When I was in high school there was a girl in my English class who “got in trouble” and was sent away to visit her aunt in some far off state.  We were scandalized.  Did she have an abortion? Who took the baby? How could she let this happen, we whispered, as if we never put our own pure and righteous selves at risk for a hasty trip out of town.

But that was in the days when we were more hypocritical than compassionate, and I’m not just talking about gossipy teenage girls.  That’s why it’s hard to believe that all these decades  later we could be regressing and in the future be telling stories about how it used to be when there were safe places girls and women could go for help in making very tough choices.

Like this one.

Elizabeth was single, in her 30s, working as a writer and a teacher with a city apartment.  As she says, “I had a very nice life.” She was conscientious about birth control and when she discovered she was pregnant she was horrified. She said she liked the man a lot. He was attractive and intelligent.  But she doubted he would want to marry her. Besides, she didn’t consider herself ready to have a baby.

She went to the Planned Parenthood clinic in her town intending to get an abortion. And there she met a counselor who changed her mind. “She was very warm and very kind. She had children. She’d had an abortion herself. She asked me questions like, where was I in my life? How did I feel about this pregnancy? How would I manage as a single parent.”

Elizabeth left Planned Parenthood that day conflicted about her original decision.  “I needed to go home and think about it. This time I felt differently,” she said.

She said this time because Elizabeth had two previous abortions. Her diaphragm had failed her those times, too.One abortion was done at a Planned Parenthood clinic when there had been no question that it was “neither the right time nor the right man.”

The other was at a hospital in Eastern Europe where Elizabeth was teaching and it was a terrifying experience. “I remember screaming and being held down. There was no anesthetic.” The hospital conditions were so grim the staff washed the surgical instruments in the same hot water used to boil the noodles for lunch.

Now with another abortion pending Elizabeth went back for a second  meeting with the Planned Parenthood counselor. Plus she started seeing a psychoanalyst. Neither of them told her to have a baby or not have a baby.

What they did, Elizabeth said, was “help me see someone I didn’t know I was. That I could have and love a child.”

That baby is now her bright wonderful grown-up son and Elizabeth is a grateful defender of Planned Parenthood.

“I owe that woman. I wouldn’t have gone ahead if some indifferent person had been there.  She  listened to me. She saw me as a worthwhile young woman at a fork in the road. She helped me decide I didn’t want to miss this chance and that what I needed in the end was to have a child.”

A whopper storm was forecast. A real soaker would be an exciting kick-off for the rainy season. At the same time we were looking forward to a new baby in the family. While there had been a flurry of tiny cousins produced by the other side, our immediate tribe had not had an infant join us since the last great arrival of our granddaughter three years ago.

With an eye on the heavens and an ear to the phone, we began a baby and storm watch, hurrying to finish a yard project. Once the rain or the baby came, there would be no time to spend dragging around flagstones.

On that weekend clouds skittered around and the sky looked like it wanted to do something meaningful. And the expectant parents reported things could happen any time. There was rumbling on both fronts but no action. Mother Nature would decide when to deliver.

The farmer’s market was piled high with red, yellow and purple beauties, the late harvest jewels more glittering than usual under a gray, brooding sky. People naturally talked about the weather. Even if you live in a place where the seasons are subtle each one brings some adjustment. Some looked forward to the rain. A decent storm might ease drought worries, wash off the dust, rinse the air and lure back the green. A significant start to the wet season would mean we could move inside, make tea, read books. Others grumbled that they weren’t ready to give up the warm golden days.

I talked about weather and babies to the woman who sold me a squash and a fistful of beets. Her family has a baby coming in January. We agreed it’s a good time to be looking forward to new life. I imagine we’re about the same age, grandmothers now who had our children back when people spoke of Zero Population Growth and the irresponsibility of bringing babies into a crowded, hungry world. Things haven’t improved much since. But people still grin when you tell them there’s a baby coming. Maybe because it’s another chance to do things right.

As my friend Marylu says, babies and the hokey pokey really are what it’s all about.

The get-ready phone call came at 6 in the morning and we lurched into baby mode, scrambling to fulfill our assigned roles. Ours was to go to our daughter’s house and be with the three-year-old while her parents went to the hospital. It was a false alarm. We returned to the garden project, planting tiny pieces of elfin thyme for the rain to encourage. The three-year-old came over in her yellow rain boots, ready for there to be puddles.

But first there would be a baby. The next morning we got the real-thing phone call. We headed for the hospital, with cards for the baby and banana muffins for the exhausted parents. The new big sister brought a bouquet of orange dahlias.

That night Mother Nature began to bluster and whistle and stomp. Trees bent over and some broke. Power lines went down. Roads flooded. The wet season officially arrived and it rained frogs and snails and puppy dogs’ tails, because that’s what little boys are made of.