The Backstory

The somewhat condensed version:

At seventeen and a half years old, I discovered, unhappily, that I was pregnant. On one hand, the decision was easy: I was pro-choice, college-bound, and desperate to get away from my small-town upbringing and unhappy family of origin. On the other hand, the decision was not easy at all: I already loved the growing life within me, and my boyfriend would have been thrilled to marry and have kids. Everyone in our lives would have supported us, though at first there'd be a major scandal to live down. A very major scandal. I couldn't face it. Bottom line, I felt like I was doing the wrong thing, but couldn't consider the alternative.

I went to college, my boyfriend and I broke up, and then I dropped out and in and out of college, depressed. I did a lot of wandering around the country, supporting myself as an artist, craftsperson, musician, peer counselor, migrant farm worker, and all around odd-jobber. And finally, I went back to college at 31, to complete a degree in art.

Exactly seventeen and a half years after my first pregnancy, I found myself pregnant again. This time I was extremely happy about it. I had just married my love of ten years, and this was our first attempt at conception. But two months later, I miscarried. We tried again, but conception didn't come so easily this time, and I fell into depression. I regretted my teenage abortion, and everything else that had taken place in my life as a result of that decision. In the process of working my way out of that depression, I took a job as an abortion counselor.

And then I found out I was pregnant again. This one lasted one week longer than the previous pregnancy. I miscarried at eleven weeks, on Wednesday, November 9th, 2005, less than two weeks ago.

There you have it, the backstory in a nutshell.