period would also be. My boyfriend noticed that my breasts were a lot bigger, and we figured it was because my period was coming even though they don't usually swell too much. My nipples were also really, really sensitive and sore - usually I love having them played with, but I didn't even want him touching them, so we figured that that was because my period was coming too. I also started having to go to the bathroom a lot more often, and even though I'm used to going to the bathroom a lot because I drink a lot of water, it seemed like I hardly had to go even when I thought I did.

I had a pregnancy test at home in my drawer from a two pack that I got a while ago and used one of, so when I was home around the 9th I threw it in my bag even though I was sure my period would still just be late because the egg had been late. It still didn't come the 10th, though, and I knew that by the morning of Monday the 11th, if there was no blood, I'd have to take the test with my morning urine. My boyfriend was actually up the entire night writing a paper, and finally finished about 10am and went to hand it in. I got up and went to the bathroom, and no blood, so I got the test out. I used to do them fairly often because I was paranoid (finally a few years ago I figured out that, for example, if I have a bad cold I'll be 4 days late), so I knew exactly what to do and that I like to pee into a cup and hold the stick in it like it says you can instead of peeing on the stick. I was still shaking, of course, though. The night before in the mirror I somehow felt that my breasts looked like pregnant breasts. What's weird is that I actually saved a couple of pictures of pregnant women in a folder on my computer just a week or so earlier (one of my ex and his wife, and one of a woman at a PVC-free demonstration). So I dipped the stick in for the 20 seconds and put it down. The pregnancy positive line showed up right away, I didn't even have to wait for it, and then just got darker, along with the test line. I was like, don't do this to me, don't do this to me. I tried to take deep breaths and not freak out. I went right to my computer to look up the site of an abortion clinic I'd saved a couple of years ago as a precaution, and called them up, and they said they had an appointment at 1:00 for a medical abortion, so I told them I would call them back if I could take it.

I got back in bed shaking and waited for my boyfriend to come back from handing in his paper. (Classes had ended the week before; finals were starting that week, and our first one was the next day, Tuesday, at night.) When he did I told him to close the door so that our neighbors couldn't hear us (the apartment is in the basement of a house), and to come sit on the bed, so he knew something was wrong. I was like please don't freak out, we have to take care of something really shitty, but I know what to do already and I have it under control so please don't freak out. He was starting to though so I was just like, the period's not coming, but I can go to an appointment today at 1:00. He didn't yell so that the neighbors/owners of the house wouldn't hear, but his eyes got all wild and he started waving his hands around and saying THIS is why I wanted you to be on birth control, I CAN'T believe you wouldn't listen to me, etc. Finally he came and sat down on the bed and stroked my hair a little and I said I have to call back if I want to take the 1:00 appointment, so he said yes, so call. I called the place and made the appointment for a medical abortion and that was the only time we actually said the word "abortion." He had to run some errands so while he was gone I looked at the directions to the center and also called Planned Parenthood in case they were closer, but they didn't have any appointments until Dec. 26th, so the woman gave me two more numbers but one only had an appointment for the next day, which I couldn’t take because of my final, and the other one I was on hold with for a long time and right when someone picked up I got disconnected so I didn't call back.

My boyfriend told me that he would prefer not to come with me but that he would if I wanted him to, but I said that since he hadn't slept at all that night he should stay and go to sleep. He made sure I would be coming back to him after and not going home to my parents' house or anything. I cannot tell my parents because my mother would be too worried about the increased risk of breast cancer. Though abortion might slightly increase your risk, I simply did not have a choice, and most of the websites that I found saying this were staunchly Catholic religious sites anyway, which I am not prone to believe. (My parents had enough on their plate at the time anyway; on the way home, I found out that my 98-year-old grandmother had fallen, so my mother was in the hospital with my Grandmother while I was at the center.)

I was a bit in shock still when I went to the Liberty Women’s Health Care center (I still am), but for me the choice was no choice. It was sort of like in the DaVinci Code when the old nun has the instructions of what to do in case some chain of events ever happens - she knows what she has to do, just hopes she'll never have to do it. Like a contingency plan for getting out of a burning building or something. I had the website saved even, and there was no question, that was what I had to do.

I found the place and got there on time (I had to run around looking for change for a dollar though for a meter, of course I didn't have any) in China Town in Queens (the Charles Schwab building, the only building with English writing on it in addition to the Chinese) and filled out all the forms. There were two other girls waiting then; it was comforting to me that we were very diverse, an Asian and a Hispanic girl and me, and a black girl came in later too. (Although other services are offered, I know at least one other girl was there for the same thing because she also went up to get the same $20 medication for after the second pills, to stop vomiting and pain; and seeing how automatic and almost robot-like the speeches were from the doctor and nurses, it seems that what I was there for was fairly common.) After waiting a while and listening to the annoying music on the TV screen for a continuous infomercial about plastic surgery, which another part of the office did, I was called in to take a urine test there, then sent back to wait, then called in to have my blood pressure and weight and a blood test taken (though the nurse did not say whether it was for iron levels, or Rh factor, or another pregnancy test, or what). Although it didn't seem as strict as some offices, all needles and everything came out of new packages and were thrown out after use, so I was comfortable with the cleanliness (during the summer I had gone to a new doctor because I thought I might have a UTI, but the "office" was so unappealing and un-sterile seeming that I just walked out).

Then I was taken for the little counseling session where you just sign the forms; I wasn't completely satisfied with this part for a few reasons. The nurse (if that's what she was?) was mostly fluent in English but not perfectly, and seemed surprised that I was asking any questions (I wanted to know what accounted for the price difference between the methotrexate shot and the mifepristone/RU-486 pill [according to both her and the doctor it's just because people are afraid of needles and opt for the pill], and whether a shower after the second pill was ok when she said no swimming or baths or douches, etc.). Also, the consent forms were not individualized for medical abortions; I had to initial a line that said I was agreeing to a procedure that is part of a surgical abortion, which I didn't want to initial based on principle, but she said just sign it; and when I started to fill in the space for what you ate that day, she said no, that's only for surgical abortions. I asked her how big the pill was to swallow and she didn't know (I'm not good at swallowing large pills), so for $100 less ($400 instead of $500), I chose the injection. However, I knew from the website that the second medication is taken at home 2-6 days later, and you return 2 weeks after your original appointment for a follow-up, but the nurse kept telling me that when I returned 2 weeks later, THEN the doctor would tell me how to take the second pill. When I questioned her on it she kept repeating the same thing. (What I had read on the website was correct, it turned out, although the doctor actually said to take it in 7 days, a week from the initial appointment.)

I went and waited in a second waiting room where we stripped from the waist down and were all sitting there with paper sheets wrapped around our waists. When it was my turn, I didn't like the short doctor's bushy mustache. The doctor was very cut and dry and not at all warm, but I guess I couldn't care too much about that. He did a sonogram (I thought without gel on my stomach, but at the follow-up I noticed he put a little gel on the equipment before he used it) and then a vaginal sonogram, which I never heard of before. It was perfectly comfortable, though what it reminded me of when I first saw it was a plastic light-up sword I had when I was little, after the light burned out. It had a condom on it as the cover, which I didn't notice until after he finished and took it off to throw out. (In a pregnancy where you do want to keep the baby, I think the vaginal sonogram would be really cool, since it gets even closer to your uterus and other inside parts than the abdominal sonogram does.) He told me that he could not see the pregnancy, which made sense because you can start to see them at the earliest at 4 weeks 0 days (from the date of your last period), and this was 4 weeks 4 days, but really only about 4 weeks 1 or 2 days because the egg had been late. He told me how to take the pills in one week with the same precautions about if you fill more than 2 pads in an hour for 2 hours in a row then call them right away, and told me not to eat anything high in folic acid or folate, like beans or leafy green vegetables. (He also seemed confused that I was asking questions though, when I asked how common it is to bleed so heavily you have to come in right away, but he finally understood and said "very rare.") Then he unceremoniously told me to turn around and pull up my shirt and gave me the injection on my left butt cheek; I was a brave girl and only made a tiny sound right at first, and held onto the big fuzzy shirt I was wearing and onto one of my newly larger breasts.

I went right home and got into bed with my boyfriend since he was sleeping. I cried a little because I was scared for the next Monday and because I felt bad that I was doing this to my body. It just seemed that my body did everything it was supposed to, and it thought it was finally going to get to make a baby, but I was playing a cruel joke on it and ripping the baby away. I still couldn't believe at some level that it had actually happened (and still can't). We got up in the evening and decided to stay up most of the night studying for our final. My boyfriend was very nice and thoughtful and sweet and continued to be so. I was sad at a couple of points in the evening and cried a little. It was 4 or 5 in the morning before I wondered if it would have been a boy or a girl. I know it would have had blue eyes because both my boyfriend and I do. Having so much studying to do though certainly didn't leave as much time for reflection as another time might have.

I was very afraid though for the rest of the week of anything that might have folic acid or folate in it. I had already stopped the growth of the embryo and did not want to take the chance of giving it the vitamins it needed to try to keep holding on. Not only were beans and spinach and a lot of other things I like out, but so were all of the enriched breads, tortillas, rices, and other grains that I had first thought that I could have. I did research online to find things with the lowest folic acid content (mainly animal products), and was glad to see that the whole wheat bread I had picked up was not made with enriched flour. I was getting so worried about checking the ingredients of everything though that my boyfriend wanted me to call the doctor to ask about it, but I figured I could deal without calling, and didn't know if I could get the doctor on the phone just for that anyway.

Tuesday night and Wednesday morning I spent a lot of time online looking at pregnancy sites, so that's when I finally saw that tender nipples and larger breasts and urinating more often were often the first signs of pregnancy. I also looked to see how big the baby would have been then (about 1/8"), and when one site described an embryo a week older as being "smaller than a grain of rice," I took a grain of rice out of the cabinet and broke the tips off so it was about 1/8" so I could see how big the baby that was still inside me and wasn't growing anymore was. I left it on my keyboard and when I brought my things to school put it in a little wooden box that I carry pills and a couple of very small trinkets in my backpack in. I also looked up how Methotrexate works and saw that it is a folic acid inhibitor, so I guess it you eat regular amounts of it after the injection it can't take care of enough of it.

I had to study all the rest of the day for my Thursday morning final, but later Thursday I also looked at websites about the fertility awareness method. Though I had always been able to accurately chart ovulation only by discharge (and this time I was just stupid, stupid, stupid), I knew that you could also keep track of your temperature, so I started looking at basal thermometers, and also found that you can use the position of your cervix, so I'll have to try that. I saw that the Feminist Women's Health Center has advice on learning how to tell what position your cervix is in, and also has plastic speculums for sale, so I think I'll buy one.

I was still very scared for the next Monday and started collecting things from home to bring back to my boyfriend's (my other "home"), like a towel to sit on the bathroom floor on, a towel to roll up to lay my head on in the bathroom if I wanted to, a book, maxi pads, and a copy of the poetry publication that I was an editor of in high school that had a poem a girl had written about RU-486. I had never heard of it until she submitted that poem. I hoped very much that the medications to stop vomiting and pain were just a scare tactic by the center to get another $20 out of us and that I wouldn't need them (which for me, at least, was the case).

(I've been writing this in stages, and stopped there because I didn't know yet what would happen Monday, so now it's a week later, on Friday.)

On Monday I got home from my last final at 5 and took the misoprostol pills - I had two to take orally. I was really nervous and cried as I took them but my boyfriend comforted me and said that crying would only make it worse, so I sat on the bed near the bathroom with my computer and books and waited. After half an hour or so I got very, very light cramps, much lighter than a normal period, and spotted a little bit, and that was it. My family really needed me to go home because my grandmother was not doing well at all, and I figured that if anything was going to happen from the pills, it would have already, so I went home. When another few hours went by and I was still barely spotting, I started looking up online the difference between taking the misoprostol orally and vaginally, since I had read about girls taking them vaginally, and found several studies saying that it is more effective vaginally than orally (95% as opposed to 87%, but above 6 weeks, which I was not, only vaginally was recommended), and that using it orally after the methotrexate injection like I did instead of after the mifepristone pills, you could need as many as three doses of the misoprostol, every 48 hours. So I got really upset that the center gave them to me orally instead of vaginally, and that after all this, it just wasn't working.

Tuesday, 24 hours after I took it, I was going to call the center, but started spotting again right before I called and decided to wait. Wednesday I brought my boyfriend to the airport to go home to Georgia to see his family for a week, and when 48 hours after I took the misoprostol rolled around, I wasn't really even spotting anymore. So I called the center, and was told that I was supposed to call within 24 hours if I did not bleed, but I had never been told that! I am sure I would not have missed it since I was listening so closely at the visit to everything they said. Maybe I flustered them by asking questions and the nurse forgot to say that. I don't know. I was also told that that place always first gives the pills orally if the pregnancy is under 6 weeks. So I made an appointment to come in the next day, Thursday, to get a 2nd dose of misoprostol, to take vaginally this time, even though my next appointment was supposed to be Friday anyway. Thursday, though, I found I had to be with my family, so when I called about making the appointment later on Thursday, they said just to come in Friday as originally planned. Then later in the day I started spotting again and got cramps like a regular period and then started bleeding, a little lighter than a regular period, but I was very relieved. I examined every teeny clot that came out, wondering if that was it.

At about 3 am I was finally getting into bed, and felt either a clot or gush of blood come out, so I went to the bathroom to change my pad again before I went to sleep...and there it all was on the pad. I was SO relieved. The placenta was bigger than I thought it would be, maybe about 2"x1" and 1/4" thick, dark like a clot on one end and whitish on the other. I cried with relief and told it I was sorry and that one day sometime soon I do want to have a baby, just not yet. While I was on the toilet I felt another couple of clots come out, and since I read about one girl fishing it out of the toilet just to see it for herself, I figured I wouldn't be too crazy if I did that too, so I did, and found the other half. Finally I left my boyfriend a message that it all came out and that I was so relived, a little sad but mostly relieved, and went to bed.

In the morning today (Friday) I called the center to see if I should still come in since the pregnancy hormone would probably still be in my system anyway, and since if the doctor couldn't see anything in the first sonogram he wouldn't be able to now, but they said yes. (This trip was actually much more upsetting because first I had to sneak away from my parents, then couldn't find parking for HALF AN HOUR and was 20 minutes late, had everyone else called before me, and had to be vague about where I'd been when I got home. AND, the cost of the follow-up was another $50, when I thought it was included in the first $400.) The office was full, with at least 8-10 people waiting at all times, some alone too and some with husbands or boyfriends. I heard the girl in front of me tell the front desk she was there for her “after-abortion checkup.” One girl who didn't look much younger than me had her mother there, and laid with her head in her mother's lap the whole time. When I went out to put money in the meter she came out to have a cigarette and was crying and really upset. I wanted to say something to comfort her but it's a funny thing to try to say something about. When I was FINALLY called, the doctor did only an abdominal sonogram, and then a quick manual exam and said that my uterus seemed empty. I was more comfortable with him this time because I knew more what to expect. He said that I can expect my next period in 4-8 weeks, and gave me a free one-month sample of Ortho Try-Cyclen Lo birth control pills and a one-month prescription if I want to fill it. I do not know yet if I will try them, even though I'm sure that such a short time will not increase the risk of cancer, but my boyfriend is insisting, so I will see. The office was so busy that another girl was called into the examining room while I was still picking up my things. For now, Friday, I still have cramps like a regular period, so I'm hoping the cramps and bleeding will stop in a couple of days like a regular period and that my schedule will return to normal soon. I also ordered a plastic speculum so when it comes I'll see if I can tell any difference between times of my cycle by cervix position.

(Update, Wednesday: the bleeding abated by Tuesday and I was able to just wear a panty liner after that.)

My boyfriend was so good through most of the ordeal that I wondered it maybe this was what could change our relationship and make us able to stay together, but I don't think we will, because we still do have all of the same problems as before. He still refuses to accept that our children would be raised Jewish, and refused to understand when my family really needed me that it was not unreasonable for me to be there, and still does not accept my own desire to speak with my family every day or to or to be home with my family a couple of nights a week even though we are in no way married or even close to being engaged. While this might have temporarily brought us closer together, it could not erase all of the flaws in our relationship, and it does not seem likely right now that we will end up together.

There was just no way at all that we would have been ready to have this baby. We are still in school and will be graduating in May and starting jobs at the end of the summer (he has one already, I do not yet), and we had not even been getting along so well before this. My due date would have been two weeks after we are taking the Bar Exam next summer. It was just not an option for us; there was not even a decision to make whatsoever. I'm sorry that I did this to my body and that it was mostly because of my carelessness that I found myself in this situation, but there is no question at all that it was the right thing for me, and for us, and for the baby that would have been.