DiDi’s Story

By late November of 1998, I had been seeing my boyfriend for only a few months. I was 20, had just moved out of my parents house into my own apartment. I was also on the pill and my boyfriend used condoms. One night, the condom broke. I thought nothing of it since I was on the pill, but about 5 weeks later I realized I was pregnant. The problem was that he had broken it off just a few weeks earlier. When I called him to tell him, he told me it wasn’t his and hung up on me. Christmas eventually came and went, family pictures showed me smiling, but you could see the uncertainty in my eyes. I was not ready for motherhood. My job was a joke and I did not want to be another statistic on public assistance until the kid was in high school. I wanted my life. And I really did not want to go through seeing my body get ruined just to give the baby to someone else (sadly, there was some vanity). I managed to get some help with medical and notified a women’s clinic. By January of 1999, I was 8 weeks pregnant and driving with my mother to the clinic. She said nothing as we pushed through the protesters. I managed an evil smile and stomped on some toes on my way in. One couple hollered “We’ll adopt your baby!” And there were the usual insults of “Baby killer”, and “Whore”. Once inside, I was given a muscle relaxant and seated myself in the waiting room. They eventually called me in and everything was over and done with in maybe twenty minutes. Hard to believe it has been almost 9 years ago. I have a daughter who is almost 4 now, her father the same man who fathered the aborted pregnancy. He had come back into the picture a year after the procedure, admitting his mistake in denying. He was floored when I told him about aborting it. I imagine he must not have been that mad because we married a few years later and had our daughter. I never regretted my decision. I was not ready to be a parent and I get so irritated by those who say that I regret the abortion but I am just in denial. People view you as cold hearted when you say you have no regrets. I have even encountered one person who felt I had no right to even have my daughter because I was “a cold hearted baby murderer.”. It wasn’t a “baby” yet. It wasn’t even a fetus. I do not feel bad about what I did. It was a difficult decision, but I do not look back and wonder if I did the right thing. I know I did the right thing. When you are not ready to parent, you are not ready to parent. Nothing will change that.