I have some gossip:

A couple the bf & I are friends with found out they were expecting, and they're not exactly thrilled, to say the least. They got pregnant last year as well and terminated the pregnancy, for whatever reasons. Or at least, the girl did without the father's knowledge, only telling him after the fact. Now the girl is looking to take the same route again, which is not sitting well with the father, who opposed the first abortion as well. He grew up in a religious household, so I'm going to assume his reasons, at least the first time, were the whole pro-life bit about murder, but now, even I can't hold that against him. Who wants to suffer through two such losses, God involved or otherwise? I really feel bad for him.

The girl on the other hand, is just scared. Or something. I don't know her well enough to be able to hear all her feelings first hand, and definitely get nothing of the deepest ones. Apparently her family is a bit controlling and an unplanned pregnancy wouldn't sit well with them. Why a 25yro woman is still living at home and concerned about upsetting mom is quite beyond me. Actually, most of this situation is. Why? Because there's really no excuse as to why they CAN'T have this child now.

Firstly, they've been dating awhile and got engaged a few months ago, so it's quite clear they had made up their minds to spend the rest of their lives and raise a family together before jumping the gun and throwing a baby into the mix.
Secondly, they're grown-ups. What's more, they're college-educated, full-time employed grown-ups. Seriously. He's a 29yro teacher and she's a 25yro nurse (that doesn't have her driver's license and still lives at home, but I digress). They're adults perfectly capable of handling this situation. They're old enough, established enough, etc etc whatever. These aren't 16yro's skipping class to have irresponsible sex in a gym locker room.
HOWEVER, this is completely their own doing. Now, this is very hard for me to type since it's so unfathomably stupid, I don't want to unleash it on you, my dear reader, because it could actually sting, this great of idiocy.

THEY WERE NOT USING ANY SORT OF PROTECTION.

No pill, no condom, not even a feeble-excuse-for-effort pull-out. Nothing.
Not after last year's unwanted pregnancy, not even after the undoubtedly difficult decision to end it, not even then.
No. Common sense probably avoids these people like the plague after being abused so savagely. My friends, my smart, mature, good friends have sunk so low as to become the despicable creatures that even the pro-choicers sneer at: those that use abortion as a method of birth control.

Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself. She's still pregnant as of right now, and no decisions as far as keep or let-go of have been made as of yet. She wishes to abort the pregnancy a second time, but he doesn't, and now the stakes are set that if she does go ahead and terminate the pregnancy, their relationship goes with it. While I'm usually not a supporter of ultimatums in a relationship, I don't blame him in this case. I can only imagine the hurt her actions inflicted in the past, and the goodness in him it took to forgive her. While I can sympathize with the girl's fear and anxiety at the situation, I understand that it's asking too much of him to do it all again. She can't hurt them both, him and herself and their relationship, this bad twice and expect everything to be okay.

When the boyfriend told me all this, I couldn't help but notice the gratitude in his eyes. We haven't had so much as a scare in our time together, since I've been taking the pill faithfully for years now. It's allows us time to discover each other, and fall in love by ourselves, without a sense of obligation to a family. Even so, we've talked about what we would do if we found ourselves expecting -- this is a talk we had before we even slept together, because I'm paranoid and responsible like that. We've made the decision that if I were to find myself pregnant, we'd keep it. I'm afraid of abortion -- not on a moral ground, but at the unnaturalness of it all. I don't want unnecessary surgeries, especially those with a history of leaving you in a psychological cloud of sorrow and guilt.
I don't want a baby any time soon, but if it happened, the child would be welcomed by parents who love each other, and are ready to do their best to provide, even if the timing was unfavorable. I also know our parents, both mine and the boyfriend's, wouldn't have a colossal freak-out, but would be supportive even through their disappointment at getting ourselves knocked up so young. They'd love us anyway, the way parents should.

As for now, I have my period so there's no baby in sight.

(thank god).