When Lize sees the second streak turn blue ten years ago, she seeks support from a family member who tells her what to expect. “From her experience,” Liz writes, “I knew that you could not count on the comfort of our family, but on conviction.” So she asks those close to her not to share the fact that she is unintentionally pregnant with her mother.

Although Liz had “plenty of time” to think about what she wanted (not to become a mother), she still had five days to think about it after seeing the doctor. Just two weeks after a positive pregnancy test, she can go to an abortion clinic. She spends those days alone on the couch, counting the minutes. Liz: “Anyone who has ever been seriously ill knows how physically lonely it can be (…) The sunset brought relief from my extreme nausea and heralded the return of my appetite.”

On December 22, 2012, after seven weeks pregnant, Liz finally sits in a paper dress on the abortion clinic chair. Liz well remembers what she felt then and shares, “As the anesthetic fluid flows into my veins through an IV, I mentally apologize for the hunk of cells in my womb. “Sorry, I’m not ready for you someday, but not yet.”

When she wakes up after the procedure, she’s no longer nauseous and feels great: “I’m alone again, but I’m not alone anymore,” Liz concludes her story.