She walked into our office for a sonogram. From her demeanor, it was obvious she was not new to our office. Since she met a long queue of girls being attended to, she had no choice but to wait for her turn. While she waited, she told us about her life and why she decided to keep her baby .
This twenty year old is from a strict and pious Muslim family and the only female out of five siblings. She was therefore carefully taught the virtuous life expected of a muslim woman and was jealously loved. From the way she spoke, one couldn't doubt the authenticity of what we heard her relay. She was full of regret as she told us how she dated the father of her unborn who happened to be the first and only guy she has ever dated in her life.
They started dating when she was fifteen years old. To her, he was the perfect man she hoped to marry in the not- too- distant future. The picture of their future together looked so real to her that against her firmly rooted religious beliefs, she gave her body to him. And the most unwanted thing happened; she got pregnant. At this point, she realised how she had not only sinned against her God, but also had grieviously disappointed her parents who could give up their lives to prove she could never do such a thing if they were told by someone. Now upon this realization, she thought of having an abortion; not so much because she was young and still in school, but to prevent the shame and heart break her parents will experience if they found out. Cognizant of the fact that this act is plainly abominable to her religion which she also holds in high esteem, she proceeded on the abortion.
After the abortion, she never remained the same again. Guilt became her daily companion, tears her sleeping pill. She eventually could manage to be well around unaware family members and friends because her boy friend was always coming around to keep her company. Just after she thought she was getting over the hurt of the abortion, she got pregnant again for him. But this time around she wasn't ready to go through the abortion again; she's keeping the baby.
She said having known that her baby's heart started beating after twenty- one days, and remembered the horror she went through after the abortion, she will keep her baby.
She is five months gone now and yet to inform her parents about her pregnancy. Telling her parents will be very difficult, she said. And that may mean being thrown out of the house. She broke up with her boyfriend two days before visiting the office for a sonogram because he turned out to have been cheating on her.
By the time she finshed her story, she had a girl who was thinking of abortion, a fellow intern and myself crying. She herself cried over and over again as she told us her past.
She has even requested to come to our office every once in a while to tell every girl thinking of abortion that it's not worth the life time regretful effect it has on her.
1 comment:
Wow. Just Wow.
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