The young woman who sat before me seemed childlike in her baggy sweatshirt, her gaze inscrutable beneath long lashes. Her story was a common one, though, like all human stories, unique in its details. In her case: The long-distance relationship. The unexpected visit. The empty box of condoms. And then, the two pink lines. The girl torn, attached already, her emotions wrapping themselves tightly about the thought of that small cluster of cells that slept deeply buried in her body. The boyfriend scared, unready. The girl’s parents disappointed, disapproving, pushing for a swift and discreet end to this shame.
Knowing only the bare outlines of her tale, the thought, “Don’t let them push you around! You can make it!” rattled around in my head. I had been where she was, staring at two wholly unexpected pink lines. I’d reacted with a stream of unprintable words. I’d agonized over a seemingly impossible choice. And ultimately, I’d found myself grateful a thousand times over for having chosen a family.
Patients often have an intense curiosity about their therapists. They want to know if the therapist can truly, truly understand them. They yearn to know that the empathy is coming from a place of knowledge and commiseration, not just imagination and formulaic response. I felt this girl’s despair, along with a powerful urge to reach out by revealing more about myself and my own unplanned and much-loved child.
But such a move would make our session about me, not about her. And the last thing she needed was a counselor who would make her patient’s problems all about herself. She needed to have her own thoughts and values reflected back at her with compassion, maturity, and with some degree of objectivity and distance. I couldn’t help her reach a decision if I imposed on her my own values and desires.
At first I offered mostly a listening ear. She was leaning towards having the child. Her thoughts centered on her fear of having an abortion, and worry that she might regret the abortion in the future. Her friends and parents had emphasized the difficulties of caring for a young child, which paradoxically only made her more determined that she could do it. I reflected these thoughts for her, offering support for her feelings without any judgement or opinion.
After some time, I began to probe gently to uncover her imaginings about the other possible future. What were her plans for raising a child, should she keep it? I was surprised to see that she had given this aspect little thought. One one point she was clear: She was certain she wanted to finish her graduate degree. So then, about the baby. At first she’d thought she could give the child to her mother to raise… but it turned out her mother had refused. She paused. It seemed her thoughts hadn’t moved past that point.
I encouraged her to continue. Well, perhaps she could send the child to day care and continue on in school. All right, and how soon would she be willing to do that? Would she take any time off from school at all? Maybe a few weeks, she thought.
What about support? Would she and her boyfriend marry, or at least move in together? She thought not. He was in school elsewhere and wasn’t any more interested than she in dropping out of his program. Her parents also lived a plane flight away.
And the financial issues, then? She was living on her student loans. Her boyfriend was as deeply in debt as she. Her parents had other children to launch and were not in a position to help her.
She spoke slowly as we worked through these concerns, as if they were entering her thoughts for the first time. It was becoming clear that this young woman was terribly unready for the task she faced. If she chose to have the baby, she would have to do an enormous amount of growing up in an extremely short time. She didn’t realize it, but her life would change radically, in ways that she couldn’t now imagine.
Of course, she would also do a lot of growing up if she chose to terminate. Perhaps she would, as she feared, regret it forever. If it happened that way, it would be something she’d have to live with. Either way, she wouldn’t again be an unencumbered girl.
I didn’t offer my opinion. I did continue to reflect the girl’s own thoughts on both sides of the issue. On the one hand the thought of being scraped hollow and empty of life felt horrific, nauseating, something one might regret in a thousand different ways over the years to come. On the other loomed overwhelming logistical concerns, the total responsibility for a new life when one was only beginning to imagine the direction of one’s own.
She thanked me for having given her a lot to think about. She didn’t reach a decision that day, but I heard from her later that she had decided to terminate. It was a decision to close the door on this baby, in order to give future babies a better shot at life with stable, loving, and present parents. It wasn’t the decision I’d made for myself; but it was a decision I might have made had I been in her shoes, with an unwilling partner and no means of financial support. She and I were not alike, and I was glad I hadn’t pushed my experiences onto her.
I felt some relief knowing that she wouldn’t have to undertake the struggle of raising a child alone, and also some sadness for the process she faced and the repercussions it might have on her relationship and her psyche. I invited her to come back anytime to discuss these or other issues, but I didn’t hear from her again. Perhaps she hadn’t connected with me or hadn’t found our work helpful, or perhaps life just got in the way. Either way I wish her well: success in her career, stability in her love life, and all the babies she wants to have whenever she is ready to have them.