Topic: I Was an 18-Year-Old Addict Carrying a Drug Dealer’s Baby – Christian News 15 September 2022 – Faithwheel.com
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I Was an 18-Year-Old Addict Carrying a Drug Dealer’s Baby
Abortion seemed like the obvious answer—until I met the Lord of life.
Image: Illustration by Mallory Rentsch / Source Images: Unsplash / Getty
Iwas born in 1989 into a dysfunctional home in Glendale, Arizona. Alcohol and drug abuse had plagued our family for generations. My late father’s addictions earned him a revolving door in and out of prison. My mother got pregnant at 19 after running away from her own father’s abusive behavior. She raised me as a single parent, alongside live-in boyfriends. We moved frequently.
Having witnessed the horrors of drug and alcohol abuse firsthand, I entered junior high school vowing never to take drugs—at least until a fellow eighth-grader kept badgering me to try a marijuana joint at the school bus stop. I gave in, enjoying the thrill. But I told myself I would just smoke pot. Nothing else.
Whispering abortion
Desperate for love, I became sexually active at 13 and contracted a nasty STD two years later. I got hooked on alcohol from one drink at a high school party. Doing cocaine and methamphetamines followed. By age 15, I had quit high school and left home for a friend’s trailer, crawling with cockroaches and hungry mice, where I lived with a 19-year-old boyfriend.
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Around that time, one of my mother’s boyfriends moved in with her. (They would later marry and have two sons.) Weary of wasting their lives with drugs and alcohol, they sought help. My mother gradually sobered up through Alcoholics Anonymous. Looking to escape the junk and craziness in Arizona, she decided to move us to New York state during the summer of 2007, when I was 17.
During our road trip north, I gobbled pills from a stash I had hidden. Upon reaching Tennessee when the pills were gone, I went crazy at rest stops searching for refills.
We ended up in Clinton, New York, a small village upstate. Again, I fell in with the wrong crowd after finding a job at a local pizza shop. I started dating a new boyfriend, Kirk, a drug dealer, and shortly thereafter I moved into his apartment. Daily bouts of drinking and drugs cemented our relationship.
One evening, out of nowhere, my mother invited me to her home for a lasagna dinner, one of my favorite meals. It was February 2008, and I had been feeling nauseous for several weeks. I remember asking myself, “Why is this hangover not going away?”
Before dinner, my mother urged me to the upstairs bathroom. She quickly locked the door and opened a small package. “You are going to take this pregnancy test,” she demanded, “and I am going to sit right here while you do it.”
We waited impatiently for the result—it was positive. The next moment I shut down, disbelieving and crying. A baby was growing inside me. But I was in no shape to give birth or care for a child. I was 18 and heavily addicted, with no car, no job, and no money.
Unprepared to become a father, Kirk offered to pay $400 so I could get an abortion. With everyone whispering abortion in my ears, I thought it was my only logical option. On some level, I figured I was doing my baby a favor. Drug addicts should never be parents, I reasoned, and I was certain I would be a terrible mother. Most of all, I feared repeating my family’s dysfunctional cycle by having another child just like me—in other words, another fatherless mess.
Deep down, and despite all my hesitations, I still wanted this baby. Nevertheless, I decided on abortion. Nothing could change my mind.
Glimmers of hope
Meanwhile, my mother experienced a strange incident while attending a 12-step AA meeting. A stranger walked over to her and gave her a note with a phone number on it. “Call the number tomorrow and take your daughter there,” he said.
It was the number for a local crisis pregnancy center.
My mother told me she was making an appointment to a pregnancy center. Not knowing any better, I believed the center performed abortions rather than discouraging them. As I walked inside, my heart pounded out of my chest. I felt alone, ashamed, embarrassed, and afraid.
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