Priceless Inspirations (7 page)
“Have we given her a pregnancy test?”
I guess the doctor knew from the exam that I probably wasn’t a virgin like I’d been saying. Still, I wasn’t worried. Dream and I had only had sex once. I just didn’t think I could possibly be pregnant after only one time. I was wrong.
When the test came back positive, Akeeli sat down and started to cry.
“You lied to me!” she kept saying over and over. “You lied to me!”
The nurse snatched the birth control pills out of my hands. The look on her face was like “You won’t be needing these, you nasty little girl.”
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so low in my life.
Akeeli just kept crying. She’d been trying to help me, and I hadn’t been honest with her. Now, I’d made her, and myself, look like a fool. It felt like everyone in the clinic was staring at us and judging us. It was awful.
Somehow, I persuaded Akeeli not to tell, while I figured out what to say to my family. That lasted about a day, and then she told her sister. Her sister told their mother, my aunt. My aunt told my other aunts, and one of them told my grandmother. Within days it had gone all around the family. Everyone knew, and things were really messed up.
The only good part came when I told Dream. He seemed really happy. He started talking about marriage, about being a family, and about him and me having a real life together. His mom promised to help me, too. She even seemed excited by the idea of being a grandmother. I thought, and I hoped, everything might be okay.
It wasn’t.
When my aunts found out I was pregnant, they were disgusted with me. I heard them talking about me, saying that, just like my mom, I was bringing children into the world that I couldn’t take care of.
“You a baby having a baby,” my grandmother said, shaking her head. I felt bad because I knew she was right.
The rest of my family had more to say. They didn’t want to help me raise a child. They were already mad because they’d had to raise me. Since they had to raise me, they decided they had the right to make the decision about what to do about my pregnancy
for
me. So one day, not long after they learned of my situation, they got me into a car and took me back the Family Planning Clinic, this time for an abortion.
I didn’t want to have an abortion. I was scared. I knew I didn’t know how to raise a baby. I knew I didn’t have any idea how to be a good mother. I also knew I didn’t want to have an abortion. I cried and cried. In the end, the clinic refused to do it because I was only 14. By law, the only person who could consent for me to have an abortion was my legal guardian. Since my mother had never legally given up custody of me, it didn’t matter who I was living with. She was the only one who could consent for me to end the pregnancy.
At other times, the fact that my mother was still my legal guardian had been a real problem for me, especially when it came to registering for school and things like that. Only my mom could sign the papers that would allow me to start going to class, and to get her to sign them, first you had to find her, then you had to get her off drugs long enough to understand what you needed her to do.
This time, it worked out in my favor. Since she was still my legal guardian,
only she
could give consent to end my pregnancy, and it was impossible for her to give her consent anytime soon. She was in jail for a drug charge and wouldn’t be out for another year.
I was going to get to keep my baby.
My aunts wanted me to have an abortion, so I knew I didn’t have their support. Dream’s career was growing and he was going to be away from me more and more, so his support was uncertain. I was still in high school and had no idea what I was going to do or how to be a mother.
I was scared, alone and terrified about everything that had to do with pregnancy and motherhood. More than once, I wished I could go back and make a different decision. I love my daughter dearly, but I for her sake and my own, I wish she had been born when I was older, more mature and had more family support to offer her. Instead, when I found out I was going to be a mother, I had nothing, not even a place to stay.
Toya’s Priceless Gem: Wait for sex if you can, but when you know you’re going to be sexually active, protect yourself. Don’t expect the guy to do it. Always look out for yourself! After all, you’re the one who will have to have the baby, and that will change your life forever!
There’s an old saying “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”, and it’s supposed to mean that people who come from the same family are kind of alike. In my case, it isn’t true.
I’m the apple that fell from the tree and rolled-and rolled and rolled. At least as far parenthood goes, I’ve done everything I could to be as different from my parents as night is different from day.
I’ll never forget it. When the nurse put Reginae in my arms after she was born, I looked into her tiny face and I made her a promise that, whatever else I did wrong in life, I wouldn’t make my mother’s mistakes. I knew I’d do better by my daughter than was done by me. I’d do everything I could for her to have everything I never had and more.
From the way she’s turned out, I think I’ve done okay so far. Reginae is about to turn 12. She’s nearly at the age I was when my anger made me stop listening, when I discovered boys, and when I wanted my freedom, no matter what anyone said.
Already she says to me, “Mom you’re too mean! You’re too strict.”
I tell her, “Mama loves you. I want what’s best for you. Right now, you are still a
kid
.
Stay
a kid as long as you possibly can.”
I know what I’m talking about. I was in a hurry to be grown and it didn’t do me any good.
I don’t know what I’ll do when she starts sneaking, or when she rebels against my rules and wants to do things her way. No matter what, though, I’ll be here for her. I can’t imagine ever turning her away. I can’t imagine her having to go through what I went through being fourteen, pregnant, feuding with my family and all alone.
My pregnancy was really hard and I made a lot of mistakes as I tried to learn how to be a mother. I think I also did some things right. By telling you, and Reginae, my story, I hope you both can take a lesson. Do what I did right, and avoid what I did wrong.
Someone to Love Me
When I first found out I was pregnant I was scared. I wondered, “
Who’s going to help me? How will I do this?
” I didn’t have any idea how to be a mother, and I wasn’t sure I could do it. I was still a kid. I wasn’t ready for motherhood and I knew it.
Another part of me was very calm. “
It’s time to grow up
”, this part of me said. “
It’s time to get yourself together. You’re gonna have a baby. You’re going to have someone who loves you, who depends on you. You got a chance to do this right
.”
I wanted to grow up. I wanted to be as mature and responsible for my daughter as I hoped I could be, but at fourteen, I still had a big mess on my hands.
I didn’t want to live with my aunts. By trying to force me to have an abortion, they had sent me a clear signal about what they thought about me and my baby. While I didn’t think my Uncle Nat would turn me away, I really didn’t want to go to him. After all, with all his rules, he’d tried his best to prevent me from being a child having a child, and I’d rebelled against him. Now here I was, a child having a child. I was embarrassed and ashamed of myself enough without having to go back to Uncle Nat and prove to him that he’d been right after all.
I wasn’t sure where else to go. My mom was in jail, so living with her was not an option. Then .I thought of my dad.
He was now married and living good. He had a house not too far away, where there looked like there might be room for me. I had hoped that perhaps he’d let me stay with him and his new wife for a while. Since I’d never asked him for anything, I thought he’d say “okay.” It seemed like something he should be able to do.
I went over to his house and talked to him and his wife about my situation.
“Can I stay?” I asked. I don’t remember if I told him how long I would need to stay there, but I hoped that it would be enough for him to see me, his daughter, pregnant at such a young age, with so little support from my mother’s side of the family. I hoped he’d think about all the years that he hadn’t been there for me. I hoped that he would see it as only fair, a small payback for the years I hadn’t spent with him.
He didn’t answer me exactly. Instead he and his wife just looked at each other. My dad said something about “having to talk about it” and it was clear they wanted to do that in private. I got up to go take a shower. I guess I should have been concerned when they didn’t say “yes” right away, but I really thought it would be okay. I thought he would persuade her. I thought he was going to explain that this was important to him. To both of us. I thought he would let her know it was something he needed to do, for both of us.
When I came out of the shower, my Dad’s wife had left for work.
“She says you gotta go,” my dad said.
I couldn’t believe it. I just stared at him. A million angry words bubbled up out of my mouth, and I threw them in his face. I just couldn’t keep them in. I think that was one of the experiences in my life that hurt me the most, realizing that even then, when I really needed him, he wasn’t there for me.
Years later, he and I would talk about that day and I would find a way to forgive him. However, at that moment, I was through with him, and it would be years before we spoke again.
I went back to one of my aunts, Aunt Grace. The whole time I was there, she was talking about me, dragging me down.
“Had to be so fast, in such a hurry to grow up. Now see what you got! Knocked up by some little nigger at fourteen,” she’d say, shaking her head and turning up her nose. “It’s a shame. A damn shame.”
Or she’d start in with, “What you gonna do when that baby gets here? You don’t know nothing about raising no child. You still a child yourself!”
It was bad enough that she said this to my face, but she said this and more to anybody who’d listen. She was constantly running me down, and I knew it. Here I was pregnant, getting bigger and bigger, trying to take care of myself and my growing child, but I felt like I could never rest. Her eyes were always on me and she was always talking and talking. Everything she said was negative. Everything she said dragged me down lower than I already felt. The stress of the situation drove me out of her house. Over the next few months, I bounced from home to home yet again. From Uncle Nat and his wife, to Dream’s mom, back to Aunt Grace, back to Uncle Nat, then back to Dream’s mom.
All the while, I felt that Aunt Grace was right. It
was
a shame. I wasn’t in school in anymore, so I was no longer doing the things the other girls my age were doing like going to the talent shows, doing the dance team and just kicking it after school. I saw Dream less than I used to because he was traveling with his new album and hadn’t been home much. When he was home, I could tell he didn’t like how big I was getting. He’d spend a little while with me, then hurry out to chill with girls who were still small, shapely, and not pregnant.
There were plenty of girls for him to choose from. He was starting to become really successful, and I felt like I didn’t have anything much going on. It worried me. I felt the distance growing between us and remembered the warnings I’d heard.
“After you sleep with him, he gonna change.” That’s what my aunts and older cousins had said.
They were right.
It had taken a while, but he
had
changed.
My biggest worry was about being a mother. I hated to admit it, but my aunts were right. I
was
a child having a child, and I didn’t have any clue how I was going to do it.