I was sixteen when I found out I was expecting the lad I was headoverheels for. Id been dating Ricky, a fellow from my GCSE class, for a year before the surprise arrived. We were terrified, so we kept the news from Mum and Dad. When they finally discovered it, their faces turned the colour of a London fog.
Our family was the sort of pictureperfect one youd see on a Best Neighbourhood brochure. I was the only daughter, top of my class, and Ricky was a decent scholar too. Being undereighteen meant the adults had to make the call for us.
Both of us were doing brilliantly at school, so Mum and Dad were dreaming of us getting into a good university and landing respectable careers. A baby, they thought, would throw a spanner in the works.
Consequently, Mum insisted I have an abortion. It was still legal, and everything went smoothly no drama, no scandal, just a quick trip to the NHS clinic and a sigh of relief.
After that, Ricky and I slipped back into our ordinary teenage routine. We kept meeting up, finished our Alevels, went off to university, and a year later we tied the knot. The parents didnt put a foot in our wedding plans.
Then, as fate would have it, I got pregnant again. This time everyone was over the moon.
But in the sixth month I started bleeding badly. The baby arrived tiny barely a stone and a half and, tragically, slipped away three hours after birth.
The doctors couldnt control the haemorrhage and had to remove my uterus. Ill never have children again. Mum came to the hospital, eyes brimming, apologising for forcing the earlier abortion, but her regrets didnt soothe the ache.
You cant turn back the clock or patch up past blunders. Im now certain Ill never be a mother, and Im left wondering whether Ricky and I can keep our marriage afloat. After all, children are supposed to be the heart of a proper family, arent they?
