I was 18. I found out I was pregnant the night I graduated high school.
I'm a baby person. I love them and I've always wanted one, so I was kind of excited. I graduated and the next day I went down to Oklahoma to visit my mom. I guess I asked too many questions, and my mom asked me if I was pregnant. I felt better telling her the truth than lying to her. She didn't take it too well. She felt like she's the mother and she should be having children, not me. Even though I graduated high school and had a diploma in my backpack, she still saw me as eight years old.
It was just kind of one of those things... something that was a really grand idea, and everything was gonna be good and everything was gonna to be perfect, and reality hadn't set in. I was 18. I had just gotten out of high school. I didn't have a job. I didn't have a car. I had basically nothing but myself.
I went to go stay with my aunt. She said, What are you going to do? I told her that I was thinking about [having an abortion], but that I hadn't come to a conclusion. She told me that she experienced three abortions. Well, it came to terms of money next. This isn't a cheap thing and somebody's got to pay for it. My aunt had the wild notion that my grandfather should pay for this. Let me paint a picture of my grandfather for you: He's a firm believer that children should be seen but never heard. He is a devout Christian-- think Baptist. He and my mother believe that if you really do bad, God's gonna send a thunderbolt from the sky and you're gonna die.
My aunt told my grandpa that I was pregnant and that I had decided to have an abortion and that we needed the money. He was really mad at me and told me that I basically threw away my life. Then he told my aunt that at least it won't be him that burns in hell, it'll just be us two. My grandpa thought that I should talk to my other aunt first, before we arranged anything.
My other aunt is a devout Christian. She told me that I could live with her for a couple of months and then go into this pregnancy teen house, so I could have the kid and we could put it up for adoption. I just didn't know what to say, because I was kind of caught. What I didn't see right away was that I was really caught in a battle between my two aunts. One was very pro-choice. One was very pro-life. They were each taking one arm and pulling me in both directions, and they were determined that I needed to choose a side. I was kind of lost.