When my parents married, my mom was three months pregnant with me. So somewhere deep inside myself I didn't want to be her. I didn't want that stigma associated with it, I didn't want to be that girl that had to get married, so an abortion was my solution. After the trip to the clinic I was deeply confused as to what to do, if I had medical insurance to cover going to the hospital for the procedure, I was going to still have to tell my parents since they were the one who would have the insurance information, and at that point I didn't even know if I had any coverage and if I did would cover an elective procedure.
Assuming I was pregnant, and the option of an abortion was off the table I found myself with an intense need to be Daddy's girl again. To be sitting in his study, pouring over books, doing homework, or laying on the living room rug playing board games. Playing adult wasn't so much fun anymore, I knew I had to face what I had done and tell Dad.
The father and I drove to the restaurant where my Dad worked. He worked most nights and I was so desperate to see him, I couldn't wait till he had a free night away from the restaurant. I remember standing in a small area off the side of the dining room, telling him that I had tried to have an abortion that was unsuccessful, and that I was pregnant. Having him wrap his arms around me, holding me and crying. The father of the child told my father that he would take responsibility for it and with little else to be said, we were gone. I don't remember if we talked about marriage, or how we were going to handle it, it was very brief, I was no longer Daddy's girl, I had to be responsible for my choices now, not because Dad told me so, I just knew.
I never thought about how that night might of affected him. If it drug up old memories of what he faced with my mom. I can only imagine what went through his mind that night. I only knew for that brief moment, I needed my Dad. I'm so sorry for putting him through that that night.
At that point I was somewhat estranged from my mom, after she called me a slut and the TV out the window episode, I couldn't wrap my mind around talking to her. I couldn't ignore the hypocrisy of her calling me names, knowing that she was pregnant with me when she got married, so in my mind I "had" become her and I didn't have the words to tell her what had happen, I didn't know how to put the fragments together. Sometime between the upheaval of all of that and the trip to the clinic, I had moved into the apartment with the father and his kids, completely dropped out of school, and assumed full time duties as a wife and mother. I didn't think about what feelings all of this might have stirred up in my mom, I just knew I couldn't deal with her just yet.
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After the procedure, the doctor told me because of what they had done, I should have some spotting, but not a full monthly cycle, since I was still pregnant that would stop in a few days. Well I didn't know exactly what spotting meant, but looking back at it, I was having some pretty heavy bleeding, but in my head this was fine and it would be over soon. In that short time of acceptance that I was going to have a baby, I found an attachment to the new life that was now part of me, an excitement and anticipation, I had a new purpose to my life. How that was all going to pan out I had no idea, but it was something to hang on to.
I was home alone attempting to resume my life as it had become and that day found more than just spotting, there was a few lumps of tissue that I knew were not normal, I knew what I was looking at, and that the procedure had been more successful then they had assumed. I remember sitting alone in the bathroom holding myself and crying. It was done.
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