My Story

 First, the emails I’ve been getting have nearly all been so positive and warm and I appreciate that immensely.

Here we go, hopefully the condensed version but you know me, I’m chatty.

I was Stupid, yes, with a capital S, Stupid. I was 18 years old, I had a baby already, I knew how these things worked.  Statistics show that a teen mother will get pregnant again within the next two years. Yay me! Rushing to go to the front of the line of a shitty statistic. You know what they say, either go hard or go home. 

I was smitten. Was smitten the very first day we met. As my mother and I were walking out of the business that we’d met at I said to her “ I’m gonna date him.” 

There was a teeny tiny little problem though, he was in a relationship already. Being a determined little minx, I wasn’t that deterred.

When he started showing interest my little heart leapt out of my chest. It wasn’t possible, I thought, I had been saying all those things to myself about being a sinner and a whore and who was ever going to see something beyond that and for some reason, I was completely blind to the fact that he was already dating the Madonna in the scenario. 

So, going all in was fun. He was fun. He was cute and funny and smart. The secret was fun for awhile, the whispers and sideway glances and that fluttery heart, I’d never felt like that before.

For some reason my memory is that we went for a drive on Halloween night. I’d dressed like a jester and after work I drove home quickly to change clothes. We always went for drives. We parked in this gravel lot off to the side of the road. We got into the back seat of his car and had sex for the first time. It was awkward and uncomfortable and not ideal in any way. 

We got back into the front seats and as I was closing my door I was calculating the days since my last period had started and 12,13….14. I ran that over in my head a few times and as the door closed I clearly remember thinking “Holy shit. I’m pregnant” 

I was bursting inside with panic and I, casually, ask, “what’s going to happen if I’m pregnant?” I have no memory of his answer because I was caught up in my own head.

I was nearly paralyzed with fear. Ironically my fear had nothing at all to do with what was going to happen with him. I never felt concerned about his reaction. I didn’t feel like he’d leave me. I literally have no idea why I didn’t even consider that that part would go south. I can’t explain it. I was in fear of having to tell my family. Not even my mom and dad, family, but my grandparents!! Omg. I could not imagine the horror, disappointed looks in their eyes, the wicked backlash. I’d just started to get back into their good graces. They thought I was a good mama. They loved me again and my cousins, oh shit, the black sheep black sheeped again! On the drive home I was already wondering if I could get away with never seeing my family again. Being sick for family functions for 18 years. My parents were in the middle of separating, both dating again, where the fuck was I gonna go? Neither one was going to want me dragging two kids into their newly single, living free, sleeping with all the people, life. 

So, I missed my period. Obviously. I saw that one coming. He’d ask every so often if I’d started yet. Nope. We kind of ignored it for awhile, you know, maybe it will just go away!!

We went for a drive. Parked deep into these bushes and started to talk about it. This was one of the conversations that I’ve had in my life that I will never stop feeling a pang one my chest when I replay it. 

Me: well, if you won’t marry me.. ( God, how stupid was I at this point?)

Him: marry YOU?! MARRY… YOU!? I’m not going to marry you, I’m with someone!!!!

I felt like I was going to throw up. How on this fucking planet had I managed to not once but twice find myself in the worst possible position in the world? And only by the age of 18!!!!! 

I curled up into a ball and looked out the window into the darkness. He drove me home. If I could travel back in time only one time for three minutes, that is where I’d go. I’d hug me tightly and tell me to be my bravest self. I’m crying while writing this part. 

It seemed to ramp up after that. He called my one day and asked if he could come over. He said he’d spoken with his cousin, whose girlfriend had had an abortion, and I’d need to do this and this and that, he’d get the money to pay for it and that was that.

I was already showing, as I’ve written about on here before. It was getting late. I didn’t want an abortion. I’d already had a baby and I now knew what this baby looked like at it’s gestation. I hated myself for getting into that position. I couldn’t think straight. My emotions were drowning out my thoughts. I was so so scared of the repercussions. Terrified. Alone. All alone. There was literally no person alive that I could go to or tell. I can feel my stomach churn to this day over my position. I couldn’t think of what I could do. 

We left my house really really early in the morning to get to the hospital before the protesters did. Because of them all the procedures were done by like 6:30am. 

I was a couple of weeks too far along to have an abortion but because the doc didn’t know that until it was too late he had to go through with it. I bled a lot. I had two nurses holding my arms down across my chest.One was whispering “ Go to a happy place” Where was that exactly? I was laying there in the dark of the morning, aborting a baby illegally( because of the gestation age) avoiding crowds of people wanting to call me a killer, a sinner, a whore. Hoping that I’d die from the blood loss. There was no escape to a happy place.

We went to his apartment. Pulled in to park and the radio was playing Keep Your Hands to Yourself by the Georgia Satellites. How’s that for a useless memory?

And my life went on….. Mostly.

Tracy