Sometimes I wish I had had an abortion.

Don't get me wrong, I love my son. I love him when I get to see him, which is only very occasionally, and I marvel at how similar he is to me, even though I didn't raise him. I had him when I was 19; he was the consequence of an incredibly abusive and toxic relationship. We don't have to speak of it except that it hurt and hardened me, and never have I since been in a room in which I didn't automatically look for the exit.

I was young, and I was alone, and I was panicked, and I thought the good thing to do was to carry my son through the pregnancy, while I waddled through my college classes and my complicated feelings and traumas. I wanted to be a good mama to him; loving him lopsidedly with my crooked heart.

When I had first told my father about being pregnant, he wanted to know how. What I was wearing, what I was drinking, how I ended up so fucked up. He told me I should keep him; and raise him. He told me that it was the only right thing to do.

The bills piled up. I was on WIC and ate a lot of peanut butter sandwiches and drank a lot of milk. I went to the food bank a couple of times but I was embarrassed to be there because of my age and my pregnancy. Was I really such a cliche? Was I really that dumb that I ended up being a teen mother?

I asked my dad for help, and he said 'this is your problem to deal with.' I realized that he didn't want me to keep my son because he thought it was the best thing for me, I realized that my father wanted me to keep my son to punish me. How else could a grandfather abandon his first and only grandchild, how could the father of a daddy's girl abandon his darling daughter so easily?

I read a lot of books while lying on the couch, and I would balance the book on the round tautness of my belly. Sometimes I would feel him hiccup inside me and it made me want to curl around him; a little comma of love from this crooked girl. It hurt to feel like I wanted to give him the world, but I couldn't even afford the books for my class.

When he came it was quick and it was easy; to easy. The hard part was letting him go the next morning. I felt empty; a balloon that had slowly lost its air over the course of nine months. I felt bitterly jealous of people who had lost relatives to old age. When someone dies; they slowly fade and become less and less of a person in your mind, and more and more an idea, a feeling, a memory. Giving my son away felt like a betrayal, and with every passing day that he grew bigger, older, smarter, more experienced, he was becoming more and more a person. It was the opposite of death, and yet it hurt so much to know I wasn't going to be the one to watch him grow.

My dad and I stopped talking. I couldn't get over the feeling of abandonment, a distrust I had that he wouldn't do it again. The distrust he has in me, that I was nothing but a whore. What a disappointment I must still be to him.

I felt empty for a long time, but I had the stretchmarks that proved I had been full once; that I used to be someone's home. I started spending every waking hour looking for that feeling again. I wanted to be full of whatever I could put in my body. I binge-ate, I slept with anyone who looked at me, I swallowed any pill placed on my tongue.

I just wanted to go home to a place that had burnt down. I just wanted absolution for a sin that was sewn in red to the front of my dress.

With all the stuff happening with Roe vs Wade I've had to reexamine my feelings about my pregnancy. Am I glad I had him? I am glad he's here. I'm glad he's alive. I'm glad I get to love him from a distance. But sometimes watching him grow apart from me is so painful, so impossible. Sometimes I feel like only a sad, pitiful approximation of a whole person after he left and it hurts so bad that I wished he didn't exist at all. Sometimes I fear that the trauma and complex feelings he has to process; of being an adopted baby, will mess him up as badly as it messed me up. I am pro-choice, but sometimes writing this makes me a traitor. Sometimes I wonder what would've happened if I had had an abortion; if I hadn't gone through nine months and more of humiliation, isolation, and pain. I am glad I at least had the freedom to choose, that despite a parent telling me that my child was not only my responsibility but my penalty, I still was able to make a choice that was good for me.

I don't know if motherhood is in my future. I've had partners in my past who have wanted children and I have pictured it happily with them. I worry that having a baby won't fill the hole of that loss; that I'll feel like I'm being disloyal to my firstborn. I worry that I don't deserve it. Those are issues I'm working through. But motherhood should be chosen. It shouldn't be forced on people who don't want it, or aren't ready for it. I know that if I choose it, it will be because there was so much support and love behind me that I would know that my baby would be taken care of, this time.

I used to be pro-life until I experienced how me and my unborn baby were treated. How there was no support for us, and in fact, there was a cruel glee in seeing how I suffered for my mistake, for trying to find love in a bad place. I wouldn't wish that betrayal on anybody. I don't think abortion is easy, but I do think it's a better option than treachery and judgement.

If you've had an abortion, I see you and I support you. I love you and I hope you feel that. If you haven't but wish you had, I see you too. I can understand that feeling because I've experienced it myself. It takes a lot of bravery to lead a true life in this rocky world. My crooked heart is yours.