It was 1983. I had just enrolled in college. I was fit, happy and excited to be in a real university setting at age 22. I had delayed my education because I was originally pretty irresponsible right out of high school, but now I had a steady boyfriend, I had worked for several years, and my parents were supportive.

I was studying biology so my first class several times a week was a zoology lab at 8:30. I was taking Phys. Ed., running and weight lifting, and I was proud to be physically fit for the first time in my life.

I started feeling strange a few weeks after starting school, mostly tired and feeling like I wanted to cry. I was confused. Some days when I was running I had a pain in my stomach. Some days I couldn’t make it back to my car without sitting down on the sidewalk, exhausted. I would burst into tears, sobbing because I didn’t think I could get back up to walk the rest of the way to my car. I started throwing up every morning exactly at nine o’clock. I remember running out of zoology lab to the bathroom.

Eventually, I went to the university clinic and asked to see one of the psychiatric nurses. I said I couldn’t stop crying, and I was just upset all the time. She took me down to the women’s clinic and they said they were going to give me a pregnancy test. I was confused. A pregnancy test? I had been having unprotected sex since I was 16, and I had never been pregnant. I was sterile! They insisted.

A few days later, someone called my home and asked me to come in to the clinic. I was given the news that I was pregnant. I was asked what I wanted to do. I had only one answer, I want an abortion.

I had known since I was 14 years old that I would never be a mother. I hated children and I knew I was mentally ill. I had been to numerous sessions with psychiatrists with no diagnosis but I knew without a doubt that I would abuse any child I had and possibly, maybe probably, kill it. There was no choice, only one option.

Fortunately, my boyfriend already had one child by another woman and did not want any more children. He agreed and he put up half the money; my parents put up the other half. It was done. I am grateful to this day.

I immediately had my tubes tied so that it would never happen again. I had to have two doctors sign off on the procedure because of my young age, but I managed to convince them that I never, ever wanted children. I knew I should never have them. I was right, and I have never changed my mind nor do I have any regrets.