His Response, My Response

If it's possible, I love him more now than I did before I got us into this.

He has been as supportive as anyone can ask for in this situation. We spent hours together, talking about our future together, our hopes for each other, our hopes for our family... And his support for me now.

It was difficult, at first, to get him to go beyond the expected "I will be there for you no matter what." I know that it's true, but I didn't want him to harbor any resentment toward me for being the one with the power to make the final decision. I asked him late that night what he wanted me to do. "I want you to do what's best for you, and what's best for us."

"Do you want me to have this baby?" I asked. There was no tiptoe-ing around it. I felt that it was necessary to ask this question. I would respect his decision, and perhaps change my decision for him, if he felt strongly enough.

He thought for a moment. "I would like this baby, actually. Very much so. But at the same time, I know that we don't have what it takes to be good parents right now. We both have a lot of debt, we're still in school, and we don't have any jobs lined up yet. I don't want this baby being born into a family that's not able to take care of it the way it deserves to be taken care of."

I cannot bear the thought of my child being born into this world without any sort of security from the parents. And to give the child away?

It is selfish. This decision is wholly, entirely, relentlessly, unforgivably selfish. We know that.

I have seen sites on the net masquerading as pro-choice sites, showing arms and legs of fetuses in pregnancies terminated at 9 or 10 weeks. But I have also seen Body Worlds, where the fetus was really not discernible as having human form until well into the second trimester. Why does that matter? Somehow, it does.

I believe that souls and spirits do not enter the body until the baby is about to be born. Nonetheless, I believe that there is a potential life inside of me. It is not a mere collection of cells. There is no satisfactory justification that can be made for the termination of this potential. I can only say that, weighing the welfare of us, and us and an unplanned baby which I have no means to care for, I must also take into account the future children which we want to have, and the welfare of the family as a whole.

We have been sent a guardian angel in the form of a shooting star. We will never forget the one which we could not have, but we will treasure the ones which we will have all the more because of it.

Tomorrow, I will make a call to the clinic. My boyfriend has offered to accompany me to the counseling session, but I don't know if I want to subject him to the atmosphere of desperation that permeates these places.

We are both a decade older now, within the space of a day, and more sober in our perspective on life. When you have to face a decision like this, I suppose you either numb yourself to its implications and consequences, or you accept them and allow them to affect you and age you.