I have been pregnant three times in my life. I have only one real person to show for those pregnancies. The first was aborted, the second was miscarried, and the third is the child that I was blessed with.

For many years after the abortion, I would feel guilty for being able to become pregnant when there are so many women in the world that were a better fit for parenthood than myself at the time. I was 21 years old.

This is the story about the first pregnancy.

There was a man that was to be my lover off an on for 10 plus years. We had years of celibacy between us with just the friendship to pass the time. For years I thought he was my one and only soul mate and we were destined to be together. I still believe he was one of my soul mates. Age has given me the knowledge and belief that we can have more than one soul mate in our life time.

I remember the night I went to tell him that I was pregnant. He was working late at the studio. He was a photographer you see, all artsy and hip and chic and cool. He was anything but hip, yet talent dripped from his fingertips like rain water.

I walked into the old red brick, four story studio building that I saw every day as I arrived and departed from my place of employment.

As luck would have it, he got a job that was the street over from the street in which my office building was. Purely coincidence. We had a lot of those “coincidences” over the course of those 10 plus years.

He knew I had something serious to discuss so we walked up to the top floor of the studio which was the attic. The windows were dusty as was the floor and everything stored up there.

The scene is forever etched in my mind as if I am watching a movie. We stood far apart as I struggled to find the words to tell him.

My first reaction was not to tell him, but I was there and I had to have my say. I explained the situation and I got the feeling he already knew. We were like that, not always needing words to know what the other was experiencing.

I quickly let him know that I did not plan to carry the pregnancy to full term. I was not ready, I had been drinking and using drugs very heavily although at this point, I was newly sober and terrified.

I remember exactly what I was wearing the day he picked me up at my mother’s house for the procedure. A blue sweater knit top with thin white stripes, and matching skirt with my sexy boots. I thought I was hot stuff when I wore those boots. Not that day though. That is what got me into this mess and I felt like the lowest creature on the planet.

As I mentioned before, this man has talent. While waiting for him to arrive, my mother suggested that maybe, I should not have the abortion because he could be famous one day. You can imagine my jaw dropping to the floor. She was the one that taught me to see people from the inside out, and certainly never to use other people as collateral.

I think she was trying to say anything she could think of to have me not go through with this. We were Catholic, and maybe just maybe she didn’t want me to spend my afterlife in eternal fire.

I tried to explain to her that I would be doing the child an injustice if I were to try and bring it into the world right now. I would have a child when I could live right by that child.

The down side to this man that was my soul mate is he had trouble with emotions. He was unsure on how to express them, talk about them, and probably even feel them. We had that in common; I was not capable of those things myself back then.

This trait of his made my experience a little less than stellar. I mean, I wasn’t expecting the abortion to be a party. Nothing about it is supposed to be positive. It isn’t. And it wasn’t.

It was horrible and there are permanent scars from the experience. I have not ever regretted it, but I have experienced deep emotional pain that was my due. It is the most unnatural act that I can think of. Aside from killing your live children.

Many years later that man and I would finally be able to talk about it, but only a little. He thought the baby would be a girl and I thought it would be a boy. We both have children of our own now and we are married to different people.

To know us then, you never would have anticipated either of us giving up being single and all the freedom that comes with that, nor either of us having children. Yet, here we are.

I am not proud of what led me to the abortion, but it isn’t hiding out in the shame box anymore. By allowing myself to be human and forgiving myself, I am a better person. My errors in judgment are fewer and far between.

A very wise nun told me once, “the mistake isn’t in the falling down. it’s in the not getting back up.”