Serena's Story

I am crying tonight even as I am writing this. Today I went to the clinic for a pregnancy test...even though I already knew I was...he was wishing on a star I guess, wouldn't believe the home test, wanted what he called a "legitimate" one.

So the test was positive...he said last week when I told him, that he'd be there for me, whatever I decided...today as we walked the promenade back to the car he told me that he wanted me to have an abortion. Not in those words, of course...and it was what I was expecting, I guess, but it's never easy to hear. I wonder why? He says we are both struggling, we don't need to bring someone else into that struggle. I wonder if he just doesn't love me, doesn't want to be bound to me that way.

I'm so caught up in being hurt by this I haven't even thought about what I REALLY want...I know I can't have a baby but at the same time I feel so sad...and scared. I was frozen toward him the whole ride back to his apartment, then he told me to come sit with him and tell him what was wrong. And wanted to know what choice I was going to make?

Choice? That's such bullshit...he has already made it. And in my mind I know it's the right choice...my heart just doesn't agree yet.

He says he will pay, he says he will be there...it isn't anything I care about. I am supposed to appreciate it. He pushes me for a date...I am five weeks now. I choose December 18. And he takes me home later with no plans to see each other again until December 18, two weeks from today.

And I am sitting here reading these stories and crying tonight. He took me to Toys R Us today to buy a Christmas present for my one year old niece. He played with someone else's baby in the store. We were surrounded by baby stuff.

"The development of social and sexual identity is taken for granted to be a crucial part of the preteen and teen years, and a large portion of children's and YA literature is devoted to this broad topic with the complacent assumption of a heterosexual orientation for everyone. This is, first of all, an unrealistic picture for the non-gay kids who will meet gay people in their homes, neighborhoods, and schools. It is also tremendously unfair to gay adolescents who are equally entitled to decent role models."
- by Frances Hanckel in 1975