March 04, 2002 | 11:36 AM

7L) ### Thurston Street

It�s amazing how time folds over on itself so that two distinct points connect in some unmistakable way. The day I left Penny�s apartment in 1998 I found out I was pregnant and subsequently had an abortion. The day after Penny left my apartment in October of 1999 guess what delectable little piece of news was imparted to me via the First Response Pregnancy Test?

Oh yes.

I really am that stupid.

Three unwanted pregnancies. Three abortions. Who on earth has three abortions? Only idiots, right? Only low class, careless idiots with reckless disregard for human life. Only idiots who don�t care enough about their bodies to practice safe sex. Only idiots to whom abortion is just another method of birth control.

Right?

I have been more safe at certain times than others, but I have never in my entire life not used some method of birth control.

This time ladies and gents, I was on the pill.

I missed one day. I followed the directions and took two the next day. Apparently it didn�t make a difference. Or the pill was defective. Or something.

Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.

I was 22. I was just beginning to piece my life together after the disaster that had been ages 18-21. I made 12 bucks an hour at a job I was growing to despise and I lived in a cramped little apartment with my boyfriend, a pot head, and someone else we met on the internet. I was not in any physical or emotional or financial condition to have a child, and neither was John.

This brand new grown-up life I�d been looking forward to wasn�t turning out the way I had planned.

Penny was gone and our friendship, which had meant so much to me was lost forever. I was pulling 55 hour weeks at the Stupid Company where John was also working. Just as Collin had predicted, working together was putting a strain on our relationship. I was feeling less and less close to him and less and less comfortable with an arrangement I had been goaded into and was too weak and unassertive to resist.

And now this.

During this pregnancy I became violently ill at a moment�s notice. Throwing up multiple times a day. Sobbed during long distance commercials and every time I saw someone on the street with a small child. Was exhausted and shaky and could barely think straight. All because of this god damned child I couldn�t even have.

And I love babies. I love babies. I�ve always wanted a baby.

The guilt too. Of knowing how many people want a baby and can�t have one or lost one, and here I was recklessly throwing away what for some women would be a miracle.

If there is a God, I thought to myself, he has an awfully sick sense of humor.

Give it up for adoption, I thought. But I knew that if I carried this to term, giving it away would kill me. And keeping it would kill me too.

Baby killer. Selfish fucking baby killer.

My appointment was on a Saturday morning two weeks after Jenn moved in.

John and I took a cab to Brookline. We arrived much earlier than necessary so we killed time at the bookstore. I bought Dorothy Parker�s Collected Works. John bought something by Raymond Carver.

Where I�m Calling From indeed.

The sky outside was baby blue bright and the air was meat locker chilly. We walked past the protesters with their shouts and slogans and gruesome signs. We walked through the metal detector and the security guard checked our bags. We paid in cash at the front desk. And I filled out the questionnaire.

The last time I hadn�t had the local anaesthetic. I was awake during the procedure and it still gave me nightmares.

This won�t hurt a bit. You�ll just feel a little pressure

Yeah, right. Pressure.

So this time I wanted to be out cold. Dead to the world.

Eventually my name was called and I went into the little white room and dressed in a blue dressing gown. I laid on a metal slab with my feet in the air, mindlessly counting the cracks in the ceiling. I was now at the mercy of the doctors and nurses surrounding me, and the ominous silver instruments that would make me bleed again.

While I was on the table, the abortion doctor told me that due to my weight there might be some complications with the anesthesia.

I was defiant.

I�ve had anesthesia before and I�ve never had a problem.

Well unfortunately that�s not an indicator of whether you�ll have a problem today.

I didn�t respond.

However, we are fully equipped to deal with any emergency, and I haven�t lost a patient during one of these yet.

Again, I didn�t respond.

Of course, if you want we can do this without the local. It�s up to you.

No. I want to be out cold.

As the anesthesiologist stuck me in the arm, I mulled over the what-ifs of me dying in the middle of my third abortion. Would serve me right, I thought. An absurd idea crossed my mind.

Hopefully my death won�t become fodder for some political coup by right wingers...

And then I found myself waking up with no one else in the room besides myself and the anesthesiologist.

As far as I was concerned, no time had passed at all.

Is it over?

Yes, it�s over.

And I started sobbing.

Somehow I pulled myself together on the way to the recovery room, where a bunch of other zombified women were sipping juice and laying on cots.

John and I took another cab back to Somerville and I vegged on the couch for the rest of the day, sipping a chocolate milk shake and watching Hideous Kinky, which was unexpectedly comforting.

And then life went on. And it�s just one more trauma you try not to think about. One more ghost that haunts your waking life and spins its web of roads-not-taken across the landscape of your dreams-- perpetually child like and nameless, with no birthday for you to celebrate and no future to plan.

Stay tuned for part the Twenty-Ninth...

And if you want to read this from the beginning click HERE