It was very easy to say that I would always choose my career over anything else. It was the easiest thing to say before I let a baby ruin my life I would get rid of it quickly and without remorse. It was a choice between myself and it and at the end I would emerge victorious. It was easy to say this until I saw the two lines appear on that pregnancy test.

I didn’t want to believe it, I mean for five days now I was convincing myself that my body was trolling me that my period was simply delayed although this was extremely rare. I laughed in my boyfriend’s face as he solemnly looked at me and confirmed it. Babe, you are pregnant. But nothing hit me like those two lines. There was something inside of me and….there was something inside me. It was finally a choice, not a hypothetical situation you discuss with friends as a hot lunchtime topic or an intellectual debate to be had with the obnoxious people you come across every now and then. This was real life and I was either having a baby or I was gonna kill it. My boyfriend already knew the choice to make, we couldn’t afford it. We wished it was different but we couldn’t keep it. I was torn.

Somehow little me had become this protective mama bear determined to face the world for the thing inside me that was no bigger than a pea. But it was mine and I had to protect it but really who was I fooling? I couldn’t take care of myself half the time. I wasn’t eating properly, I was barely making ends meet as it was how could I bring a child into this world?

Like at 24 why was I even having this conversation shouldn’t I at least be in a position to consider bringing a child into the world? I saw teens taking it on and making do. I had a degree I was about to embark on a career that I was determined to be successful in but this was just not the right time. What would my mother think? She would stretch her already stretched resources to help because that’s how she is but she’s already done that for years I think I owe it to her to just not add one more thing to worry about.

So I do it. I do the surgical abortion and I killed the baby but I think I also killed myself. I fool myself into thinking I’m fine but I’m not. The procedure was fine. It was safe and well done (not that I have anything to compare it to) but I’m not okay. I struggle to wake up in the morning and I try to seem like I’m okay but I’m not fine. I killed it to save myself. I can’t discuss it with friends, I don’t want to become the girl who dash weh belly. I can’t discuss it with my best friend, my mom, because I’m afraid she would love me less. I just don’t know when I’ll be okay again and I desperately need that, to be okay again.