I was 20 that year, and I remember going to my doctor for my annual check up. I suffer from Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, so I have been making these trips for as long as I have had my period. It was a routine check-up, and I had planned so many things for that day. Unfortunately, what I thought was going to be a good day soon became the worst day of my life.

I don't remember much of what happened, but I do remember when my doctor came in to say that I was pregnant. I don't remember much, I don't even remember how my boyfriend got there. But he was there, holding me. It took me about two weeks to set up a date at Planned Parenthood, two weeks of hell, two weeks knowing that I will never be able to hold the baby I was carrying, the baby I had already begun to love.

I didn't have an option. I never had one. We were too poor to get married and raise a baby on our own, and I knew my parents would never accept me, never accept my baby. So I went and had the operation. I remember waking up later and feeling so empty, like I will never be whole again, and all I wanted was for [my boyfriend] to look at me and understand what was going inside me. But he didn't want to talk about it, and he fobade from ever bringing up the subject again.

For almost four years now, I have lived hurting and hating him for making me lock it up inside. I needed to talk about it, and he wouldn't have any of it. It has poisoned us from the inside out. It is a bond that both keeps us together and frantically pushes us part; it is our prison. He failed me when I needed him the most, and I know it wasn't even his fault. He was trying to deal with it in his own way-- he thought by not talking to me about it, he swallowed our problems; by not reminding me about it, he thought he'd healed my wound, but he only managed to break me apart.

I don't even recognize the person I have become, and I hate myself for that. My depression hits me so badly that sometimes I think of killing myself. Only the thought of what hell I will be putting my parents through keeps me going. The thought of a family keeps me going and my little cousin (just a month older than my baby, if he/she were alive) keeps me going. That little girl is the light of my life and she has been my strength. I thought seeing her would be hard, but I was wrong-- because of her, I am holding on.