{"id":159757,"date":"2017-01-24T06:30:31","date_gmt":"2017-01-24T11:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=159757"},"modified":"2017-07-01T08:31:42","modified_gmt":"2017-07-01T12:31:42","slug":"when-i-was-pregnant-and-scared-planned-parenthood-refused-to-help-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/when-i-was-pregnant-and-scared-planned-parenthood-refused-to-help-me\/","title":{"rendered":"When I was pregnant and scared, Planned Parenthood refused to help me"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I remember it as if it was yesterday. I was supposed to be on a date, but a quick trip to Walmart and one positive pregnancy test later, I told my boyfriend to drop me off at my house. I went straight to my room and sat there for hours, trying to come up with a solution for this unplanned baby I was now carrying.<\/p>\n

What was I going to do?<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know the first thing about being a mom, and furthermore, I had never really wanted kids. I liked kids, sure, but I didn\u2019t spend my teenage years dreaming about what my future husband and I would name our kids or how many we would have.<\/p>\n

I had plans: I was going to travel, maybe go back to school, maybe move to a random city and \u201cdiscover myself,\u201d as so many 21-year-olds do. Yet here I was \u2013 an uninsured college dropout, working part-time at a coffee shop, with no real direction in life, who drove a car that broke down every few weeks, who also wasn\u2019t married. This could not be happening to me!<\/p>\n

The next day, I broke the news to my best friend, who was no stranger to unplanned pregnancies, and I asked her what I should do. She came over immediately and talked to me for a few minutes. She told me I didn\u2019t have to have this baby if I didn\u2019t want to and that it was my right and my choice to end the pregnancy. I had heard that before \u2013 seen it on billboards, even: \u201cIt\u2019s your body, it\u2019s your right!\u201d It sounded as though it was supporting women\u2019s rights, and I was in support of women\u2019s rights. So why did it seem so unfathomable to me that it might actually be okay if I ended this pregnancy?<\/p>\n

I remember growing up thinking abortion was wrong, but I never fully grasped the concept until I had to face an unplanned pregnancy head on. For a split-second, it seemed so clear why women would have an abortion. They could make this all go away without anyone else finding out. But I knew in my heart it was the wrong choice. As a Christian, I knew what God said about the sanctity of life. I fast-forwarded my life in my head, pondering the\u00a0idea of how killing my own child would haunt me forever.<\/p>\n

I may not have always chosen the right path in my life, but taking responsibility for my choices was something I always knew I would do.<\/p>\n

It was in fact not just my body<\/a>, but another person\u2019s<\/a>, too. I could never have an abortion. Still, the looming problem of not having insurance was something I would have to deal with. So off to Planned Parenthood my friend drove me. The entire time, she babbled on about how they help women who don\u2019t have insurance \u2013 even if they want to keep their baby \u2013 and that they had all these great programs, and they could help me, too.<\/p>\n

I quickly ducked into the Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood office in Colorado Springs behind my friend, hoping no one I knew would see\u00a0me entering. I hung my head, as tears streamed down my face from feeling so overwhelmed and even ashamed that I was pregnant without a plan. My friend had been \u201chelped\u201d by Planned Parenthood several times and did the talking for me.<\/p>\n

She let the lady at the front desk know that I was pregnant and that I was going to keep it. The lady sighed and just said nonchalantly, \u201cOur ultrasound machine is broken, and we don\u2019t know when it\u2019s going to be fixed. We can\u2019t help you if you want to keep the kid.\u201d I just stood there staring at her, wishing she would say something reassuring or nice, like how it was great that I was keeping my baby. But all she did next was toss a card across the counter saying I should call the number on it. I grabbed the card, and I ran out of there as fast as I could and hopped in the car.<\/p>\n

My fingers fumbled over my phone as I tried to dial the number on the card, but it turned out that the number of this other clinic was disconnected. So much for all the help Planned Parenthood was going to give me.<\/p>\n