I stayed. I shouldn't have. I got pregnant.

I was nineteen. He was my first. He was sweet and wonderful and loving and protective...in the beginning. That changed. I stayed. I shouldn't have. I got pregnant. He said I couldn't keep it. I made the appointment, he gave me the money when he dropped me off. I filled out forms. I laid on a table during an ultrasound. They said no when I asked to see the screen. I went to sleep. I woke up. He picked me up and dropped me off at my home.

We didn't talk about it. I didn't cry, then. Eventually I left him, after another pregnancy that I didn't terminate...a son. I look back at that time and know how wrong it would have been to bring a child into that world of abuse. I made the right choice. Choice. There was no guilt, no regret. There was not even resentment. I am the mother now that I could not have been then.