I was seventeen when I had my first kid. A girl. I was in senior high school and the guy that got me pregnant was also in the same school as me. We thought we were old enough to understand the ways of love so that evening when he told me he loved me so much and couldn’t live without me, I believed it. It was written all over his face. His hands couldn’t stay off me and he looked at me like a child would look at candies. I melted in his hands and that night I gave it all away to him.

Little did we know that everything comes with responsibilities even when you innocently make love for the first time. Just once, that was all it took for me to get pregnant. I didn’t know my body that much and I hardly knew how it felt like to be pregnant. I had nausea. I started reacting to strong perfumes. I threw up at the very least encounter with a strong scent. I remember Sophia staring into my eyes and telling me, “Betty, do you know you’re pregnant?” I pursed my lips and stared at her face like I was looking at something unpleasant.

I asked her, “How did you know?”

I went through hell when my parents got a hint of my pregnancy. My dad threatened to disown me. I was sacked from school. The next several months before I gave birth was hell for me.

I had my baby and went back to school to complete senior high. My name changed the day I got back to school. I was no more Betty, I was called “Born One.” They wouldn’t say it to my face so that was alright for me.

I went to university after senior high. I was determined to complete school, find a good job, get a place of my own and move in with my daughter. That was the plan and nothing was going to stop me. But when I got to level three hundred, I met Ato. He was quite a gentleman. He was the one giving me extra tutorials on courses I couldn’t grasp easily. I was always on him trying to get him to teach one thing or the other.

One thing led to another and by the time we realized, we were in love. He knew I had a daughter and didn’t judge me. He knew my story and he was so cool with it. That made me love him more and felt comfortable around him.

When the man you love knows your past and still finds you adorable, you feel you’re lucky to be with him. All the ones I knew were happy calling me born one but he was man enough to step forward and claim me. I was happy for him and for us and dreamed of a future for both of us.

We both had a job after school and still kept our love very strong. Somewhere along the line I started going through all the feelings I went through when I got pregnant at seventeen. I knew something was wrong so I got tested for pregnancy and I was positive. I felt disappointed and heartbroken. I wanted us to have a flowery wedding before babies would follow. I didn’t even know how to tell him about it. I knew he would be disappointed too but things like these happen.

He was with me that night. He was in a very good spirit so I thought it was the right time to discuss the pregnancy. I told him, “There’s something we need to discuss.”

“What is it about?”

“Errm, where do we go from here? We’ve been dating for over four years. Do you have any plans for us?”

“Why not? Marriage is the next step but we have to take it slowly. We both have to be very sure about everything before we make a move.”

“I’m very sure about us. It’s been four years and I know you enough to know you’re the one for me.”

“Well, marriage is not about saying all these sweet things ooo. It’s about work and more work.”

I didn’t say anything. He kept talking. Reasons after reasons why we needed to take it slowly. I told him, “Well, that’s not the issue actually. I did a pregnancy test this morning and it was positive. I thought I have to let you know.”

Maybe I chose the wrong time to say it or I chose the wrong words or said something I didn’t have to say. I still don’t know which one I did. But I still remember his reaction as though it happened only yesterday. He was so angry as though I got myself pregnant and decided to push it on him. He started throwing tantrums and started calling me names.

You see, it takes just one trouble to see a person’s true character. All along I knew him as someone who never judges. But that day, he brought the stories of my past just to prove that I was the most stupid woman he had ever met. He said, “How could a woman of your age allow this to happen to you? I thought someone with your kind of story would have learned her lessons. How could you be so childish? Now I understand why you had a baby at seventeen. You simply don’t reason like a mature woman.”

Hmmm!

I didn’t know what to say. I was shocked to the marrow. I thought, “Is this all about the pregnancy or he had been meaning to tell me all these and the pregnancy gave him the opportunity?” I was broken. All my confidence. All my trust. All the love I had in my heart was sucked out of me. I didn’t even know I was crying until I began talking. Tearfully I asked him, “So what do you suggest we do.” He snapped, “Abort it!” I said, “Thank you. I would do as you say.”

For weeks he didn’t call. I don’t know why guys do that. They stop communicating at the point where communication is all is needed. I used his absence to think things through carefully. “Even when I was seventeen and didn’t know the ways of life, I didn’t abort my baby. Why now? If he doesn’t like it, I do. I will give birth and ask nothing from him.”

One day he came by and asked if I’d gotten rid of the baby. I told him, “I haven’t. I’m keeping it.” He got angry again as though anger was all he had. He insisted I should abort. Later he said, “You can’t even do a simple thing I asked you to do and yet believe we could be married?”

He wasn’t my problem. My problem was how to break the news to my parents. I discussed with some friends who suggested I should abort it. They said, “It’s not easy for a born one to get married, how much more a born two? If you don’t want to marry in the future, then go ahead.” I must admit, that really scared me. Finally, I mustered the courage and told my parents about it. All the expected drama ensued. All the insults in the world were hurled at me. It was expected of them. They love me too much and expected something better from me.

Four or five months into the pregnancy, I received a message from Ato; “If you insist, you can give birth but you can’t use the pregnancy to trap me to marry you.” I asked myself, “Is this the same guy I was head over heels in love with? What changed?” To be honest, that message made me so angry if he stood in front of me and said that, I could have murdered him and I’m not exaggerating. So I responded to his message, “You place so much importance on yourself than you deserve. Me? Trapping you to marry me? And who said the baby is yours?”

He hung on that question; “And who said the baby is yours?” to say he wasn’t the father.

Life is hard but we are built to get over hard stuff so we can deserve the joy that comes in the morning. I didn’t have it easy doing it all alone but I had no option but to carry myself straight to the finish line. I gave birth to a boy, Jeff and the sad thing was, he was a complete carbon copy of his dad. Any time I looked at his face, it was his father’s face I saw. That didn’t bother me. He was mine and mine alone.

A mother of two beautiful kids whose fathers were at large. All my attention was on giving them the best and being the mother they could be proud of. I didn’t think of getting married or allowing any man into my life to destabilize the beautiful aura I’ve created around me and my kids. I didn’t have it all but I had peace. Perfect peace.

At a party one evening this man walked up to me and said hello. I smiled and gave him my hand. He shook my hand firmly and said, “It seems you’re not friends with anyone around here looking at how quietly you’re seated.” I said, “You’re not telling a lie at all but I’ll leave any moment from now. My kids might be waiting for me.” He sat next to me, we talked, we exchanged numbers and continued talking over the phone.

He sounded learned and very deep. “I’m a Medical doctor,” he said. I said, “No wonder.” We met the second time on a date. I looked at him critically. He looked older than I perceived him the first time. He asked about my story. I told him everything. Mostly about how I want to raise my kids so they don’t repeat my mistakes. He was impressed. He told me his story too.

He was a divorcee with one kid. He said, “Just some few years ago, I was a drunkard. I could drink all the alcohol in the world tonight and wake up at dawn to ask for more.” He once operated on a patient while drunk. Nothing went wrong but somehow, the hospital authorities got to know and they fired him. His wife had always wanted to leave him because of the way he was drinking. “We married for four years and I was drunk through it all. I didn’t know my own son’s name and didn’t even know how he looked like because I never saw him through a sober eye.”

The day he lost his job, his wife also filed for divorce. That made the drinking worse. His parents thought it was a curse so they sent him to different churches for prayers but things never changed. He said, “One day, at an old school gathering, I saw all my mates and how well they were doing in life and how great they were looking. I decided I needed some change. It was difficult but I tried. It’s been two years already and I’ve never tasted alcohol. I had my job back and happy again.”

I asked him, “How old are you?” He said, “I turned forty last two months.” I said in my head, “You look like a sixty-year-old man.”

We kept seeing each other and brought him home a couple of times. He vibed with my kids as though they were his. They even called him daddy because he always came around bearing a gift for them. I visited him one day without the kids and he was so not happy with me but that was the day he proposed. I said yes! Yes! Yessss!

A few months later, we got married.

He packed all his things from his place and came to live with me in my little house. He said, “Let’s stay here for a while so the kids can complete their terms in school. We can then relocate. He plays with them as though he’s their age mate. He takes them out for shopping and teaches them computer games. When there’s something they can’t do, they won’t come to me. They’ll go to their daddy. When they come home from school, they ask when is daddy coming home. He’s stealing my kids from me but I’m enjoying it.

Some days, I look at him and his bald-head and all I could be is grateful—grateful to the alcohol that made him lose everything so he could find his way to me.

—Betty, Ghana 

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