The thought of having an abortion is scary to any woman, let alone someone who is in their early twenties, and having to come close to having to make that decision. As a person who grew up in a very traditional Hispanic household, the topic of having sex always consisted of being a sin and that if one did become pregnant, one had to follow through with the pregnancy. A couple of months ago, I went on a trip to Atlanta, Georgia, and had packed pads because I was supposed to get my period a couple of days before I left. Throughout my trip, I noticed I hadn’t gotten my period, and I became worried. So I took a pregnancy test, and even though it was negative, I started to feel paranoid and I began to feel nauseous after eating, anxious, and scared of the future. As the days kept going by, I still hadn’t gotten my period, and it had been a week late. I decided to wait a couple of days after returning home to take another test. Again, it was negative, and my period was late, but now it was getting close to two weeks. At this point, my boyfriend and I started to panic and talk about what we were going to do if I was pregnant. We both knew that we couldn’t have this potential baby, but I couldn’t bring myself to say that I would follow through with an abortion. To me, this was everything my family was against, and I knew they would be disappointed in me getting pregnant but even more disappointed in me having an abortion. This belief that I was raised with led us to look at planned parenthood and which ones near us performed abortions. Throughout this process, I couldn’t stop thinking about what would have happened if I had the baby and how my life would have been different. At the same time, I remembered how my boyfriend’s mom had mentioned that she would not want us to have kids any time soon and wouldn’t help us as much with caring for the baby. All these things made me feel even worse about something we didn’t know was true. A couple of days later, I got my period, and I was relieved that not only I wasn’t pregnant but that I didn’t have to make this terrifying decision. Although I didn’t have an abortion, I wouldn’t want another person to have to go through this experience of having to go against what they believe because of others. This experience altered my way of thinking about abortions, and it made me create my own beliefs instead of just going along with my parents and family members’ beliefs.
The Uncertainty
