Options

It was a day in November. I was a smoker and I would take smoke breaks at work. We used to have to walk outside of our job towards this one door, the only place we were allowed to smoke, that led downstairs to what we called the dungeon. Something weird kept happening every time I smoked. I would get this strange nauseous feeling. It was going on for a few days. I remember my coworker was out smoking with me one time that I had this nauseous feeling & I was like I don’t know why these cigarettes are doing this to me. Maybe I need to change my brand. My coworker then tells me that the same thing was happening to her once & then she found out she was pregnant. So she told me to take a pregnancy test. That evening, my husband who was my boyfriend at the time, and I picked up a pregnancy test and lo & behold, it turned out I was pregnant. The first thing that meant was no more smoking. And then a couple of days later we went to see my OB/GYN & he confirmed I was pregnant. I was around 7 weeks pregnant. Now, this was pretty fast for us. We’d known each other for a little under 3 years and had been friends for quite some time but we’d only been a couple for 4 months at this time. How we became a couple is cute and a story for another day. To keep it simple we had seen that what we’d been looking for all this time was staring at us in the face all along. We were soulmates. We balanced each other. So while it seemed like we had moved fast, we really didn’t. Anyway, when we got home that evening, yes we were already living together, we looked at each other almost in disbelief that we were going to be parents. We were nervous, excited, happy. We were young. I was 25 & he was 28. We both had jobs. We didn’t make much money but knew we were ready to be parents & we were prepared to sacrifice everything to give our child the very best. We couldn’t wait for when our baby would be born. And then it dawned on us that we were having the very first grandkid, niece/nephew on both sides of the family. That was huge. We proceeded to first tell his family over the phone, I’d already met them in Boston, that we were pregnant and they were excited & happy for us. They told us that we could reach out to them for anything. Then we went to my parents’ house to tell them. And let’s just say the response was not the same. It was this dumbfounded, you can’t be serious reaction. Totally the opposite. There wasn’t that same excitement we had gotten from his side. There wasn’t that same support. Instead, what we got was my dad asking us if we were sure about this & saying he didn’t think we could be parents and raise a baby. He told us we had options. We could get an abortion, give our baby up for adoption, or give our baby to them to raise. That was the response. I don’t really remember how we reacted to this in the moment. I know that we were there a bit longer & my dad who I guess had gone off somewhere came back to us with some information on abortions & adoptions. And that’s how it went with us telling them about their first grandchild, my son. To be honest we never discussed it since that day. It was just another thing that went on the pile of shit I suppressed & just moved on. Our son is now 17 about to be 18 so there’s that. Today my husband, yes we got married when our son was 5, & I were talking about things having to do with them. He’s been the one having the brunt of conversations with me as I go through therapy, my comfort. Out of the blue, my husband goes, you know when was the first moment that I knew I couldn’t respect your dad? And I go what? And he describes what happened over 18 years ago. And it all came back to me. I’d suppressed it almost to the point that it was erased. And I told my husband I don’t want my son to ever learn about the conversation that had happened back then & I don’t want him to ever think I doubted having him. My son is God’s greatest gift to me. I can’t help but ask this question. Who does something so cruel & hurtful to their own daughter & her boyfriend. I don’t know. But at least he was considerate enough to explain different options.