I’ll be honest it’s taken me decades to process certain events in my life and the events that led to my pregnancy at 14 rank the highest.

What should have been a joyous moment for me later in life was a time of anxiety, anger, fear and loneliness.

Anxiety that I didn’t know what to do or what will happen next for me or my family.

Anger that I had no choice and was trapped in it with the person I despised most in the world.

Fear of being a mother and talking to my mother how this all happened.

Loneliness because I was just that alone in the experience and the knowledge.

I kept silent though until my mother needed answers from a doctor as to why I wasn’t getting a cycle anymore so she took me to my pediatrician. There I was in the children’s playroom with kid blocks, puzzles and Curious George books very near vomiting from nerves and maybe some morning sickness.

I will never forget the moment my mom was explaining to my Pediatrician my symptoms as I sat on the examination table. He listened, looked at me and asked me to lay back on the table. The moment I laid back my nearly 4th month belly sat up like Mt. Everest and the rooms air thinned with confirmation from all three of our faces. He asked me to give him a urine sample and left the room.

When I got back in the room, my mom told me the doctor believed I was pregnant.

Unable to hold any of my emotions I cried uncontrollably and after she repeatedly asked who I mumbled his name. Your cousin?! She asked in disbelief. Then she asked me something I never thought she would or could think. Are you in love with your cousin? I remember feeling sick and upset at the thought and protested no between my tears. She then asked me did I want to have the baby and couldn’t say no faster or louder. We went home and I balled in a corner in my dark room trying to hide from it all as she talked with his parents in the front of the house.

My mom woke me early the next morning before the sun was up to drive somewhere with her, my uncle and sister. They didn’t tell me where and I didn’t ask because I really didn’t want to talk. We arrived at a weird doctor’s office after hours of driving. I had never been to this doctor before. I had actually only been to my pediatrician and dentist up to this point in my life. I went to the back alone, unlike the pediatrician. They asked me to undress unlike the pediatrician and put my legs up in these cold metal braces. A women pressed and poked around in my vagina and I was so confused about what was happening or going to happen. She squirted warm jelly on my stomach, rubbed her wand across me and said I was 17 weeks and the baby was a boy. She then told me they would have to give me a shot with a long needle that may hurt some but would not take long. The needle seemed as long as my torso but I could be exaggerating that memory from how much it hurt. After the shot where she dug around in my stomach, she handed me some papers to take out with me.

My family took me out to dinner and back to a hotel room. We were still not speaking and no one was explaining anything either. Before I went to bed my mom gave me some medicine to take and I remember being so exhausted I just went to bed. I woke up around 4 or 5 in the morning in the worst pain I had ever experienced in my life. I begged my mom to give me something to make go away but she said we had to wait until we went to the doctor at 8. I cried in pain until we left, she and my sister tried to comfort me by holding me and rubbing my back but as time rolled the pain got worst. After making it to the doctor, I had to sit in a waiting room with at least 6-7 other patients for hours but non of them seemed to be in the pain I was in. I remember crying, shaking from pain and looking around at people reading magazines calm or them staring back at me with concern. They finally called me back and put me in a chair with more cold metal braces and gave me medicine to sleep. When I woke, my family was there telling me it was time to go home. Already dressed with a large pad for the heavy bleeding I had, I assumed it was done and the baby was gone. On the quiet long ride home my sister rubbed my back as I laid on her lap, asked me if I was ok and told me a secret she had, she was pregnant.