I was in a McDonald’s bathroom when I found out I was pregnant.
I had just bought a pregnancy test at the CVS next door, and my anxiety was through the roof. So, I’d walked out of the drug store, headed to Mickey D’s, and gone straight to the restroom, CVS bag in hand.
I needed to know—even though I had a gut-wrenching suspicion as to why I was late.
I placed the pregnancy test on the baby changing table in the handicapped stall and waited. Three minutes felt like three hours.
When the two little pink lines appeared, my stomach churned, and I crouched down into a ball, my back against the wall, my head in my hands.
Motherfucker.
I was in my early twenties—and YES, plenty of people have babies in their early twenties.
But I wasn’t sure if I was one of those people.
To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted kids. Like, ever. I hadn’t spent much time thinking about it. I certainly wasn’t one of those girls who had grown up playing with dolls or babies.
My preferred play had been with Star Wars action figures and pretending I was Indiana Jones.
Dreaming of being a mommy had simply never been on my radar.
But sitting there on the floor in the McDonald’s bathroom, a new reality came into view: I was pregnant. And I didn’t know what to do about it.
Of course, I knew how it had happened.
I was in a semi-new relationship with Kevin—a man who would become my husband.
He had been a one-night stand that worked out—and we were crazy in lust with each other. That lust had begun to turn into love.
We fucked all the time. I really shouldn’t have been surprised that birth control failed.
But all of that being said, it was still a new relationship. We were figuring things out. I was planning to leave and move somewhere new, and let’s just say he was on board for coming along.
That’s when it hit me.
I saw a clear picture of my future: I would become everything I never wanted to be.
One of those people who never left their hometown.
A woman who was forced to get “it taken care of” or marry out of necessity because I got pregnant and needed to be close to my parents for childcare.
Because otherwise, I couldn’t afford help since I would be stuck working a shitty job.
Seriously, my whole life flashed before my eyes. It was only then that I began to cry. The dreams I had envisioned for myself had slipped away in a matter of minutes.
Kevin got home from work later that day. During the summers off from college, he worked for a local moving company. And let me tell you, there isn’t anything sexy about humping boxes.
It is hard work.
I felt panicky as I got ready to tell him my news. I was going to ruin his future.
Sure, he could suck it up, take responsibility.
And in doing so could potentially be subjected to menial labor for the rest of his life.
All just to pay for a family he didn’t intend on having this early in life.
I didn’t even try to beat around the bush. The moment he answered the door, I blurted out, “I’m pregnant!” and broke into hot, messy tears—full-on ugly cry face.
To his credit, he barely flinched and caught me in his arms, ushering me into his house (thankfully empty of his parents).
“I’ll do whatever you want to do,” he told me softly.
If I didn’t know I fully loved him yet, I was certain of my love at that moment.
“What do you mean?” I asked, looking for more information… testing the waters.
“I mean, if you want to have it, then we will. And I’ll marry you today.”
As earnest as he was and as idyllic as his words seemed, I also understood we were in the early stages; we were too new together. If there was a chance of us working out, this mistake was sure to be the thing that would break us. Maybe not today, maybe not in a year or two… but let’s face it: the odds were against us.
I simply told him that I needed to think.
And think I did. All the while battling morning sickness, which was absolutely awful.
But in the end, I came to my decision: I wanted to have an abortion.
I wasn’t ready for a baby, and I also felt that the rest of my life should not be penalized simply because I enjoyed having sex with my boyfriend.
I told Kevin what I wanted to do, and he said okay. Never once did he look as if I had just lifted the Sword of Damocles off his neck. He just asked me what he could do to help.
I didn’t fucking know. I didn’t even know how to go about getting an abortion.
I scheduled an appointment with my OB/GYN.
Wrong move. So naïve.
When I went in for the exam, she automatically assumed I was going forward with the pregnancy—I was about eight weeks along—and within minutes, she said, “You’re due on December 23rd.”
“I seriously didn’t need to know that,” I countered.
She looked confused.
“I’m not having it,” I said. “But I do need to know where to go to have an abortion.”
She nodded her head sympathetically and suggested Planned Parenthood, providing me with a phone number.
When I called to make an appointment, they asked me for some details and told me that they could get me in about three weeks later.
Three fucking weeks.
I would be at the tail end of the first trimester.
My pants were already tight.
“There’s nothing sooner?” I pressed.
“No, we are one of a handful of clinics that services the Metro Detroit area,” the receptionist replied, not unkindly. She sounded exhausted—just like me.
Resigned, I hung up the phone.
At this point, Kevin was the only person who knew what was going on, and I desperately needed someone to confide in.
I turned to my best friend Babs.
She was newly married with a house of her own—ironically, only minutes from the Planned Parenthood clinic that I was scheduled to show up to in three weeks’ time.
When I told her, she listened without judgment.
“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”
I told her it was.
She said, “For the record, I think you would make a good mom, and I like Kevin. But if this is what you want to do, you should come to my house and spend the weekend when you do it. Dan and I will take care of you.”
And that’s what we ended up doing.
The night before the procedure, Kevin and I headed to Babs and Dan’s house. My appointment was the next morning at seven a.m.—there was no denying that I was nervous. I had no idea what to expect.
Babs insisted I eat breakfast, even though I wasn’t hungry. Nevertheless, she shoved about four pieces of toast down my throat.
Kevin and I left for the clinic. When we arrived, we were greeted with the typical anti-choice trolls who had nothing better to do on a Saturday morning than harass and torment women who were already facing the worst day of their lives.
I like to think that maybe they were a bit quieter when Kevin and I walked past them and through the front doors of Planned Parenthood. (Kevin is well built, and I like to tell him he has a resting mad face—I have little doubt that he would have beaten the ass of any person who called me a baby-killer.)
Sitting in the very, very full waiting room, I waited for my name to be called. I knew, ultimately, that the abortion itself wouldn’t take long—but I had no idea the absolute hell that Planned Parenthood was legally required to put me through because of the Handmaid’s Tale-esque laws inflicted by the state of Michigan.
What do I mean? I’ll explain.
First, they take you back to collect medical information—and, of course, to pay for the abortion. It was about $250 at this point in time. No way does Planned Parenthood give out abortions like Halloween candy. There is a cost.
And at this point in my life—in my early twenties—$250 was an absolute fortune.
I handed over the cash. In retrospect, $250 was a small price to pay to restore my future.
Some of this is blurry, but I remember saying, “Doing this today… that doesn’t mean that I won’t ever have a baby, right?”
The woman behind the desk was nothing but kind.
“Of course not. You can have a baby whenever you’re ready. On your terms. When the time is right for you.” She paused because I had started to get weepy. “You don’t have to do this today, you know that, right?”
I did know that. But I also knew that right now was not the right time for me to become a mother and take care of another human being.
Once my tears stopped, I was sent back to the waiting room.
“What happens now?” asked Kevin.
I told him I didn’t know.
Oh, that ignorance was lovely because a moment later, I was escorted, along with about ten other women, to a room that had a large TV.
State law required a video of an abortion be shown in graphic detail. Horror movies had nothing on this shit. It was one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen. And all in an effort to scare a woman into accepting her fate and running from the clinic screaming.
Whatever motherfucking politician dreamed this shit up was not going to force me into giving up. So, I watched.
Eventually, we were all dismissed back out to the waiting room.
About forty minutes later, I was once again summoned.
This time, I was led to an exam room, where they slathered jelly on my stomach and performed an ultrasound. A rapid pitter-patter emitted from a speaker, and a grainy black-and-white image appeared on the screen.
I turned my head to look at the wall.
The ultrasound tech said, “I’m required by law to tell you that you need to look at the screen.”
More draconian, woman-hating bullshit.
I did as I was told.
“That’s the fetus, and what you hear is the heartbeat.”
I replied, “Are we done here?”
Thankfully, we were, and she wiped the goo off my tummy, sending me back to the waiting room.
More time passed—and finally, finally, finally, I was called back for the actual abortion.
Kevin gave me a hug and kissed me. He told me everything would be okay.
But I was terrified.
Walking back to the procedure room, I found myself shaking.
When I got to the room, I took my pants and underwear off and laid on the table, my feet in stirrups.
Now, some of this is hard to remember because I practically blacked out. But I know that the doctor came in, and there was this big machine, a vacuum, I guess. A nurse stood at my side and held my hand because I was crying. They gave me a local anesthetic, but to be honest, I don’t recall that it worked at all because when they started the abortion, the pain was so intense I saw stars and thought I was going to throw up.
The whole thing only lasted about a minute, but it was honestly the longest minute of my life.
When it was over, the nurse—I cannot for the life of me remember what she looked like, but I’ll always remember what she said—whispered, “It’s okay. It’s all okay now. It’s over, you’re going to be okay.”
And then they took me back to a recovery room where I rested with all of the other women who had experienced collective trauma.
When I was finally discharged, I was given a couple of antibiotics and a new prescription for birth control—hopefully, the kind that wouldn’t fail me again.
But here’s the rub. That’s not where the story ends—and anti-choice zealots create this vision of a woman dancing away from the clinic as if getting an abortion was the easiest fucking thing she’s ever done. Like picking up a morning iced coffee at Starbucks.
It’s not like that at all.
Kevin practically had to carry me from the clinic while all of those assholes outside jeered at me.
He went to the drugstore and filled my prescriptions while I lay prone in the front seat of the car. Then, we went back to Babs’ house.
Deposited on her couch, my friend immediately started mothering me, taking care of me, making sure I was comfortable.
She offered to make food—even though my appointment had been at seven o’clock in the morning, it was now well past two p.m. or so. I was exhausted and just wanted to shut my eyes.
But I also realized I needed to pee.
Getting up from the couch, I hobbled to the bathroom. I was wearing the maxi pad to end all maxi pads, and as I went to sit on the toilet, a cramp—actually a contraction—ripped through my uterus, and blood splashed all over Babs’ white tile floor. (What they don’t tell you is that you end up having contractions for days after the procedure… this shit is not a walk in the park.)
Absolutely mortified, I started grabbing Kleenex to wipe up my mess as I cried. I was so embarrassed.
After all of that, I finally fell asleep on Babs’ couch, only waking a bit later in the day to eat the spaghetti she had made for dinner.
Kevin was dutiful. He never left my side. And he was never grossed out about any of the stuff that was going on with my body in the abortion’s aftermath. Even days later, when I laid on his bed with a blood-soaked maxi pad between my legs, crying in pain because of the contractions I was still having, he simply held me and told me he loved me.
At that moment, I knew I was going to marry this man. And I also knew that the abortion was the right thing—because it was going to enable us to have a future together. A future that was right for us—and not one that we settled for or were forced into.
All of this happened two decades ago.
Kevin and I have now been married for almost twenty years—and there has never been a day when I have regretted terminating that pregnancy.
During that time, we decided that kids were not in our future. We discussed it, made a list of pros and cons, and realized we wanted something different out of life… and that children were not going to be involved.
Now, do we begrudge anyone else their kids?
Absolutely not.
If that’s what someone chose… if that is what someone wanted for themselves… then that’s wonderful.
That, indeed, is the beauty of having a choice.
Admittedly, when the goddamn Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in the summer of 2022, Kevin and I were away on a group trip with all of his cousins. As the news flashed across my phone that I had just been made a second-class citizen along with every other woman in the United States of Gilead, emotions flooded through me.
Sadness—knowing that young women facing an unplanned pregnancy in their twenties had just been stripped of the right that enabled me to have the last twenty years of life on my terms.
Disbelief—that a group of Christian fascists had been able to take away the bodily autonomy of American women.
Disgust—that the goddamn patriarchy was alive and well… and puppeteering women’s bodies as usual.
And finally…
Blind fucking rage.
Ultimately, having an abortion was a turning point in my life. Without it, I wouldn’t be where I am today.
An abortion is reproductive healthcare. It is not birth control—let’s get rid of that myth (and if you read this story and honestly think that any person wants to go through all of that trauma instead of wearing a condom or popping a pill, then, honestly fuck you, too).
Now, it might not have been the choice every person would have made. And that’s totally fine. Every person should have the opportunity to chart their course and pick the path that is best for them.
Overturning Roe v. Wade won’t get rid of abortion… it just makes getting one less safe and more harrowing for women who do.
