Dear Baby #2

 Dear Baby,

It's been a few days and I still have this overwhelming feeling about you. I feel like you should probably hear this from me before you hear it from someone else, so here it goes. You may have noticed already that there was once a baby before you and I am not so sure how it works up there but you might even be that same baby that tried to make it to me before. I was convinced by my mother that I wouldn't be a very good mother. I was told that I wasn't ready to be a parent. I was very sick early on in my pregnancy and I was told that my baby hadn't had the best nutrition since I had been so sick and without early prenatal care. I was so depressed. Imagine the closest people to you telling you the things you can't do. 

I felt like I had shamed my family in some way by even getting pregnant as if we were royalty or something. My mother and my OBGYN (who delivered me and was friends with my mom) convinced me that abortion was my best option...imagine going to catholic school for 12 years just to find out that even your mother thinks abortion will fix it all. I will never forget that they just made the abortion appointments like it was a tooth cleaning. It was no big deal. I was dying inside, DYING. I was consumed by depression. I was only even in this situation because I had fallen into a deep depression at school in RI and needed to go home. I didn't know what else to do. I found out I was pregnant in early November and by Thanksgiving the baby was gone. 

People were protesting the day that I had my abortion. They were standing outside the hospital because they only gave abortions on certain days during the week so they knew when to be there. I don't even remember that clearly but I overheard my mom telling my dad how disgusted she was over it and how heartbroken she was. I remember thinking in that moment that at least she hadn't killed her own child, but honestly I didn't know yet that she did kill her own child, I just didn't know it yet. 

I love you simply for existing,

Mom