Roxanne

i would like to tell you the story of roxanne.

i was a 20 year old sophomore in college working full time as a manager at a local pizza hut. i had been with my boyfriend since senior year in high school, and we were living together at his mother's house.

i got pregnant. it was unplanned, unexpected, and unwanted. i was told by doctors that i could not have children. i had severe pcos and was, in fact, on the pill to try and help regulate my system to make the cysts less painful. hilarious, because if i had not been on the pill, i never would have gotten pregnant. i got sick over the holidays in 2008, and i missed three days of pills from christmas eve until the day after christmas. i either got pregnant christmas eve or new years eve.

it was february 13th, and my boyfriend and I had just gone to see the new Clint Eastwood flick about a car at the movies. we stopped by walmart on the way home to get a few things, and for some reason i got a pregnancy test. i needed to go get more birth control pills since my year long supply had run out and since i don't like surprises, i told him i'd rather just take one now and be safe and not worry. we got home after midnight, making it officially valentine's day. i peed on the stick. two lines showed up. i was, indeed, pregnant. i remember sitting on the toilet, staring at that stupid stick, wondering if this was a bad dream. i remember crying. shaking my head. denial.

i went back into our bedroom, where he was playing xbox with his 13 year old brother. i asked the brother to get out. i told the boyfriend. we both cried. we both freaked out. he yelled at me, i yelled at him. we cried more. then we both decided it had to be abortion. we had to get an abortion, we couldn't be parents. this wasn't happening to us.

we went to planned parenthood the next day, hoping that maybe i had gotten a bad test and that i wasn't pregnant. we paid $10 bucks to learn i was, in fact, pregnant. we sat in that tiny room with a woman spinning a little calendar dial to tell me i was about nine weeks pregnant. she was wrong (calculating based on periods is unreliable). she asked us if we needed any other information. i got a booklet about abortion. we left.

we finally broke down about a week later and told his mom. she was EXCITED. she told us we were having a baby. i remember her face when we both told her... we wanted an abortion. she hugged us, and told us it was up to us, but that she'd be a grannie if she could. i remember she left a note on our door about something or other signed "grannie(maybe?)" as if to question if we would allow her that status.

his mother changed our minds. we decided against abortion. also because... well. we loved each other. we wanted to be together, we wanted to get married.... abortion doesn't lead to any of those things, does it?

i'll finish later.