Round 7

“I’m really nervous about this” she told her mother “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“All you have to do is talk about this” her mother told her.

“But it’s so…you know.”

“What? Embarrassing for you? I was pregnant with you when I was sixteen.”

I sat back in my seat and could hardly believe what I was hearing out of Mary’s mother as we sat in the Planned Parenthood waiting room.
”Let’s just wait for the counselor” I suggested “and we can all relax at that point.”

“I don’t even know why you’re here” Mary’s mother commented as she stared at me “we can get through this ourselves.”

I wanted to say that I was there to try to break a pattern of poverty but I bit my tongue and just took the shot, simply smiling and nodding passively.

“Mary asked me to be here…and what the heck…what did I have to do on a Saturday other than this” I replied.

I continued to flip through a two year magazine as we waited for the counselor and finally we were called into a small office.

“Hi my name is Nicole and I’m here to help you in your decisions” said the cheery twenty something that met us at the door.

“I’m so glad to meet all of you” she went on as we entered the room.

“So you are Mary and you’re the mother and you’re the father…and that’s great that the whole family is together in this to make decisions” she babbled on, “lots of times we don’t get family support.”

At that point I could have strangled our “counselor” but I simply told her that I was just a friend that was there to support Mary and I would appreciate being “not” a part of the family.

“So you have no legal authority” she asked?

“No” I replied, “none whatsoever.”

“Why are you here then sir” she asked?

Mary finally chimed in and told the counselor that she had asked me to sit in the session and I promised just to remain quiet and just be there for support.

After sitting quietly and listening to the pregnancy counselor and all her options, we left the place and I wanted to say something immediately in the parking lot, but I chose a wiser course and told Mary that we’d talk again later. Maybe over lunch at Malik’s place, another ethnic place that I’ve been to enough to be a regular and thus have the reputation as a nice guy who if seen with a pregnant teenager, wouldn’t be the primary suspect.

“Did this help you” I asked her?

“I guess so” she said.

“Adoption” I asked?

“That and the other option” she said.

“What other option” I asked?

“Abortion…you were in there with us!”

“Yeah I was there, and I heard the option, and it’s your choice in the end.”

“But it could end here, and my life would be back to normal’ she said.

“Mary, you’re past the point of no return in this thing, and regardless of your choices no one is getting out of this without harm. That’s just the way it is. I think the point is to do as little harm as possible at this point.”

She got my point and we agreed to meet again before she made a decision, and I prayed that she’d keep the date.

And so the ultimate solution had reared it’s head and I simply saw a scared kid who wanted desperately to return to normal, except I knew that abortion is anything but a return to normal, as most women that have them later come to regret them and the guilt…well…we all know where that leads.