D. hung up on me yesterday and, other than a couple of nasty e-mails, nothing for 24 hours. He’s been telling people about our situation, and I pointed out that I felt my privacy was being violated. I received I didn’t do anything wrong and how dare you tell me whom I can tell… then silence. I typed up an e-mail I didn’t send:

I don’t know what to say anymore. I’m tired of working hard to stay in love with you. I’m tired of fighting for our relationship. I’m not saying it’s over, because I don’t think that’s inevitably the case, but you’re on the verge of losing me. I have made mistakes, but I don’t deserve malevolence.

I’m at the point where I no longer know what the best thing to do is, both with the pregnancy and this relationship. I talked with my friend N. last night, whom I’d called to set up a lunch date. He called back almost immediately and said, without provocation, You sound really depressed…more than I’ve ever heard you. Are you okay? What can I do? The answer is that I don’t know what anyone can do, short of taking a two-by-four and whacking D. across the head to get him to wake up to the fact that he is completely fucking things up. From abandoning me when I’ve needed him most to a complete lack of empathy about his violation of my privacy, I don’t know how much longer I can hold on.

As I stave off both tears and episodes of vomiting, I both want D. to go far, far away and come rushing back to take me in his arms and apologize. But apologies only work for so long, and there have been too many of them for too long. Perhaps what I need is to learn how to do this alone.

I suppose I thought I’d waltz in to D.’s place last night and everything would be okay, and we’d decide that we could see this pregnancy through to term. Instead, I’m left with all the reasons I don’t have to, feeling brow-beaten into something I already know is the best thing. What I’m left with is a sinking feeling that, come June 5, there won’t be any reason to stay with D. All the items on my reasons to have an abortion list seem to work equally well on a reasons to leave D. list.

Today, the magical thinking begins. I am pondering the list of reasons I don’t have to and my (perhaps delusional) optimism is worrisome. In this state of mind, there are no (good) reasons I can’t have a baby: surely the financial, emotional, and physical factors (not to mention the shaky state of my relationship with D.) are incidental, irrelevant facts, fragments of information not necessary when weighing my options.

And, of course, when I mention to D. that perhaps we need to reconsider, he doesn’t argue. What does this all mean? I wonder. I’m notorious for accepting jobs, responsibilities, projects, that I then push aside because I’ve overestimated my ability to handle them (in addition to my regular work, children, etc.). But a baby isn’t a freelance job I can drop at the last minute. How, exactly, can I think about this at all rationally? I feel as though I am working through the stages of grief in my decision-making process: Denial? Check. Anger? Check. Bargaining? Well, wouldn’t you know it…I’m right there.