I grew up in an extremely small city in Ohio so small we were an hour away from the closest interstate. The town is also very secluded. Every person in my town is white and I have never met even met another person with a different ethnicity. Even though my family wasn’t raciest by any means every body else in this town is. I also went to a Catholic elementary/Middle school. I was bullied every day there and finally went to the public school around Valentines Day of my 7th grade year.

My best friend already went to school there so i feel right into her friend group. WE were for sure not the “popular” kids but we weren’t the “rudder” kids either. We were somewhere in the middle. I had never really had a boy notice me at all until my freshman year of high school. I gangster white boy, Charles, who everyone knew liked me and i thought he was so handsome and I was so lucky for him to like me. He had just turned 18 and I had just turned 15. We dated for about a month and he kept asking about sex. I was a virgin and I wasn’t ready at ALL.

One night, we were sitting in the back of my mom’s car and he kept asking and asking and asking. I didn’t know what to do so I gave in. I was very worried about getting pregnant but all my friends and himself told me if he “pulled out” I would be fine. I remember being in the back of my mom’s car and when he tried to stick it in I cried and screamed so hard and asked him to stop but he would say something like “I’m almost done” or “just a little longer”. I finally cried so hard and said stop so many times that he did. (At the time i didn’t think anything of it but knowing what I know now that is rape to a certain extent).

A few weeks later I noticed I had gained a few pounds. I was also very sleepy all the time and my mom asked if I was pregnant. “I don’t know” I said. She went to the story and bought a test and it came back positive. We both cried and cried and cried. I told my boyfriend and oddly enough he was excited. The next day she scheduled me an appointment that day with a doctor at a place called “pregnancy decisions” about a half hour away. At the appointment the doctor told me that my baby wasn’t growing right and that the pregnancy would basically terminate itself because I wasn’t far along at all. I wouldn’t even have to have a DNC or anything. My mom wanted me to have an abortion from the start because she was a teen mother and wanted so much more for me then what she was able to give myself and my two siblings.

So, in some ways, she was relived that it would all work itself out. She was relived that we wouldn’t have to make the difficult decision to have an abortion or keep the baby. (Adoption wasn’t an option for me. I couldn’t carry my baby to full term and then just send him or her off to some place, You can read about as many adoptive families as you want but you don’t really know who those people are. Also I would be bullied and ridiculed to no end if I gave my baby up for adoption. I would be ridiculed either way but with abortion no one had to know.)

After a few appointments of this doctor saying that it would work itself out and making us listen to the heart beat and had us watch a video about pregnancy choices, where the women talked about how they were going to hell. My mother and myself wanted a second opinion. We went to a clinic in Columbus Ohio and the doctor there told me my baby was growing fine and that I was 13 weeks along. The lady had lied to us and was trying to hold us out long enough until I hit my second trimester. (My mother and I both made it clear that if I was at that point then I would just keep my baby). My mother and I were outraged. I couldn’t believe what she had done to us. My mother and I went home and talked it out. I knew I needed to get an abortion but some parts of me wanted to keep my baby. I went in to have the abortion a few days later. I remember lying on the bed crying so hard I couldn’t breathe. I felt like I was going to hell. I felt like a terrible person. I felt everything. They wouldn’t let my mom come up with me and I was also terrified to have surgery for the first time. I had the abortion and I told my boyfriend that I had just miscarried. I went back to my normal life and we broke up.

Over half of my family still doesn’t know about it. I didn’t tell Charles the truth until this past summer when we reconnected. He was outraged. I had honestly forgot that I had lied to him. After that night we never talked again and I am now a college student at Ohio State university, studying Education. I am the happiest I have ever been. I regret getting pregnant every day but I don’t regret the abortion. Every day I think about what my child would be like but i know that I couldn’t give him or her the life they deserved. This is the first time I am sharing my story and i want to help educate girls about sex. I want to teach girls that they don’t owe sex to anyone and that they have a choice to what happens to their life and their lives.