Dear Agatha,
This issue has been disturbing me and making me weary of the future. I’m a Nigerian living in China, I met a Philippine lady who also resides in China through the Internet and we were always charting till one day she decided to visit me in the city I stay. We were happy to see for the first time and ended up making love.
Two days after, she went back to her city, a month later she informed me she was pregnant by me. I asked if she was sure the pregnancy was mine. She picked offence at my question. Thereafter, she refused to discuss the matter again even though we were always communicating.
Six months after, she told me she would be travelling to her country. With pains and tears, I asked her why, she told me that there was a secret she had been keeping away from me. However, she opened up to me that she was six months pregnant.
Seriously I was shocked and didn’t know what to do. I am not financially capable of discharging my responsibility as a father to a child in a foreign land. Besides, she is also a foreigner. I don’t know what to do.
Confused Man.
Dear Confused Man,
What is the confusion about? The issues you are raising now should have been put into consideration by you before having unprotected sex with her. When a man sleeps with a woman without protection or ensuring she is protected, he should expect to be a father anytime whether he is ready or not for the responsibilities that go with fatherhood.
At the time you slept with her, didn’t you know she was a foreigner? Didn’t that factor in your consideration of her as your girlfriend? You saw in her a woman you liked and valued hence your willingness to have her in your life. If her nationality mattered to you at that point, you would have insisted on some form of protection before being intimate with her.
What you should do is a simple matter of going to her side of the city to personally and discuss the matter with her. First, you must apologise to her for asking who the father of the unborn child is when she first told you about the pregnancy five months earlier.
Responsibility isn’t just about having the money to execute your role as the father of the child, but acknowledging as well as accepting your own contributions to the situation. A woman doesn’t get pregnant by herself, but with the help of a man.
Frankly, you didn’t act like a responsible man. No matter what you thought at that time, you erred by not insisting you both discussed the issue again. When a woman tells a man she is pregnant and refuses to discuss the matter again, the man should ask questions. Because you were running away from accepting responsibilities, you deliberately didn’t encourage her to talk about it.
Rather than bemoan the fact that you aren’t ready for the challenges of being a father, why not begin to think of how you can make it easier on both of you by discussing your fears, limitations as well as plans for the future with her. From all indices, this woman isn’t expecting anything from you. Having kept the pregnancy for six months without telling you about it despite the fact that you communicate everyday, shows she is more than ready and able to function as the father and mother in the life of the child; an indication she isn’t expecting anything from your end.
If you allow this happen, you not only deny yourself the opportunity of being involved in the life of your child but might lose any right to claim the baby as yours either now or in the future.
Seeing her would enable you both come to a conclusion on the baby’s welfare. The secret about fatherhood is that no man ever has enough to kick-start a family, but when he begins with the little he has, God always steps in to provide the rest. All you have to do is to offer her what you have. What matters to women most time isn’t just the money but the presence of the man who has put them in the family way.
During pregnancy, the woman is most vulnerable; feels bloated and unattractive even though she may actually be prettier than before. It is a psychological feeling which only the husband or the man who puts her in the condition can dispel. Whatever your situation is financially or otherwise, it behooves you to contribute in anyway to the welfare and progress of the pregnancy as well as the baby when it arrives.
This is also not the right time to discuss the issue of her nationality with her. Don’t forget that you both found pleasure in each other’s company and that when it comes to love, what matters is the amount of happiness you are both getting from each other’s company. Besides, your current environment would certainly dictate the kinds of women you fall in love with. Life is about making do with the choice we are presented with. For now, she is the choice of mother to your child. This is a fact you must accept and do everything you have to do to make it work. You not only owe it to the child but to yourself as a man. This is your first fruit, that child that tells the world that you are man in enough to father a child.
Even if you have doubts about the paternity of the baby the responsible thing is to first accept it and do a DNA after birth if still convinced the child isn’t yours.
Good luck.
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