We should know; we've done this before.

No solicitors.
No trespassing.
No parking.
Officers on duty.
A lavender building hidden behind a white steel spike fence, almost unnoticed behind gas station dumpster pawn shop fast food, parking lot empty with a few inconspicuous old models and broken bottles. Two tired women smoking, scuffing white nurses' shoes on second shifts. No signs on the lot today.
No purses or handbags.
No backpacks.
Please show proper ID.
Only one partner or support person.
Support person must also present ID.
No children beyond waiting room.
Bulletproof glass warps the receptionist's smile and makes her eyes disappear behind her reading glasses. Eight forms, two-sided. Mirrors on the sides of the desk. Racks of magazines but we sit with our hands in our laps, listening to the news, whispering to the woman across the row of chairs to the right. Shushing children. Touching up lipstick. Carla reads her bible silently next to the television, holding the hand of the girl next to her who can't be more than sixteen and doesn't want to be here but has nowhere else to go. Roshanda, here with her friend and her friend's seven-year-old son, Roshanda who is tired of being sick but really doesn't know what this will be like, just knows it's the closest to what she wants. We tell her all we know, and she is reassured. We hope it lasts - we think it might. This room holds more hopefuls than any Miss America anteroom.

Friday. A warm summer evening. We are strong, determined, sure of ourselves and our places in the world. This lobby is almost like a nunnery or a girl's camp, full of cameraderie and wishes of good luck god bless be well. By wednesday we will be weaker, sick to our stomachs, but by next Friday we will know for certain the direction of our lives from here and now.

It is not a thing to be taken lightly.