NYC-Feature Story

Special Topic:
Ready or Not: Teens write about facing pregnancy

(This story originally appeared in New Youth Connections)
Sarah’s Choice
After her abortion, my friend became a birth control advocate.

By Anonymous

My friend Sarah got pregnant about two years ago. We were both 15 at the time. I remember feeling shocked because I didn’t think something like this would happen to her, or to any of my friends. I knew she was having sex, but I’d never considered the possibility of Sarah having a child.

She and her boyfriend had been together for nine months and for the most part had practiced safe sex. “We’d always be prepared,” she said when I interviewed her recently, “but then we ran out [of condoms] and we’d just end up doing it.”

When I asked her why they took the risk of having unprotected sex, she told me, “I think it was that feeling of teenage immortality—the carelessness that comes with that. There’s no excuse for it, but that’s what it was.”

After skipping her period for almost two months and starting to swell in weird places, she went to a Planned Parenthood clinic. She’d already taken a home pregnancy test. It had come out negative, but she didn’t trust it. At the clinic, Sarah was told she was 9 ½ weeks pregnant.

Not Ready to Be a Mother

Sarah realized that the best thing for her was to have an abortion. Getting pregnant at 15 “wasn’t in the plan.” She’d always dreamed of college, a career. She also realized that she wouldn’t “be able to offer the child the attention that is so needed, especially in the beginning, a proper environment [and] proper parenting.”

At 15, she still needed heavy parenting herself. There was no way she could suddenly go into the “parenting mindset.”

Sarah was already pro-choice. “Democracy is based on the availability of choices and the ability to have your own beliefs, having the right to choose,” she said. She knew she and her boyfriend had acted carelessly and understood that they’d made a mistake. Sarah doesn’t think abortion should be used as a form of birth control, but was glad that it was available as a back-up.

But she worried it might be too late to get an abortion. It wasn’t, but then she wondered how she’d pay for it. “I told myself, ‘You’re going to get out of this.’” She tried not to judge herself for being irresponsible in the first place.

She was comforted by how the doctor and counselors at Planned Parenthood referred to what was growing inside her only as “the fetus,” because she couldn’t stand to tell herself that she “was getting rid of something that was sentient [conscious].”

When she began to doubt what she was doing, Sarah would stop herself because she knew the facts: At 9 ½ weeks, the fetus was only partially developed.

She Didn’t Tell Her Parents

Sarah didn’t tell her parents she was pregnant. She knew her mother had had abortions in the past, so Sarah felt certain she was OK with them. However, she knew her mom felt it was “shameful” for teens to get pregnant. It was OK for teens to practice safe sex, but pregnancy was “something that ‘good kids’ never experience.” Her father didn’t even think she should date, so she didn’t want him to know that she was having sex, let alone pregnant.

She looked to her boyfriend and circle of close friends for comfort and understanding. Her boyfriend was supportive, and I was relieved that she’d decided to have an abortion. I was also impressed by how Sarah remained calm and clearheaded while dealing with her pregnancy.

So when I interviewed Sarah for this story, I was surprised to learn that she’d been worried about how her pregnancy would affect her relationships with her friends. “I remember hoping that I would not become the subconscious ‘what not to do’ for my closest friends,” she told me.

Borrowed Money from Cousin

Although Sarah was confident that having an abortion was the right thing to do, she couldn’t help but feel nervous. It was still a surgical procedure. “Anything could go wrong,” she remembered.

One friend of hers had had an abortion several months before, so Sarah talked to her about her worries. Her friend assured her that it was a procedure that many women go through and come out OK. Her friend’s reassurance and first-hand experience put Sarah more at ease.

The abortion cost $375. She found out that her family’s health insurance covered abortion, but since Sarah didn’t want it to show up on the statement, she chose to pay for it. She didn’t have the money to pay up front, but she borrowed it from her cousin.
Her cousin also accompanied Sarah to the clinic the day of her abortion, where her boyfriend was already waiting. The actual procedure took under an hour, but she was in the clinic for about 10 hours, mostly waiting.

Talking Relieved Anxiety

She was the youngest person in the waiting room; everyone else was from 17 to about 40. She started conversations with some of them about the procedure and the expense. Everyone reassured one another.

Sarah felt better seeing everyday people dealing with the same situation. “We were all in hospital gowns with our backs open. Nobody cared about covering up different parts of their body. It was very cool.”

After hours of waiting, Sarah was finally called. She remembers being given a general anesthetic and lying in an exam chair, her legs in stirrups. The anesthesiologist chitchatted with her to make her comfortable. “I remember before blanking out, I was looking right at him,” Sarah recalled, “and saying, ‘You make good small talk; I’m not even thinking about the procedure right now.’”

Threw Up Her Pizza

Once she woke up, Sarah remembers thinking that it had been fairly easy to solve her problem. That made her “sort of unhappy” because she didn’t want to see abortion as an easy solution. “I support abortion in every way, shape and form, except when people forget it is a surgical procedure.” She said firmly, “It is a last resort.”

Physically, it felt less easy. “I was nauseous. I remember feeling very exhausted and a bit queasy and a little weak.” She also felt hungry, so she got pizza with her boyfriend. “Then I threw up the pizza.”

When they came over to our friend Anna’s house, where Anna and I were waiting, I thought she looked pale. We all went to a nearby Starbucks to hang out and I got her a hot cup of tea. I asked her only if she was OK. We didn’t talk about the abortion.

At the time, I assumed that Sarah didn’t want to talk about it. “What I wanted more than anything was to get on with my life and put it behind me,” Sarah said.

Teens Need More Info

But after a few friends at school who knew about her abortion approached her with questions, Sarah changed her mind. She realized that “there was a lack of familiarity” with birth control methods.

One of her friends, Mariel, had had sex with a guy at a party. Although he’d worn a condom, she was nervous about being pregnant and asked Sarah for the number of Planned Parenthood. Sarah asked her if she went to a gynecologist and Mariel told her that she didn’t because she didn’t want her mother to find out.

“There are privacy laws,” Sarah told her, but Mariel hadn’t known that in New York State, teens can get confidential health care services without a parent’s consent or notification. It was then that Sarah realized that many teens were not aware of all their options. She decided to help spread the word.

The ‘Birth Control Fairy’

She went to her guidance counselor because she didn’t understand why information about practicing safe sex wasn’t more widespread in her school. Her counselor told her that no one had ever taken the initiative to do something about it, but that Sarah was welcome to do so if she wanted to.

She began distributing flyers and dropping off pamphlets from Planned Parenthood with contact numbers and information on free clinics and other places where teens could get condoms. “I tacked [the flyers] onto bulletin boards so that certain ones would fall out and people would have to pick them up,” she recalled. “It was on a quiet level. [The information] was everywhere, but they didn’t know why. I didn’t want to be an advocate, but I wanted it to be known without needing to talk about it.” Her friends began to joke with her that she had become the “birth control fairy.”

Easier in New York

One day when Sarah was hanging out with her friend Allie, Allie told her she had to go home early and help prepare food for her family’s guests. It turned out that Allie’s mother hosted women coming to New York from other parts of the country to have abortions.

Allie invited Sarah to come over and meet the women, telling her that it would be great if she talked to them about her own experience. Sarah remembers that meeting the women at Allie’s house made her feel better about her own abortion. “It was just a relief to talk to people,” she told me.

In some states, there are few abortion providers, and some states make it more difficult for women—and teens in particular—to get abortions. [See sidebar.]

“Roe v. Wade is everywhere, but they make it hard to have an abortion, even though you’re allowed to,” Sarah said. Roe v. Wade is the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.

Because New York has confidentiality laws and many places that offer abortion services, these women came here. “I’m so glad that I live in New York,” Sarah told me. She was glad the women could see “that having an abortion wasn’t so shady as it’s made to be in the areas they come from.”

A Scar, But Not an Embarrassment

Even though it can be a relief to end a pregnancy when you’re not ready for it, it’s still better to not get pregnant in the first place. Now 17, Sarah’s more careful about practicing safe sex. She currently takes birth control pills and always makes sure to use a condom. She has not been pregnant since.

Although she and her boyfriend are no longer together, she looks back on this experience as awakening her to how serious sex is and the responsibilities that come with it.

When I asked Sarah what was the most difficult part of having an abortion, she told me, “I think, generally, it was trying to tell myself that this didn’t give me a stained resume. It was a pockmark, it was a scar, but not something I should be embarrassed about. I’ve overcome it.”