The Culprit Behind My Nightmares.

This is my story, one which I have relived a thousand times through nightmares and very traumatic memories. This time though, I will relive it by giving an explicit account of what happened. I hope by telling it I would have ultimately taken the first step towards healing and hopefully achieving a sense of resolution.

Let us rewind back to 2016. I was just a teenager then; 16 to be precise. A teenager breezing through life with a permanent state of mind,I was in love. There is no deadlier combination than that of a teenager and infatuation. Some say teenagers live selfishly and solely for themselves. I say they live for whoever they are in love with. I was in love with Simon, a guy three years older than I was. For him I jumped through hoops, the kind that a child should not have to ever go through.

The real story starts: Simon and I had reached the threshold of intimacy in our relationship. There was nothing that our teenage minds conjured up that we had not explored. It was a typical love story really; from the late nights watching the stars to making love at 1400hrs when his parents were not around. The sneaking around made the experience much more exhilarating, until it was not. When we found that we would have to sneak around from the reality we brought to life ourselves, it became trying instead.

The day that it all began remains painfully etched in the darkest confines of my mind. I was just a child, a child who one morning suddenly woke up to a runny stomach, a sense of smell that had heightened ten fold and days curled up on the bed with an unmoving cloud of fatigue hovering over me. My body felt like an abandoned and wrecked shelter for different symptoms. It all happened so abruptly, the previous night i had been up and about on my feet and the next thing I was encased in bouts of fever and a furiously pounding headache. I did not know any better but my textbook knowledge of biology told me what I had to know. I was pregnant.

That is when the real sneaking around began. My days became a blur of barely waking up and retching out food while also trying to conceal the pregnancy. It took a real toll on me, so much that I could feel myself getting slimmer by day. Eventually after much deliberation and Simon basically taking the decision for me, we aborted. It was not easy, given the fact that it was an illegal and backdoor abortion but it happened. I loathe myself whenever this thought crosses my mind but i have never felt that kind of relief in my life and maybe it was this lack of remorse that led to the subsequent events. I felt somewhat a victor as blood gushed nonstop out of me, as if the whole ordeal was a battlefield orchestrated against me to maneuver through. Although i had to endure two weeks of bleeding, it was a measly sacrifice compared to being a teenage mother.

It was an unfortunate event, but it was the not learning from it that was even more unfortunate. Two weeks quickly passed and the bleeding was over, just as the internet said it would be. Once more, with my worries leveled and everything back to normal, I jumped into my lover's bed, uncensored. It was then that I fell pregnant again, having neglected the fact that immediately after tissue expulsion, one is prone to falling pregnant. This time was different, the signs felt like something else entirely. Going to the toilet became a chore. The pungent smell that came from my privates was hard to bear. On my panties was always lining of light blood. On some days I would have very sharp abdomen pains that would recede after no time at all. This went on until one day I experienced extremely excruciating pain that was hard to ignore. It was then that i lost my second pregnancy through gigantic blood clots.

After this I was constantly under a cloud of confliction and could not decide whether to be happy or sad. A week down the line I woke up during the night with a taut heavy stomach and harrowing pain at my every movement. An immediate visit to the doctor revealed everything to my single mother. I had been pregnant, I lost the baby and I needed womb cleaning medication. That it was not my first time carrying she never got to know...

This is the part of the story that gets me feeling both heavy and hollow at the same time. The first two times I got pregnant I could easily forgive but for this I fail even today to even consider forgiving myself. It was approximately a year later, I was well out if high school and applying for college. This is when I once again fell pregnant for the same guy. I almost convinced myself to carry to term but the obstacles before me were as pronounced as a mountain. Simon had decided that he did not want a child with me after all and had left me high and dry to go through the pregnancy alone. He must have realized earlier than I did how very stupid I was. I was distraught to the core and my morning sickness coupled with a broken heart left me bedridden.

On the other hand I got admitted to a Nursing school and for enrollment had to go through a series of tests as per the school's protocol. These included a pregnancy test and I spent sleepless nights deliberating whether to stay at home and risk my future going down the drain. Stranded and out of options, I went for the alternative which was terminating the pregnancy. By then I had a baby bump and to an experienced eye, was visible that I was with child. By my own odd calculations I had to be around 18 weeks pregnant. I had not set a foot at the clinic but I knew from my relentless internet searching that I was way past the window period for a safe abortion, even when done legally.

Painstakingly alone, I gathered whatever courage I had and went on a scout for a source of termination pills. In my search I came across an agent who seemed dodgy to say the least. Hed led me into a rundown house where inside he proceeded to put pill after pill into my vagina. It was a very uncomfortable experience but was quickly over.

On my way back to my house I was suddenly overcome by shivers that I read could be expected. A few hours later the chill was accompanied by severe cramps until when an hour later I gelt a prodding at my vaginal opening. I sat on a bucket and pushed out a fully developed foetus. It looked like a baby, just a few kilograms lighter, the culprit behind my sleepless nights today.

I remember yelping and jumping from fright. The baby was still attached so I had to move around for a pair of scissors to cut the umbilical cord. No one had warned me of the terror and devastation that would engulf me. The foetus unceremoniously plumped down after being detached from the umbilical cord. It occured to me that I had taken a life, all on my own and that evoked a deep wail from within me. That night I did something so cruel, I do not think my brain was developed enough to fully process it.

I proceeded to cover the foetus in old rags and in the cold of the night, went out with a spade to bury it. The adrenaline pushed me through the process and it was only when i returned inside that i noticed the flood of blood. It was so extreme it felt like buckets were coming out of me. By morning I was full on dizzy and had trouble moving on my own. I managed a very vague and yet detailed enough to instill fear text message to my mother. "Dying", it said, and that is how I got saved to live another day. I was very disoriented lying in a hospital bed and dreaded the thought of recuperating and coming back to. How I did not die from my mother's very palpable disappointment I do not know. The brunt of the betrayal and how I failed to trust her until I was on the brink of death was visible in her eyes, in how she moved and everything she did.

So many years after I am a slightly wiser version of myself. I am also a very guilt trapped version from my younger self. My mother on the other hand is very distrustful and questions my every move. I cannot afford to blame her so I take it all. Although I have done relatively well and by the way, never went to the college I almost killed myself for, I die a slow painful death from these memories and every glaring detail feels like stirring continuously a pot of misery.

Everyday at 20 years of age is a day lived to make it up to my mother. Every little achievement more of an amendment than a milestone. The task that proves even more challenging is admitting that while I cannot go back to fix the past, I was young and naive in a hopeless situation. And so on random days I wake up sweat glazed because I swear half the time I heard a helpless voice cry out "mother". The fight with my conscience goes on, no matter the time, distance and what I do.