Angel Unknown

This post will be long.  This post will be serious.  Unlike the post below, this will be one story Punky probably won't know until she reads it herself far in the future.

It all started two weeks ago.  As I was leaving work that day, Punky's dad called to ask if I had a preference for dinner that night.  During our quick conversation, he mentioned that his twenty year old son and his girlfriend were coming over for a visit that night.  My response was "Why?"  He said they just wanted to see Punky.

I immediately got the feeling that something wasn't quite right.  It was a Tuesday night.  They never come over on a week night.  They hardly come over at all.  And never just to see Punky.  That fact alone makes me sad because he seemed excited at the thought of having a little sister while I was pregnant, yet he hardly has time for her.  I know, he's twenty...

Anyway, during my commute something popped into my head and I felt like I was punched in the stomach.  The intense gut reaction to that thought made me sure it was fact.  I haven't had the opportunity yet to blog about my oddly accurate sixth sense, but over the years I've learned to trust my gut and it hasn't failed me yet. 

When I got home I boldly declared, "She's pregnant.  I just know it.  Don't ask me how I know it.  I just do."  Of course Punky's dad just scoffed and rolled his eyes.  No matter how many times I've proven to him that I have a knack for prediction, he chalks it up to luck and dismisses my insight as nonsense. 

His son and girlfriend arrived a bit later and stayed a few hours.  They brought Punky a new dress and ate dinner with us.  The evening was quiet and uneventful.  When they left without incident, I got another eye roll and a look that said "I told you so" from Punky's dad.

He got the same look back from me.  I wasn't buying it.  I wasn't convinced.  I had to be right.  There's no way such an intense gut reaction could be wrong.  So the night was quiet.  Nothing was said.  No obvious hints were visible.  It didn't mean I was was wrong.

Fast forward exactly one week.  It was the day we first took Punky to the doctor and I stayed home from work.  About mid day, he got a text message from his son's girlfriend that simply said there are things he needs to know.  I couldn't help the smug smile that appeared on my face.  After a few hours of phone tag, he was finally able to speak to her and confirm what I had told him a week earlier: she's pregnant.

She also went on to tell him that they recently broke up for a while and his son has been dating someone else.  We already suspected as much since he showed up at the house a few weeks ago with a girl in the car.  He didn't bring her in to introduce us and said she was just a friend.  You know how that usually goes, especially at age twenty.  His dad asked if his girlfriend knew they were hanging out since they are "just friends" and his reply was a quick "no" followed by an immediate change of subject. 

Anyway, she said she told him she is pregnant but he feels their relationship is over and he wants to continue seeing the other girl.  She was obviously upset...and nervous about the pregnancy...and wanted his dad to talk to him about all of this. 

His son came over that evening and we got to hear his side of things.  To avoid getting really long winded with the details, I'll just say that when comparing what they both had to say it seemed there might be a chance she was never really pregnant at all.  I still thought she was...of course.  But his son confirmed that he has no interest in continuing their relationship.  They had been dating since high school and she is a very nice girl, but even we expected it to eventually end.  They fight a lot, and it seems like they have different ambitions now that they have entered the grown-up working world.  They are young.  People change.  Relationships end.  It just happens.  And in reality, very few first loves end up together forever.

He also said he knows this baby is his responsibility and he wants to be a part of his/her life.  That's the main thing we wanted needed to hear him say.  Regardless of his relationship with the mother, it is his child and he needs to take care of it.  Period.  He was worried she might try to keep him from seeing the baby if they are no longer together.  He left that night with a lot of thinking ahead of him.

We didn't hear from him again until Sunday.  He came over and told us she had been to the doctor.  She is definitely pregnant.  They both feel they aren't ready for this step in life.  "We've decided to abort."

Abort...

Abort...
 
Abort... 

That last word echoed through the house as if we were in a canyon.  An awkward silence filled the room and I struggled to sort the thoughts swirling around my head.  We never saw it coming.  It never even crossed our minds that this would be how the story ends.  Not for one second did we think it was even a possibility.

Pro-choice.  I have always been pro-choice.  Proudly pro-choice.  Adamantly pro-choice.  I never doubted that belief.  Not once.

I fought the urge to grab him by the shoulders and shake him.  "Don't kill your baby!  Please don't kill that inncoent little baby!"  I screamed over and over in my head using every ounce of strength to keep it from flying out my mouth.

My attention turned to his dad.  He appeared to be lost in a sea of thoughts himself, but then a definite hint of sadness and disappointment appeared on his face.  He will never have the opportunity to know his first grandchild. 

His son left soon after and we talked about it for a while.  Although we both had the same feeling about their decision, neither of us felt it was our place to intervene.  They are adults.  They are within their rights.  Why risk alienating him at a time when he needs support the most?  To save a baby's life...that's why.

I've been miserable the last few days.  I regret the decision I made.  I should've said something.  Anything.  Every time I look at Punky I think of that little baby about to die.  Or maybe it already has.  Neither of us thought to ask when.  On a subconscious level, I don't think either of us wanted to know exactly when.

They have a right to make this decision and they have to live with it the rest of their lives.  Someday, as they gaze into the eyes of any future children they go on to have, they will think of this baby they so quickly discarded and long to know what could've been had they chosen a different path. 

And what happened to me?  How can someone so sure of her pro-choice belief suddenly feel so strongly against their decision?  Can I still respect the right to choose without respecting the choice to do so? 

A friend of mine surmised that maybe it's harder to accept now that I have a baby of my own.  That somehow it's easier to be  pro-choice when you have no children.  When you haven't experienced pregnancy.  When you haven't fallen in love with a tiny bunch of cells the instant the second blue line appeared.  How can they not be in love with those little cells and the tiny heart beating away? 

The mood's been somber at home. Soon it will all be just a bad memory tucked away. It won't be discussed aside from a possible slip of the tongue from time to time.  I somehow need to organize my thoughts and get my beliefs back into neat, little buckets in order to move past this.  I don't function well in a sea of mixed emotions.  I seem to be stuck in mourning.  As strange as it sounds, that's the closest way to describe how I feel.  Mourning the loss of a baby I never knew.  A baby I wasn't even related to... 

But Punky was.  It was her nephew.  For what it's worth, my gut said boy.  And we all wish we had the chance to meet him.