"Whether by your will or not, there is no ship now that can bear me hence."

...

I envy them.  All of them. 

I just can't stop thinking about it.  It's an obsession. 

I hate reading their birth stories.  But yet I love it more than anything.  19 and 20 year old girls... some even younger.  I'm so envious of them... and so proud.  I admire them so much.  

I think about the moment that they found out they were pregnant.  I think about what they must have felt at that exact moment.  The fear and nerves they felt taking the test.  And waiting for it.  The moment they laid eyes on the little pink plus sign.  Or watched a second pink line fade in beside the other.  Were they scared, like I was?  Did they cry and cry... like I did?  Or were they overjoyed... expecting it?  Hoping for it?  

Either way.  These girls gathered their courage and decided to keep their babies.  They did something I couldn't do.  They gave themselves up to their babies.  No matter how bad their situations might have been... they kept their babies' lives.  I didn't.  I couldn't.  

And when they were born... they were happy.  They got to feel their babies moving inside of them and see them on the ultrasounds and then finally have them placed on their stomachs and hear that first cry.  And they're happy.  They're in love with their babies.  They're perfect.  

I want that.  But I can't have it yet.  I know this.  

It hurts to see what I could have had.  What I gave up.  

Perhaps this is my punishment.