It was the end of winter break when I learned I was pregnant: my first winter break since transferring into an extremely competitive college. I’d spent four years toiling away at community college to transfer and I was reaping the rewards. My boyfriend of three years was only a semester from graduating and I wanted to marry him. When I told him nervously that I was pregnant he looked me in the eyes and said he didn’t want it, that he never, EVER wanted children, and didn’t I know that already?

I looked into raising that baby on my own; I checked out family student housing and tried to figure out how much in student loans I could take out but I was already maxed out. Plus I was due in September, right at the beginning of what was supposed to be my last year of college. I knew the “father” would never be present and that if I was to have this baby I’d have to do it completely alone. My children deserve to have a father, not a sperm donor, and they deserve to not live in poverty, which they most certainly would have if I’d carried that fetus to term. I had the abortion and moved out. Old mutual friends tell me he’s a jobless alcoholic ten years later. Thank G-d I escaped that nightmare.