My father picked me up at the airport the next day. I had him take me to a clinic and a pharmacy to get the morning-after pill. Unfortunately the morning-after pill only has an 87% success rate, perhaps less when doctors don't know exactly how to prescribe it (as the sweet doctor who later performed my abortion explained to me).

When I knew I was pregnant, I phoned my boyfriend. He made it clear to me that he would support me no matter what decision I made. If I chose to keep the child, he would support it financially. If I chose to give it up for adoption, he would take a year off school with me. I was confused, and not quite sure what to do. Finally, after assuring him that I absolutely understood that it was my decision, and my decision only, I asked him what he would prefer. He said he would prefer I have an abortion. As soon as he said it I felt an immense wave of relief. Somehow it took someone else to suggest it, but once it was said I knew an abortion was exactly the right decision.

I had the abortion at 10 weeks. The first appointment available would have been 9 weeks, but that conflicted with the final exam for a programming class I was taking at the local university. My boyfriend flew out to be with me. He held back my hair as I threw up from morning sickness and helped hide the pregnancy from my judgemental mother. His mother, on the other hand, was fully informed. He had told her so that she would let him visit me. She told him that he'd better damn well visit me, to take his half of the responsibility.

The abortion clinic itself was comfortable and feminine, painted in lavender. The staff were kind. There were five of us there, some with boyfriends, some alone. Four of us had taken the morning-after pill. We were given counselling as a group, and signed a form acknowledging the risks of abortion (it included things like a perforated uterus, and death, though the counsellor assured us these were so rare as to be nearly impossible). They gave us muscle relaxants and my boyfriend and I left to have lunch. We returned in the afternoon for the abortion.

My boyfriend held my hand throughout the abortion. It only took about ten minutes. We talked and joked with the doctor and the counsellor, about our schooling and which one of us, my boyfriend or me, was more of a math and science genius. The doctor told me she had a hard time dilating me to the diameter required for the 10 week tube so she used the 8 week instead, and it took her twice as long as normal. She gave me antibiotics just in case the extra fussing around had provided an opportunity for an infection.

My friend came to pick my boyfriend and me up from the clinic. Due to some quite purposefully confusing signage put up by the protesters who owned the house next to the clinic (the clinic had given me a very precise description, which I forgot to pass on to my friend) she accidentally ended up in the living room of the house owned by the protesters. She said they seemed to be sitting around drinking tea. They looked up at her (a proud butch-looking dyke) in shock, then she apologized, turned around, and walked to the correct location.

The worst part of the abortion for me was not being able to swim for six weeks afterwards, especially since it was summer and I lived near the ocean. I felt a little ill from the antibiotics, and had a little bit of cramping, but it was really quite a minor procedure.

Seven and a half years later, I'm in a doctoral program at a prestigious engineering school. I will most likely become a professor of engineering. There is no way I could have gotten this far without having an abortion. I can't possibly see myself surviving the academic challenges and trying to look after a child at the same time. And at 19, I wasn't nearly mature enough to care for a child. Sometimes I try to imagine myself with a seven-year-old child right now and it's ludicrous.

I'm now married (not to that same boyfriend) and much more mature. We plan to start trying for our first child this August. That child will be wanted, and I will have the maturity and stability to be a good mother.