She would have been five now. I would have been someone else entirely.

In 2020, I found myself accidentally pregnant. After a lot of back and forth - there were moments I genuinely could have gone either way - I chose to have an abortion. It was the right decision and I've never doubted it.

But I do still wonder about her sometimes.

I say her because that's where my brain always goes. I don't know why. Instinct? Psychic ability? Just assuming they would have been a mini me? 

I’m self-centered like that. 

The Punnett square

I don't have a fully formed little person living in my head. It's more like... a silhouette. An outline I hold loosely and occasionally bring closer.

Would she have had my hair from when I was little - the blonde curly kind, before it went dark? Or would she have taken after her dad?

Would the Punnett square from Year 10 Human Biology have come through for me, and she'd have my dominant brown eyes? Or would she have had someone else's?

Would she have my personality - the bolshy, sarcastic, flimsy-filter flair? Or would she have been more reserved? Less of an attention seeker? The kind of kid who doesn’t need as much external validation?

Would it have been nature or nurture? Both?

I really don't know. I’ll obviously never know. 

If it’s not a fuck yes…

Something that feels spiky to admit: I've spent way more time imagining who I would have been as her mother than imagining who she would have been as my daughter.

That realisation doesn’t NOT further validate my decision to not continue that pregnancy... Nor to remain childfree - which was a more recent decision.

Because when I run through the alternative timeline in my head, it's not really about her. It's about me, doing it largely alone. My baby daddy wasn't in a position to be around much and I would have been the one carrying most of it.

And I had never wanted kids with every fibre of my being. Not before the pregnancy, not during.

My sister said something at the time that I wasn’t able to shake. She said: if you've never been sure about kids, do you really want to do it in a situation that's automatically going to make the world's hardest job even more difficult?

She was right. It wasn’t a fuck yes for me - so why would I choose to kick the door down into a situation where both of us were already on the back foot?

The alternative reality

But I still think about that life sometimes.

Would I have started my business? Probably not when I did, anyway. Would I have done the self-development work - the healing, the therapy, the years of slowly learning what the fuck was going on inside me? Maybe. I like to think I would have, because she would have deserved the best version of her mum.

But I also know what survival mode looks like. And it doesn't leave a lot of room for sitting across from a kinesiologist crying about a belief you formed when you were four.

Maybe I'd have arrived at myself anyway, just via another door. At a different time. Or maybe I'd still be circling. Again - I'll never know. 

How well would I know my own inner child now, if I'd spent the last five years getting to know her instead?

What I do know

My life did a 180 after that decision. Celebrancy. Business. Found love again for a time. Years of getting to know myself in ways I'm not sure I'd have found the time or the stillness for otherwise.

I made the decision that was right for me, for my situation, with the level of certainty I had - and I'd make it again.

I just also think about her sometimes.

My blonde-or-maybe-not, brown-eyed-possibly, quirky-probably little girl who doesn't exist.

And who I might have been, holding her hand walking into pre-primary this year.

Both things are true.

That's what I do know.

What's your sliding doors moment? The decision that sent your life in a completely different direction. Do you ever wonder about the road you didn't take?

Would love to hear about it in the comments below 👇🏼