I DO NOT OWN THE TWILIGHT SAGA
Autumn's P.O.V.
Nana still isn't talking to me the next day. I wake up to a storm outside. It's pouring rain and I hear thunder in the background, exactly what I need today of all days. I can see my Halloween costume hanging in my closet—I had been too upset to go out last night. I didn't even feel like eating dinner. Thinking of my mother's usually delicious tacos made me gag.
I lay in bed longer than I need to. I just can't get my heart to stop racing. I'm going to get an abortion today. Ugh, I hate even saying it. The word is so… nasty. Never in my life have I ever considered myself someone who'd choose to have an abortion. But here I am. I'm scared, if I'm being honest. Not about the procedure, but about how I'll feel after it happens. I'm afraid that I'll feel depressed and not myself. But I have to get it done.
I get up, get dressed in comfortable clothes and just throw my hair up into a messy ponytail, and make my way downstairs. Mom is allowing me to stay home from school today, and for that, I'm grateful. When I get downstairs, can hear her talking to someone.
"Hi, this is Angela Lee, I'm calling in to tell you that my daughter Autumn Lee is going to be missing school for the next two days… there's a family emergency… someone passed away and we need a few days to mourn… yes, a family member, what difference does it make? Thank you." I hear her hanging up the phone and sigh.
"Angie," Nana starts. "I really don't think you should be encouraging this." I frown, confused.
"Encouraging what?" Mom asks.
"You know how I feel about abortion-"
"Mom, we already talked about this," Mom snaps. "It's not your decision, and it's not my decision. We have to respect that."
"But you're her mother, you could talk her out of it." Mom doesn't say anything to that, but I can imagine her giving Nana a nasty look. "Look, I love Autumn with all my heart. And I know deep down that she didn't mean for this to happen, just like you didn't. But I don't think that this is the right way to handle this situation."
"As apposed to what, Mom? I'm not going to force her to have a baby that she doesn't want. She's not me, okay? You got lucky that I wanted to keep Autumn, so you didn't have to worry. But she's her own person, and she's under no obligation to go through with the pregnancy." I sit on the bottom step as I listen, my heart racing.
"Isn't it bad enough that you're not punishing her for having sex in the first place?" Nana is getting angry at this point.
"Sex isn't something that you should be punished for! It's a completely natural thing that you should never feel wrong for doing."
"But she obviously didn't use protection, are you going to just let that go?"
"Newsflash, Mom, condoms and birth control aren't one hundred percent effective. You could get pregnant even when you're using both. It's happened before." They both go quiet.
"You never told me that."
"I didn't think it was relevant. You had already formed the conclusion that I was careless and didn't use any protection, and I was already pregnant, so I didn't see the point." Nana sighs.
"Look, I still think you should punish her," Nana whispers.
"What she's about to do today? That's punishment enough. It changes you. And please don't ask how I know."
"But-"
"Mom, I love you, and I respect you. But like you said, Autumn is my daughter, so that means that I get to make the decisions where she's concerned. Do you understand?" I hear Nana take a deep breath. I can tell that she's annoyed with having her own words thrown back at her, but she doesn't say so.
"I understand." I hate seeing them fight over something that I did. It makes me want to throw up and hide in my room at the same time. At that moment, I decide that it's time for me to reveal myself. I make my way to the kitchen to find Mom sitting at the small kitchen table, sipping coffee and on her laptop. When I walk in, she gives me a warm smile.
"So what time are we going?" I ask. She looks at the time on the screen.
"In twenty minutes. You should eat something." I scrunch up my nose and shake my head.
"I'm not hungry. I'm too anxious." She gives me a look but doesn't say anything else, and I go to the living room to sit down.
I wish I could talk to Hannah. She'd know exactly what to say to make me feel better. But I don't want to bring her into this until I've gone through with the abortion. If I were to call her right now, then I'd totally start bawling and spilling my spineless guts to her, and I'd miss the appointment. But I'm definitely going to be telling her about this. She's like the sister I never had, and we tell each other everything.
Soon enough, Mom and I are in her car and on our way to Planned Parenthood in Port Angeles. On the way, I manage to calm myself down a little bit, and by the time we arrive, I've managed to completely control my breathing.
What happens next is boring. We check in, do a shit load of paperwork, and then wait thirty minutes in the waiting room before we're called back. They ask me all sorts of questions. When was my last period? When did I last have intercourse?
After that they take a blood sample which almost makes me pass out. I hate needles, and the anticipation before you get a shot is the worst feeling. Then I'm ushered to a bathroom where I'm instructed to pee in a cup and then leave it on the counter, and then we wait for however long in the waiting room while the people do tests to make sure I'm pregnant. While they do that, I speak with a kind woman in a private room without my mom. Her name is Grace, she's in her mid-twenties and has long blonde hair and kind blue eyes and overall has the kind of face that could comfort someone within two seconds.
"So, tell me what you're thinking right now," she says in a soft voice. I sigh and bite my lip.
"Well, I'm very nervous. I've never had this done before, and I'm not sure what to expect," I tell her.
"Well, the process takes around five to ten minutes." And then she goes into detail on what happens during the abortion, and I have to say that knowing what's going to happen calms me a little.
"Now I want to talk to you about your options." I frown.
"What about them?"
"Abortion, while there's nothing wrong with it, is a serious medical procedure. And it can seriously affect you afterwards, and so I want to make sure that you are doing this because you want to."
"I don't—I can't afford a baby. And I'm not ready for one." I sigh. "My mom was a teen mother. She had me when she was sixteen, and her life hasn't been what it could have. If she hadn't had me, she would have had an amazing life. She wouldn't still be living with my grandmother, and she would be a photographer and would have been able to travel the world. I don't want that to happen to me."
"That's completely understandable. But have you considered adoption?"
"Honestly? No. I guess that I'm not sure if I would give the baby up for adoption, I don't know how I'd feel about it. To just… have my baby out there somewhere, not knowing if they were being taken care of and loved and happy. And… I live in Forks. And ya know, it's a really small town and if I continue with the pregnancy, even if I gave it up for adoption, people would be talking about me. And you know how it is for pregnant girls in high school. People seem to blame the girl while they coddle the guy. They make her feel horrible, like a slut, like she's… worthless. You see it all the time in movies and tv shows."
"I know, but let's not let what others will say determine what you will do. Because what you're considering, it's very life changing, especially at a young age. And my job is to make sure that you really want to do this, because once it's done, it's done, there's no going back. And I want to make sure that you're doing it for the right reasons."
It takes me ten minutes to finally convince Grace that I'm doing this because I want to, even though I'm not completely sure if I want to, and I'm finally called back to one of the rooms.
"Miss Lee," Dr. Hanson says as he comes into the room Mom and I are in. He's a nice man in his early fifties with graying brown hair and kind hazel eyes. He sits down in the spinning chair that I envy with a clipboard in his hand.
"So," he continues. "The tests have come back positive, and we can now definitely say that you are pregnant. Has Grace spoken to you about the process of an abortion?" I nod.
"Yes, she explained it to me in clear detail," I tell him.
"Okay, now before we do anything else, I'd like to perform an ultrasound on you." I frown and my heart races. An ultrasound will just make it worse.
"Why do you need to do that if I'm going to terminate the pregnancy?" I ask hurriedly. I'm losing my nerve with each passing second.
"Well, there are a lot of reasons. I need to see how far along you are, for one. The procedures for abortions in the first and second trimesters are very different, so I have to make sure that I'm performing the correct one that is needed. Also, I need to see if the pregnancy is viable. Say, for example, I find that the pregnancy is ectopic, which means that the fertilized egg attached itself in the fallopian tube instead of the uterus; that would be very serious and far passed my realm of capabilities to deal with here at Planned Parenthood, and you'd have to be taken to the emergency room. So you see? It's very important that I do an ultrasound, especially since you haven't had one before coming here." I nod in understanding. He makes a good argument, so I guess I'll just have to deal with this and get it over with.
Mom squeezes my hand. "You'll be fine," she reassures me. So I wait while they set up the equipment, and then I pull up my shirt and flinch a little as the gel hits my abdomen. Dr. Hansen puts the wand on my stomach and moves it around a little and a moment later an image pops up on the screen. A soft thumping sound fills the room, and the image I'm seeing sends my heart fluttering. A small shape is in the middle of the screen. It kind of looks like a baby, but then it also kind of looks like a small alien. But I find myself weirdly drawn to that alien. It's like, I want to protect it, to keep it safe and never let any harm come to it. I look at Dr. Hanson.
"What's that thumping sound?" I question him. His gaze is still intently drawn to the screen, but he answers.
"That's the heartbeat." My mouth goes dry and a knot ties itself in my stomach.
"The heartbeat?"
"Yeah. The fetus's heart starts to beat roughly twenty-two days after it's conceived. But usually it can't be detected in a sonogram until about six or seven weeks. And judging by the size of the fetus and the dates you gave me about your last period and the last time you had intercourse, I'd say that you're about ten weeks along. Ten weeks and three days if you want to get specific." Mom rubs my arm.
"Are you okay?" she asks worriedly. I can't even imagine the look on my face right now. It must be terrifying. Even Dr. Hansen senses that I'm about to have a breakdown because he freezes the image, puts the wand down, and takes his gloves off. He hands me a napkin and stands up.
"I'll give you guys some time to talk. I'll be back in ten minutes and you can tell me if you still want to go through with the termination." Once he leaves, I burst out crying for the second time in under twenty-four hours. And it's one of those ugly cries. My face becomes red, my neck turns all blotchy and wet and sticky. The tears roll down my cheeks like hot water.
And even though I know that I'll feel horrible after I'm done, and that crying won't fix anything, I allow myself to do it. I allow myself to be wrapped into my mom's arms as she comforts me. And for a good three minutes, I allow myself to be a little girl again. A little girl throwing a tantrum because she was told that she has to wear braces even though Toby Mullinax told her that it was really painful and worse than having to eat the hot lunch at school.
And after, when I'm all cried out, I wipe away the tears and the gross gel on my stomach, and I sit up and take a deep breath to calm my breathing. Mom gets a paper towel and wets it at the small sink in the room and starts to wipe my face.
"What are you thinking?" she asks me as she sits down next to me. I sigh and shake my head and look at her through teary eyes.
"It has a heartbeat," I say and bite my lip. "I didn't really think about that when I decided this."
"I know."
"I think that before now, I was just thinking of this as something that really sucks, but that can easily be fixed. But now…" Tears fill my eyes again and I bite back the urge to cry. "Now I know that this is real. There's a little person inside of me right now, and it has a heartbeat!"
"So you're not going through with the abortion." It's not a question, it's a statement. I shake my head.
"But what will I do if I don't? There's no room in our house for a baby. And we don't have the money."
"Have you thought about adoption?" I shake my head again.
"I don't know if adoption is right for me. How can I live while knowing that my baby is out there somewhere, and not being able to know if they are safe and healthy and happy?"
"There's always open adoption. Some couples who adopt agree with the birth parents that you can exchange picutes and letters a few times a year. And some adoptive parents may be willing to have you visit a couple of times a year." I'm still undecided about everything. This is all too much too fast.
"Look," Mom continues, "you don't have to decide right this second, you have time. But whatever you decide to do, you have to tell the father. Now that you've decide to go through with the pregnancy, he has to know."
"Do I have to?" I complain. She gives me a look.
"Yes! It's his baby too, and if you do decide to place the baby up for adoption, then you have to have his signature. And even if you don't decide on adoption, he's going to have to step up and help you with the expenses and childcare that it takes to raise a baby. And you know that Nana and I will do whatever we can to help you, but the father needs to the the main person who helps you both financially and physically raise this baby. You two made that baby together, and now it's going to expect the both of you to be there." I sigh and nod. She's right. I'm still not sure if I want to keep the baby or place it up for adoption, but either way, Embry needs to know. With how close our already too small towns are to each other, he's bound to find out that I'm pregnant, and then he'll probably put two and two together.
"Okay," I agree with her. When the doctor comes back, I tell him my decision and he kindly tells me that everything will turn out the way it's supposed to, and then writes me a perscriptioin for prenatal vitimins.
On our way back home, Mom and I stop at a fast food place since I'm starving, and we fill up on all the greasy food and sugary soda we can hold—Mom told me that this is not going to be an everyday occurrence, that I need to eat healthy for the baby, but that she wanted to treat me to fast food since I went through a lot of hard feelings and made a hard decision today. Then we drop off the prescription and head home where we find that Nana had went out on another date with that bingo guy—they have been dating for a couple now and even though I wish I could talk to her, I'm glad she's putting herself out there and having fun—and wont be back for the rest of the day. So I go to my room and take out my cell phone and call Hannah. She picks up on the third ring.
"Autumn!" she exclaims in the raspy voice of hers that I've always loved. "You'll never guess! I had the craziest week ever!" I give a small laugh, happy to hear her enthusiasm.
"Wanna bet?"
A/N: What did you guys think? Please review!
~Gina