As a teenager (and kind of embarrassingly, as an adult), I took the morning after pill several times. When I was 26 and had been in a serious relationship for almost a year, I got pregnant. We had been using the pull out method because I had had bad side effects with hormonal birth control and we both didn’t like the way condoms felt.

I got pregnant. For some reason I never really believed it would happen, but it did. I took two tests a couple days apart. Even though it had only been a couple weeks, I started to get teary and my breasts got bigger and sore. Neither of us were ready for a baby—I had just finished grad school and was looking to start my career. I had an abortion. I still wonder what our baby would have been like (we are still together), but I know it wasn’t the right time for me, or for him.