I was 27 when I fell in love, hard, for the first time. I’ve never been in a relationship before. I was always the ‘nerd’ with her nose buried in the middle of a book. Then this guy at work started courting me (in the Philippines, we still do courtship). He swept me off my feet and after 4 months we were officially together. After another 2 months I lost my virginity to him.
He never once used a condom because he doesn’t like the feeling so it was up to me to manage not getting pregnant the natural way. I never thought of getting some form of protection for myself when there are already so many options from pills to injectables. Then one night, I KNEW it was not safe if we do it because the risk is too high. But he begged me and I gave in. And I was right. First week of August 2014, I took my first ever pregnancy test and with trembling fingers, found out I’m pregnant.
The Crossroad
I called him and told him the news. He said he’s happy and I was relieved. Somehow we’ll weather this, I thought to myself. Throughout my first trimester, it was just a roller coaster. One time he suggested abortion. I asked him why he would suggest that? He said it seems I’m not ready to be a mother. And I thought: Really, asshat? You’re the one who has become non-existent and unsupportive. Just because I’m crying all the time because of hormones it means I don’t want to be or am not ready to be a mother? I ignored that red flag. I ignored a lot of things.
At 37 weeks, I went into labor. I called him and told him this. He won’t believe me and thought it’s not possible to go into labor before 40 weeks! What a douche! He won’t come and take me to the hospital. I was embarrassed that I had to call my mom and she had to travel 2 hours just to pick me up. After 16 gruelling hours, my daughter was born via C-section. I remember exactly when the doctor placed her on my chest right after she was taken out of me (I was fully awake, felt my belly being sewn back together! Yikes!). The doctors all exclaimed that she has a beautiful nose. They called it matangos which means she has a more western nose than most babies. One doctor even looked at my face to see if she got the nose from me.
We stayed in the hospital for 3 days but the biological father never came. He had so many excuses. After that I went home with my parents. He visited only twice, first when my daughter was a month old and second when she was two months old. Despite all, I stayed connected with him and tried to understand all his excuses. He never provided for us, after 2.5 months I went directly back to work. I traveled 5 hours a day. I got home at 10pm and many nights I never slept because she was a difficult baby. She cried constantly and woke up every 2 hours until she was 8 months old. I gained a lot of weight, I stopped taking care of myself. Many times I wanted to die, while holding her and trying to stop her from crying at night. Every day was a struggle. And I had no one beside me to comfort me.
After 2 years of waiting for Mr Wrong, I decided I deserve better. My daughter deserves better. We don’t need baggage, we don’t need him in our lives. So I cut him off, stopped communicating. And today it’s been almost a year and I’ve proven that he never really cared enough for us - he never reached out once even though he knows where we are.
My last words to him, sent through a text message: I forgive you. Thank you for my Hannah. (I named my daughter Hannah which means grace in Hebrew...
And we’ve never looked back since then.
What will you have done if it was you?
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