Pregnant at 16...
By anonymous on 19/09/2006
I live in The Bahamas with my mother, father and little sister. I was born in the Bahamas by the way. About 9 months ago I found out I was being sent to boarding school in Dublin, Ireland. I despised the fact that my parents would do such a thing, I had a steady boyfriend (we were sleeping together), a ton of friends, doing well in school, didn’t drink or do drugs, had huge dreams to be successful but had secrets of very serious depression. My parents suspected it but I never confirmed their suspicion. I guess they thought getting me off this tiny island was the best thing to do for me. I set off to boarding school in February of 06...big mistake! First of all I hated it passionately! It was horrifying for me especially carrying the burden that I suspected I was pregnant. Me!!!??? Pregnant at 16. How in the world could that happen? I never thought it would be me, but still I pushed the thought to the back of my head and hoped and prayed that when I took that pregnancy test it would come out negative. So much for all that time wasted hoping, I was pregnant.
I went to the store and bought 2 pregnancy tests every day for 2 weeks hoping that one would be wrong and give me some ounce of hope to cling to. It was a waste of money cuz they were all positive. I was all alone, hated my aunt who was my "guardian" while I was in Dublin and didn’t like my cousin very much, who lived with my aunt. But there was no way I could tell my parents, especially my father, and especially because the father was black and MY father is prejudiced so there was no way I was telling them.
Eventually I found the courage to tell my cousin and she promised she wouldn’t tell a soul. What a lie. She told my aunt that day and my aunt booked me in to see a crisis pregnancy counsellor. That wasn’t too bad because I have a tendency to hold my feelings in and take everyone else’s problem on and carry everyone’s burdens so that was a very long session full of tears and anger, but I got to talk about it. Nobody could convince me to keep this baby. I was surely set on abortion. I beat my stomach to bruises at night with anything I could find, hoping to save the money of a trip to England and to the clinic. Nothing seemed to work. After about 4 weeks of mental and emotional agony I got a call from my parents. They knew! And you know what, they told me? They told me they loved me and that they didn’t want me to have an abortion, that I had other options like adoption.
So I went to the doctor got checked out and I was 10 weeks pregnant. I still despised the fact that I was having a baby though. I felt ashamed and embarrassed. What would my friends think? Well, in the beginning, when I first found out I was pregnant I told my boyfriend I was going to have an abortion and he was all for it. But when I told him I had changed my mind he told me that I had to have an abortion. He didn't want ‘that thing’. "THAT THING" is what he called my baby. Well, after that I could see I wanted nothing more to do with him so I broke it off with him. I didn't need that kind of negativity in my life. I was carrying enough myself. I didn't need someone helping the negative process.
So I came back home to the Bahamas, quit smoking (well I did that when I found out I wasn't going through with an abortion) started being careful of what I ate and things I did. My parents and I then decided on adoption, my older sister was going to adopt because her and her new husband wanted their first child together but she couldn't seem to get pregnant. She had two sons from her previous marriage and desperately wanted a little girl to add to the family. Well, about 3 weeks later that plan also went down the drain because she also was pregnant, so we then decided on my older cousin. She never had kids because she was always raising somebody else’s. She was like a foster mother but the kids never wanted to leave, and she was going to have one more addition to her family and I was delighted with the idea that my baby would still be nearby .I wanted to see him on his first birthday and watch him open his presents at Christmas, and see him on his first day of school.
I am now 33 weeks pregnant. I’m being induced in 3 weeks because I have pregnancy related thyroid complications and have decided to keep my little boy. I couldn't be happier with my life right now and my decision, although it is a little nerve wracking, I am so happy and so relieved that I didn't have an abortion because I wouldn't be experiencing the joy I am now having a tiny person grow inside me.
My advice to any teenager thinking about abortion: DON'T. It is the most painful experience you will ever go through in your life even though I have never had an abortion. I can tell you if I had to choose between the joy I am experiencing now and the pain I would have felt nine months after my abortion because I killed my baby, I would have picked the first one in a heart beat. And you need to tell your parents. Believe me, they won’t react the way you think they will.
I hope this story will help some teenage girl or any woman young or old make the right decision.
Editor’s note: Thanks for telling us all your story…your parents have been so supportive, haven’t they, even when you believed they wouldn’t be. We hope to hear from you when your little boy is born!
