The Choice.

I knew I had a choice to make.  What was I going to tell my mother?  A woman who raised me to have such high morals and would never understand the details of the horror of that night that lead me to this. What was I going to tell my Employer? I loved my job. I loved being a nanny to these three wonderful girls that had brought so much joy into my world for the last 16 months. What my Bishop told me, had left me confused and shocked. “In this situation the church does allow abortion without guilt.” Without guilt? How could I not feel guilty? I had been drinking. I took what I thought was going to be a kiss, into a fast paced race to sex. Sex I didn’t even know was happening until it was too late. How could I be so naive?  How was I going to begin to explain what happen to me over the last six weeks to anyone?  These thoughts and more invaded my mind in a rage of anxiety. I was headed to the doctors and had to face the truth for real, a truth I already knew in my heart, but needed the firm confirmation that it was real. I was pregnant and it was from a night I could barely comprehend.

 I walked into the office and checked myself in. I sat down and looked around at the pregnant women around me. Some were so happy and one woman looked very uncomfortable and tired. She had a little one near her, as well as showing her baby bump of at least 6 months. The different expressions on the faces of each woman were different. Mine had to be the look of confusion. I closed my eyes and said a prayer. “Please Lord help me be calm and honest. Help me tell my doctor everything he needed to know so that I could get the help I needed with this decision.”

When my doctor came in the room he was looking at my initial information and looked up at me and said, “So you think you’re pregnant?” I couldn’t even believe it when I heard it flowing out of my mouth trying to catch the words in the air as they spilled out. “I was raped.” I said it out loud for the first time. ‘I was raped.’  The doctor’s look went from a corky smile to dismay. He sat down in the chair next to me and took my hand. “What happened? Tell me everything.”

I went over the night’s events in with him. I told him how I ended up in his house and the interest I had in the architectural details of his home. I told him I had been drinking, but not enough to feel like I couldn’t drive. I was the soberest of the bunch at the club that night. I had only had a couple of drinks at the beginning of the night and a wine cooler about an hour before we left. I was going to be spending the night at a girl friend’s house, and nearby was this strangers home. A stranger who had bummed a ride with us that night. I barely even talked to him at the club. I was too busy dancing for show.  It was something that I and my dance partner Nick were asked to do on a regular basis. Couples dancing, not pole dancing; I would tell people that often to make it more appropriate somehow, but it wasn’t appropriate. The dress, the style the excitement it brought the crowd. I was a former ballroom dancer and found a ‘Latin Lover’, well a son of a mobster who too loved to dance. The scene I portrayed to my public was not one of innocence.

I then told my Doctor the details that lead to my rapist’s apology and the hope it gave me that we would be working this problem out together. Except, I shortly found out he was back with a former girlfriend that was keeping him from doing anything to help me. The anger I had towards him and her lead to a second night of total outrage. Three weeks later from the first horrible night, I was so drunk.  I was devastated, ashamed, confused and sure I was pregnant but not officially. Other than a home pregnancy test with a light positive, I really wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure how accurate anything was. The only solution I came up with, was too drink some more.

 That night I had drank about 16 wine coolers and at least 6 Corona’s, maybe more. For the first time in my life I was drunk. I wasn’t tipsy. I didn’t just drink too much; I drank enough to be dead by morning.  But I wasn’t dead the next morning, I was just more scared than ever when I woke with a huge headache and sense of agony. I slowly got out of bed and I realized I was in my employer’s room. They were out of town for the week. They took the kids on a family vacation. They usually would bring me on such trips so that they could have me be there for the girls when needed, but this time it was a family reunion and I felt I should stay behind. I wish they had taken me with them.

 I looked around the room and recalled the bump on my head. It was still huge and I could almost feel the pain of it crashing against the back board of the bed.  I slowly got in the shower and as the hot water fell on my body, I felt a rush of flash memories of the night’s events. The drinking, the crowed room of friends and other’s I had met at the club along the way. Wait, I was up here with Chris! I remembered.  Chris was a friend of mine. He was actually the boyfriend of another friend. “What were we doing?”  I asked myself and then I remembered. He followed me up to my employer’s room. He grabbed me and pushed me on the bed. I kicked him but he picked me up and threw me up towards the top of the bed. I remembered him on me, as I was screaming and watching others’ walk in, then thump! I hit my head so hard on the back of the bed I must have been knocked out.  I didn’t know how many men raped me that night, but I found 5 condemns on the side of the bed, counting the couple in the trash can.  At that moment I was more concerned about the confusion of this day. This moment in the doctor’s office of having to look at him and say, “I don’t know for sure when I got pregnant.” I was sure that it was the first event. I was sure because of spiritual prompting I had that morning as I woke up with him on top of me as I slowly moved to get out of the house. I just lost my virginity and I heard a voice all too clear. “You’re pregnant. It’s a boy and he is for another mother.”  I left that part out, as I explained my concern to the doctor.

After I finished my crazy story and thought for sure he was going to recommend a stay at  a mental hospital, he paused for a few moments and said, “In this situation I would recommend an abortion. Let me do an exam and see if you are pregnant and then we will go from there.”   He confirmed to me that since the last rape event was only 4 days ago it was more likely that if I was pregnant it was from the first time.  My urine sample and blood were drawn and after what seemed to be hours, but really 30 minutes, the doctor came in and confirmed my worst fear. I was indeed pregnant. There was also alcohol in my urine which meant I was toxic. I had drunk so much that I should have been dead.  He was baffled by my astonishing miracle of life and said If I chose to keep this baby, he would be doing several ultrasounds and was concerned of the welfare of the embryo I was now carrying.  It was clear to me, he wanted me to get an abortion, if I didn’t miscarry first.

Great! I now had two people telling me to get an abortion. My Bishop assuring me it was alright and now my Doctor. I was more confused than ever. I couldn’t shake the feeling that abortion was not the answer.  I thought about it for a week. I went over every detail I could remember and what lead me to the first night. The night I became a vessel to another’s child.  I felt as those this child was here for a reason and although I didn’t understand why it had to happen to me, I knew he was to be another’s son. 

I called my mother and gave her the dreaded news.  I couldn’t tell my mother the details. I left out the date rape explanation and just told her I messed up and now I was pregnant. I asked her what she thought of abortion. I knew the answer. She was against it.  I knew she was. I was raised in the LDS church and was taught that it was wrong. She had initially hung up the phone on me, but 20 minutes later called back and we finished our conversation. She was in shock. How could her eldest daughter, one of virtue and always active in the church ever do such a thing.  I was her ‘good child’, the one who was always honest with her and never got into trouble. I couldn’t get into all the details that lead to the mistakes I chose to make over the last 4 months. I kept it simple. Simple was the only way not to hurt my mother more than she could bare. She suggested LDS family services and made the call for me as soon as we hung up. It was like she knew I was going to be putting him up for adoption. I know now, she flat out, just wanted me too.

 I immediately called the doctor back on Friday after I saw him and left a message for the nurse. I was keeping my child and to schedule the first ultrasound. I wasn’t sure of what my next step was, but I was sure I was having a baby and that abortion was not an option. I wanted it to be an option. I wanted to feel that it was alright to agree with both my Bishop and Doctor.  I wanted it to all be over with and pretend like it never happened. I wanted the chance to get through this sin and what led me here and move on with my life. I was going to take the hard route. The path of resistance. The journey down the next several months of my life that would bring so much change into my future.

Even now, as I reflect on the past and I wonder what would have happened if I just had gotten the abortion. I wonder if I would have ever told my mother anything. I wonder if I would have still had a chance with the love of my life. The love I lost of a man who I was certain to marry after his mission. I know I would have had to tell him about it, but I would have waited until after his mission instead of having to tell him while he was serving the Lord.  So many things would have changed in my life if I had chosen to terminate the pregnancy, but the biggest change would have been that my son, that precious soul that was selflessly given to another family, would not have come when he was suppose too. Still today as I write this, I know I made the right decision and I will no longer wonder the ‘what ifs’ in life. I could have made better choices after I gave him up, but my roller coaster ride of life has made me who I am now. Mistakes or no mistakes we all have choices that are made every day that change the course of our life. In faith and hope our Lord can lead us back on the right path and heal past wounds and lead us in a direction of eternal life. Every spirit has the right to be here, and for whatever reason God allows these souls in to the world under such dreadful circumstances of all types, we all are His children and abortion will never be an option I even think of again.