My first real true love was a boy I stole from my younger sister in 1972.  He was a worldly 23 to my naive 17 and lived in his own apartment in Tacoma, not far from the military base where he grew up with two siblings, raised by his Japanese mom and black father.

After the first couple of times, Geno called for Mona and she wasn’t home, I took note of his melodic voice and mischievous laugh and made it a point to see how long I could keep him on the phone. This went on until one time he called and Mona answered. They talked for a few minutes, then she put her hand over the receiver, rolled her eyes, and said “He wants to talk to you!”

I felt bad about my sisterly betrayal, but I was also secretly thrilled to be the chosen one. Mona later came out as a lesbian which might explain her indifference to the charms of Geno. If I was smarter back then, I would have taken his fluid shift in affections as a warning sign. Instead, I was giddy and light years away from having any sort of wisdom in regards to men.

 When he told me he was technically, still married, but getting a divorce, I believed him. And later, when our fooling around turned into something more, Geno told me he’d pull out and I wouldn’t get pregnant. He was my first and I believed him (kind of), but thought I should get on the pill, just to be safe.

 Timing has never been my strong suit, but I like to think I’m good at following instructions. The doctor at Planned Parenthood told me to start taking the pills five days after my next period started. So I waited. And waited. And then I waited some more.

 When it became obvious that circular case of little pink pills wasn’t going to do me any good, I made a panicked phone call to Geno. We needed to talk. We’d been seeing each other for about three months and things had progressed to the point that I’d begun imagining my future. Living the urban high life with my charming, mixed-race boyfriend in Fabulously Cosmopolitan Tacoma. Far away from my poor, white, small town, small-minded, upbringing. It could still happen, I thought. I’d even met his parents, they seemed to like me.

 For our talk, Geno picked me up at our designated spot, away from my house and volatile stepdad, who didn’t know about my new boyfriend. It was safer that he didn’t know.

            We drove over to the state park where earlier Geno tried to teach me to drive. The lessons had ended when I accidentally reversed his beloved Ford Falcon into a restroom.

  My hand was nervously clamped on Geno’s knee. It felt like the news I was about to share was the beginning of our whatever was next. Thinking back, I’m sure I was hoping somehow a proposal might come out of it. It was my senior year of high school and doing the math, adding up the credits, I thought I could graduate early.

 “I’m pregnant.”

 “What?” he said. And I swear to God, he had a frightened, puzzled, look on his face, like how did that happen?

 “What do you mean, what? I guess your fool-proof-pull-out-method isn’t so foolproof.”

 He stared off dumbfounded, into the dark distance for a few minutes that felt like hours, then dropped his own bombshell.

 “I was going to tell you tonight, I’m back with Sheila. She’s pregnant too.”

 It seems their separation hadn’t been sooo separate. And that was that. He dropped me off at the end of my rural road and I never heard from him again.

 Pretty quickly, my pregnancy progressed to include morning sickness, and embarrassing moments jumping off the school bus to throw up on the side of the road. Desperate and sick, I told everyone I had the flu.

 I didn’t want to think about my stepdad’s reaction. Mom hadn’t been able to extricate us from our abusive, often violent home, so her advocating for me seemed unlikely. Not because she wouldn’t want to, but because she was incapable. I knew that from all the times we’d left. We always came back.

 I found the card I’d kept for Angel, the young woman from Planned Parenthood who came to talk to our health class back when my big worry was how to get the pill.

Abortions became legal in Washington state in 1970, but for minors, parental consent was still required. After listening to my situation, Angel said she thought she could get me a fake ID. I didn’t ask, but wondered if she’d found herself in a similar situation to mine at one time. I couldn’t have pulled off the choice I needed to make without her help. I am forever grateful for her help.

The day of my abortion was a rare snow day. School was canceled. Angel picked me up at my sister-in-law Shirley’s house, where I’d told Mom I was babysitting. Besides Angel (and long-gone Geno), Shirley was the only one who knew my troubles.

  Angel slowly navigated the snowy roads up the valley to the doctor’s office where they were willing to not look too closely at a patient’s ID.

 Besides, scraping the money together and the procedure itself, the next hardest thing about that day was going home and trying to pretend like it was just another day. I’m not a very subdued person and my silence at the dinner table didn’t go unnoticed by my stepdad. “What’s with the long face Mosquito Butt? Somebody step on your little feelings?” He shook the salt shaker into his beer for effect. I shrugged and looked at Mona, and Mom, whose hands were folded in front of her like a prayer. We all knew he didn’t really want an answer.

 After dinner, I hurried through the dishes and went upstairs to my room. Curled myself into a ball on my mattress on the floor. When I turned on my little transistor radio the Chi-Lites were singing… I’ve been used to havin’ someone to lean on, and I’m lo-o-ost, baby, I’m lo-o-ost.

My abortion, fifty years ago, was one month before Roe V. Wade. And now my heart breaks knowing with the Dobbs ruling, there will be more and worse stories than mine. There already have been. I’m still vehemently pro-choice and donate annually to Planned Parenthood. In my dream fantasy world, all babies are born into and grow up in loving homes. But in 1972, that fantasy only took me so far. And still today there are a lot of girls in similar crappy situations who have old white men in suits deciding their fates and taking their right to control their own bodies away. State by state. I don’t know what to do with my anger so I vote. And mail postcards to voters.

My daughter knows my abortion story and I know that she knows, no matter what, she can come to me and her dad and we’ll support her through whatever agonizing decisions she might face. The best thing about having a choice is never having to make one, but if she does have to make one, she should have the right to make it safely, without fear or judgment. I’ve also told her it’s never a good idea to steal someone’s boyfriend.

 *Please note the title Baby I’m Lost is in reference to a song title, not a fetus.

A slightly different version of this story appeared in Roar: Literature and Revolution by Feminist People — My Abortion Story

About the Author

Starling Roberts writes about growing up broke but not broken in the Pacific Northwest. Her work has appeared in various anthologies, and her essay Moving Away, was a finalist in PNWA’s 57th Annual Writers Conference. Her memoir in progress, Hell’s Gate Stories, explores the familial themes of love, loss, and resiliency. They include two fires, a flood, a hunting accident, and a suicide but mainly they are stories about inherited optimism in spite of the facts. She and her husband split their time between Seattle and Central Oregon.

Supporting Reproductive Rights

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