, I was n't prepared for this development . It meant I would have to put my career ambitions on hold . But `` the choice '' was not mine alone to make . I had always wanted to have Jim 's babies , but was n't at all sure how he would react . At the time , we were 19-year-old newlyweds , struggling to make ends meet . But he was unflinching in his desire to keep our baby and his positive , upbeat attitude about the whole prospect turned everything around . I have always loved Jim for how he responded in that moment . During my pregnancy , I came to realize that this process was not about me . I was just a spectator to the metamorphosis that was happening inside my womb so that another life could be born . It came down to an act of self-sacrifice , especially for me , as a woman . But both of us were fully involved , not just for that moment , but for the rest of our lives . And it 's scary . You may think you can skirt around the issue and
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Margaret Sanger opened the first American family-planning clinic in 1916 , and nothing would be the same again . Since then the growing proliferation of birth control methods has had an awesome effect on both sexes and led to a sea change in moral values . And as I 've grown older over the past five decades -- from 1960 to 2010 -- and lived through this revolutionary period in female sexuality , I 've seen how it has altered American society -- for better or worse . On the upside , by the early 60 's The Pill had made it easier for a woman to choose to delay having children until after she established herself in a career . Nonetheless , for young women of childbearing age -LRB- I was one of them -RRB- there was a need for some careful soul searching -- and consideration about the long-range effects of oral contraceptives -- before addressing this very personal decision . It was a decision I too would have to face when I discovered I was pregnant at age 19 . Even though I was married to the baby 's father , Jim Welch