Teen pregnancy

As a teenager I was miserable because I had no self-esteem. I‘d been interfered with by one of my older cousins & found it difficult to interact with my peers. It was not until a few years ago when my sister-in-law Debbie told me that I had been a very angry young woman that I realized how much his abuse had affected me. I always looked up to Debbie because she was always the popular one. She always had people around wanting to be with her. I was lonely & angry that no-one looked up to me in the same way. How little I understood my actions in those tumultuous years of growing up. I was always giving everything I had to be loved by anyone who would even look at me. I wore my heart on my sleeve to coin that phrase. Yet now I see that because of my anger & frustration I made it difficult for anyone to get close to me. I had no respect for myself so no one showed me any respect. I was the one causing my own downfall without ever realizing it.

I remember wanting desperately to lose my virginity, to experience that feeling of Love that I had read about in novels & books. How silly & immature I was to think that it would happen just like that. Why would anyone want to love me if I didn’t even love myself? I desperately wanted to be accepted, to feel like I belonged somewhere. I was lonely & too shy to do anything about it & being a typical teen I was constantly putting my foot in it saying the wrong things at the wrong time. How I shudder at my mistakes & wish I could change so many things.

I was selfish & I regret being a terrible sister to my brother. We went to an engagement party for one of Alec’s friends. I didn’t want to be there so I left him at the party & went to the disco at the Berri Hotel. I had a few drinks of Marsala & coke & thought I was happy. I met a young man & we went for a drive to Lake Bonney & it was there that I had sex for the first time. I was so paranoid that I would fall pregnant that I wouldn’t let him move much as I sat on his lap in the front seat of my parent’s car. It took a long time for him to convince me with his kissing & touching but I finally succumbed. I don’t even remember his name. So this was what I’d been waiting for? This was the moment that I’d fantasised about all those years. I thought this was love! Hardly! So here was I having the supposedly most wonderful time with a stranger. Someone I would most likely never see again as he was from interstate. He wanted me to leave my family to be with him, flippantly telling me that he’d gotten other girls pregnant & expected that it would happen to me too! Thanks a lot buddy!

Well he was right! I missed my period & found that I was pregnant. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t tell my parents. I just tried to ignore the facts screaming in my head, I couldn’t believe that this was happening to me! How’s that, pregnant the very first time I’d made Love! That’s ironic. We weren’t making love: we’d had sex. Big difference! I could hardly be the judge of that as I’d never had either before. So here I was at 16, still going to school & trying to be so grown up! Pregnant! That awful scary word & in reality had no inkling of its meaning let alone the full encompassing fact that I was going to have a baby!

My mum did all the washing & looked after me & she was the one who brought up the subject after noticing that I’d had no blood on my undies for a while. I was too scared to go to my own parents to confide in them about my terrible secret. Mum asked those horrid questions & I was in tears as I told her about my first sexual encounter with a stranger that had brought me to this point. She was all efficiency as she told me what to do to abort my baby. My baby: the one I didn’t want & didn’t need at this time of my life. I had my education to complete, my young life to live. Here I was at 16: too young to be tied down to a baby, too young to realize the enormity of my situation. Mum gave me the out that I needed. She was there to save me from myself!

Mum knew what to do. She got a fat-hen plant & washed & scraped the root clean. I had to insert this plant root into the neck of my womb so that my body would abort the baby residing there. I went through agonizing cramps & a long heavy period that lasted a week but at the end the baby was gone & I was ready to face the world again! Mum never told dad & I was relieved because I couldn’t have faced him. I knew I’d let her down & she promised never to tell! So I was saved from myself & the biggest mistake I’d made in my short 16 years of life! Thanks mum!

I should have been the perfect daughter & done all in my power to thank my mum for helping me out but did I? No! I just wanted to keep going out & having fun. I’m sorry that I wasn’t a better daughter to her after all she’d done for me. I was a selfish teen looking for fun & hell bent on getting there as quickly as I could! I now had my driver’s licence & a little old car to get me around. What a wonderful girl I was! I had dad on my side, knowing that mum wouldn’t tell him about my sin! I used him to get my way & so I was allowed to go out to discos & to the drive-in theatres.

My best friend Martha & I used to go to the Berri or Barmera disco on the weekend & we liked to pretend that we were sisters. Martha’s dad had a light blue Chrysler Charger so we also pretended that our dad was a policeman. We had lots of fun until Martha’s mum did another runner. Her parents would always get on well for a while. Working really hard during the harvest & then she would take off with all the money because he’d tried to burn her with the burning sulphur, or try to hurt her on way or another during his drunken melancholy. I just missed her & wanted to have her there for me, never understanding her family’s problems.

Hey I was just a lonely teenager, trying to get along in my life! My parents didn’t fight like hers so I didn’t understand that not everyone had a good home life like ours. How was I supposed to know how lucky I was?