Traumatic ending

On February16th 1992 I had not been feeling like myself, something was not right. I had this feeling that I was with child. I had told a friend of mine my suspicions and off we went to get a pregnancy test. As we are standing in the bathroom watching this stick waiting to see a negative symbol or positive symbol. My heart is racing. I would love to have a child. Everything I have ever dreamed of was to be a Mom. Could I be a good mother at the age of 17? Then I thought, no he wouldn't want a child. What would my parents say. As I look down at the pregnancy test here is this plus sign. I am pregnant. I look at my friend in disbelief just for her to bust out laughing. I'm pregnant. Unbelievable. In the first month of me having sex in my whole entire life I get pregnant.

The next step to take was to go and tell my boyfriend. So off my friend and I go to his house with the test. He is in denial. Oh it cannot be right. He asked me to go to our local health department and take one just to be sure. I am crying cause he is not feeling the way I am. I can see in his eyes he is scared. I go home not knowing what to do. How do I tell my parents. My Dad is going to kill me. The following day a friend of mine takes me to the health department just to confirm I am pregnant. Now at this time it is even more surreal. I come home to my parents already being off of work. I go in and start helping Moma with dinner and he calls. He said well......I told him yes, the next thing I heard on the other end of the phone was a dial tone he had hung up on me. Within thirty minutes he is knocking on my door. You have to understand this is strange for him to be over at my house during the week. My Daddy allowed no dating or company during the week. I am shaking thinking , my Dad is fixing to lose his temper, here I am pregnant. To my surprise my Dad did not say a thing. I was able to walk outside with my boyfriend to talk. I can see the devastation in his eyes. He looks at me in my eyes and tells me we cannot have this baby. He is in tears saying he cannot work at a plant for the rest of his life. He wants to go to college, get a good job. That he loved me, but he was not ready for baby and marriage. My heart is crushed. He proceeded to say he had already made an appointment for me at a clinic for the following Friday. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Here is this man that I love, telling me to kill my child. He was 4 years older than me already graduated high school, could of already had his life on the right track, but since he didn't I had to end this child's life.

I cried that entire night. I prayed and prayed to God. All I kept thinking about was this baby inside of me. This life that I had made with a man I loved unconditionally. I could not see myself with another man. Yet he does not love me enough to be willing to accept this child and help me raise our child together. Here I was to choose between the man I loved or the child that I was carrying inside me. As morning came it was time to confide in my Mom. I could not go to a clinic and do this and not tell someone in my family, plus I needed someone to tell me everything was going to be alright. I will never forget that morning my Mother coming into the bathroom where I was getting dressed and she asked me was everything alright and I looked at her, and I am sure she could see the emotional stress on my face. She asked me “Are you pregnant?” I said yes. She sat down for a few minutes and then asked me what was I going to do. I told her to abort it. Told her the appointment was already made for the following day, where it was and that I would have to miss school for it. Well she said are you sure this is what you want to do? I said yes....even though everything inside of me wanted to say no Moma I want to keep my baby. I had to do this to show the man I had fallen in love with that I truly loved him. My Mom never tried to talk me out of it. I cannot understand why she didn't, why she took lightly that I was ending a life. She chosen a clinic that she thought would be safer for me to go to.

On February 21, 1992 I traveled to Atlanta to an abortion clinic. There were protesters everywhere. I was humiliated. We get inside, my Mom, my boyfriend and I. No one could go back with me. I was there all alone filling out forms. There was no counseling for me....It was like a slaughter house. I remember sitting there in my gown waiting to go into surgery, tears streaming down my cheeks....I wanted my baby, but if I didn't do this, this man, the love of my life would leave me. I chosen a man over my child. I already was gaining weight, my appetite had tripled. My baby was alive inside of me and had no idea Mommy was fixing to end their life. The double doors swing open in front of me and they say its time...All I remember is a well lit area...They lay me on a bed and put an IV in me, during all this there is a monitor and on the screen they are measuring my baby through ultrasound to see how old she is. The last words I hear spoken is 5 weeks and then the bright light faded.

I wake up in a room with 10 to 12 stretchers and other girls laying on them. I thought I was dreaming, but soon reality had hit me. Cause I felt the emptiness inside of me. My child was no longer there. My life changed completely that day. Never have I or will I be able to be the same as I was before that day. Still to this day I do not understand. Why I was being so selfish to put a man before my own child. Now that I am blessed with four beautiful children there is nothing and no one that will come before them. This October my baby would of turned 17. All the things I missed out on. God told me this was my little girl. I imagine how beautiful she would have been. One to play dress up with. I sometimes think I hear her voice asking me “Why”....Why didn't I choose life for her. I never got to feel her arms wrapped around me tightly and hear I love you. I've missed out on so much. This is why I have yet to forgive myself. After this traumatic event in my life is when I lost control....

Again it takes us back how can w love wen we have never been loved at all.......