Ok. I gotta tell you all about this experience I had with a good friend of mine. She was 22 and she got pregnant. Well, she was terrified! I mean you couldn't even talk to her about her situation without her bursting into tears. There was so much going on in her life. Her little sister (16 at the time) had run away from home and her mother was pretty much shattered and was totally consumed with tracking down the runaway. Cyn, was a good girl. She was in college and working. Seeing a really nice guy but there were no intentions of marriage. Just companionship. I think Cyn was really trying to fill a void with the guy because her mother was not there for her and I was out of state at another school and only had contact with her via the internet, phone and occasional trip on long weekends. Well, when she got pregnant, like I said she flipped! She was irrational! I NEVER suggested she end the pregnancy or anything. I almost wish I had given her better advice but like they say, "hindsight is 20/20".
So Cyn went to the doctor and found out she was 6 weeks along. This depressed her even more because she was hoping it was a false positive. She got some kind of cold or something as I recall and I told her to take something for it and her reply to me (which has remained with me for all these years) was that she couldn't take anything because it might hurt the baby! This she says after she has already made up her mind to end the pregnancy. Irrational. I knew she was cracking up and I thought about calling her mother but I didn't. I was no wiser than she I guess.
I ended up going with Cyn that day in '92. I found myself sitting with her in the waiting room that was packed with all types of women. All types. There were prostitutes with their pimps, college girls bubbly talking about their schools and parties and stuff, there were girlfriends and boyfriends, there were women there with other women as support but the most striking thing was this young black girl who entered and seated herself directly across from Cyn and me. She couldn't have been more than 16, maybe 17. She looked so defeated. She sat with this little brown paper sack rolled closed in her lap. She didn't look up. She was alone and just sat there starring at the floor. I tried not to look at her too much but I couldn't help but wonder about what had happened in her life that had led her to this point. We waited about 40 mins and Cyn was called back. I left the clinic and went out front to sit in the car.
Some time later an ambulance pulled into the lot and I sat watching the EMT's as they exited the ambulance with a gurney. I had to go in to check on Cyn. I didnt' want to but I did. It wasn't her. One of the bubbly college girls had sever complications with her procedure and had to be rushed to the hospital for surgery.
On the ride back to her campus Cyn didn't say a word. I think she thought everything would be back the way it was before the pregnancy but apparently it wasn't. She suffered for months with guilt and depression. She moved off campus with her boyfriend and he suddenly abandoned her. She had cracked completely up. She would trash the apartment, dumping garbage in the living room and breaking things. A year later she had finally gotten counselling and had gotten herself back from the brink of despair but to tell you the truth I don't think she has ever really completely recovered from the entire mess.
Do I feel guilt for my part in it? Yeah, I do.
I feel responsible to a degree. I say "to a degree" because I was "young and irresponsible". I feel responsible but I also know that what's done is done and there can be no going back. That Cyn has to live with and I have to live with.
So there is
ONE story. One story in a million or more that happen yearly. Yes, we do need to reach out to young women and young girls. I certainly wasn't equipped at 21 to counsel my friend on what her choices were. I would not deny Cyn the option of choosing because it was her life. I do however wish there had been better resources available to counsel her. That clinic was like----well, cold. It was like they were there only for the job at hand and the money and aside from that you were ushered in, shown a tape of the procedure, whisked into the back, given Morphine and then it was done and afterwards they booted you out the door. THAT is what should be stopped. There is no counselling, no offering of alternatives. Nothing but give us the money and lie down and it will all be over soon. But for Cyn it all wasn't over soon.
I don't want to go on with this anymore as I have throughly depressed myself.