I was raped and now pregnant

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, Three months ago, while coming back from an errand for my mother, three boys gang raped me in an uncompleted building. It was horrible. Till date, I cannot make out the faces of the boys that violated me. When I told my mother about the incident, she scolded me as if I asked for it and later advised me not to tell my father or uncle. I felt bad at her attitude but decided it was better I heeded her advice of not telling my father. Besides, I didn’t want my father telling me all those nasty things my mother told me. I was at home about two weeks ago when I fainted; I was rushed to the nearest hospital where I was pronounced pregnant after some tests were carried out on me. Needless to say, my father is now aware of the whole incident and blames my mother for not telling him. He said, if he had been told, he would have insisted I went for medical examinations and steps taken to avert my getting pregnant. Even now he insists I go for an abortion but my mother who is pushing religious sentiments, she is a member of The Apostolic Church insists I should have the baby. According to her it was a sin to take a life one didn’t create. The issue is causing so much problems at home between my parents. I am so confused. I am only 18 years of age; a one hundred student of English. I am not ready to be a mother least of all, the one whose paternity I will never be able to identify. I have tried to make my mother understand that I have my whole life ahead of me; plans I want to accomplish before I even marry; she has vowed to fight me all the way if I attempt to destroy the life she claims is inside of me. It is so painful that my mother hasn’t bothered to ask me how I feel or consider my nightmare and shame of having a child at my early age. it is so painful that what she wanted concealed have been made public by a pregnancy I cannot explain whose precisely it is. Already my mother is treating like a piece of dirt with the way she screams and calls me unprintable names. I wonder how she is going to treat a child she is already referring to as a bastard. The only person on my side is my father. I am so confused about what to do about this child. Please help me make a decision, Agatha. I was at the programme you attended at the national stadium where you talked about women knowing what they want before venturing into a relationship. I want to be useful to myself and the society. Please help me. If forced against my will by my mother and the church to keep this child, I would rather die. It is my body, my future and life that are at stake. None of them is offering me any succor or sympathy. I am fed up. Adewumi. Dear Adewumi, There is nothing I can say or do that, will undo what has been done. I really empathize with you. As a woman, I understand your pains and humiliation at being made to suffer for something you were painfully forced into. As a mother, my heart goes out to you. At 18, you are old enough under the law to make your decision. Abortion is permitted when it has to do with rape. In your case, three men raped you making it impossible for you as a woman to identify whose baby you are carrying. No matter what the church or your mother feels, their responsibility is to you, given the situation under which you got pregnant. To keep the child is to postpone today’s evil till a later date. Every child deserves love and identification in life. Given the history surrounding the conception of this child and your current state of mind, there is no way this child will ever enjoy love and support to grow into a success story. When the story of how its conception would be told the child, chances are the child will become difficult to manage. Frankly, there is no way the innocent child will get love from you or any member of your family or immediate environment. There will always be someone ready to remind the child of its dark past anytime it oversteps what the person considers the normal bound. The burden of shame, denial, unspoken condemnation and cruel gossip will be too much for the child to bear. As a matter of fact, the child will suffer more than you eventually especially if a man. The burden of his paternity will always come to play over his surname. The day your father passes on, will be the day someone in your father’s family will come forward to protest the use of the family’s name by your child. The only way this child can be happy and integrate properly into to the society is to have and give it up for adoption; to a couple who can really invest unconditional love on the child and who is unaware of the circumstances of the conception. Adoption will help you take care of the burden of guilt most women feel after abortion especially if she is unable to have a child in the future. It will also help you deal with the psychological trauma of raising a child with no father as well as the bitterness the presence of the child will always evoke in your heart and mind. But you have to be medically and emotionally fit to go through this. To give birth to a healthy baby requires for the mother to be in a very good state of mind as well as the required stamina to go through all the process of birth. Frankly, you need to be of good health and mind to carry a pregnancy to full term since all kinds of complications can occur. Whatever you decide to go, get a medical opinion first. It will go a long way in influencing what your final decision will be. Sometimes, medical report may even rule out the option of abortion while in other cases, it recommends abortion on health grounds. Rather than allow your mother and church push into a situation that could spell danger to your life, tell your father to take you for proper medical examinations. It is the first priority now. If at the end of the day, you are not keen on having the baby, don’t be afraid to say so because you are the one wearing the shoes and whose future is on the line by this unfortunate incident. Honestly, no reasonable person will blame you if you decide otherwise; the important thing is for you to be comfortable with it. For now, you may have to take sometime off to think properly. It is important you do. Once you are able to make peace with yourself by opting for the decision you feel most comfortable with, the urge to kill yourself will vanish. You are contemplating it because you feel under pressure by the opinions and views of others. The important lesson you must take away from this unfortunate incident is that in life, you are solely responsible for what you become. Don’t allow others make the important decisions bothering on your dreams for you. You are on the threshold being an adult; coupled with this kind of life changing experience others your age or older are yet to go through, it behooves you to safeguard your dreams with the single-mindedness of one sure of his or her destination. Good luck.