Meet 22 year old Fiona, she shares her story on life after getting unexpectedly pregnant, staying positive, and message to other young mums.

Meet 22 year old Fiona, she shares her story on life after getting unexpectedly pregnant, staying positive, and message to other young mums.

“I am 22 years old and totally passionate about life when I was growing up I had so many dreams. One, I wanted to be a doctor for quite a long time  then one day I saw someone who had been injured with blood, that was the end of that dream!  Two, I wanted to be a fashion designer as well, then thought interior design would be good for I love artistic homes. Then finally i decided to go with the second best thing I loved most which was mathematics and did economics, although I have so many people who tell me that my personality matches someone in the marketing sector or public relations.

I was in a steady relationship and at some point, I suspected I was pregnant. Since my boyfriend at that time always used to tell me that I should do a pregnancy test. I decided two things: one, I am not pregnant and two let us see if he will truly honor his word so I arranged a meeting with his mother and him to talk to us. His mother never showed up but he came along and claimed responsibility to my elder brother. After which we decided we were going to do the test the following day.

The following day, as the nurse took out her maternity care book after saying congratulations with a big smile, I looked at the nurse, looked at my father’s baby and swallowed my tears. Accompanied by him, we took a long walk in one of the estates and my mind just went blank. I had this voice telling me it is finished .  On the other hand, my baby’s father made plans on end about his coming child. I wondered how could he be so calm in such a situation? or is it because he had already known from the beginning so he had already come to terms with it?

After he bought me something to bite and we headed home and at the gate he told me not to do anything to our child and that he will always walk with us. I went straight to my room, locked it and cried like a little baby but I knew there was no choice in a matter that involves life, it is either life or life! So i chose life!

Since I had not told my parents, I was always scared to share with them for I was not prepared to see the disappointment on their faces, so I just kept it to myself for  a really long time and would bury myself in thoughts.

One day, when I was just a week to 6months, I was cooking and the thoughts were too loud and I could not take it anymore. So I switched off my phone, switched off the gas and went straight to my room and packed my bags and left. I left my phone on top of my bed for I did not want anyone to find me,  I had no idea where I was going but I knew I  needed to  cool off. I went to a friend’s place and stayed for the night and then headed to my son’s father’s place the next day. That was the only place I felt at peace for we were in this together.

The day I discovered I was pregnant, I remember that night when I got home, I entered my room and locked it and cried for a very long time, I was a complete disappointment to my family and now I was sure there was no way all that I had planned for myself would come to pass, my life was over! Done! 

What if my baby’s father walked away and left me a single parent? What would I do? This was not part of my dreams, I cannot survive as a single mother, I don’t have the strength to do so. It is funny I seemed not to care what other people would think about this situation for I knew people will always talk whether you do something good or bad and the beauty is they will talk about you for months and maybe a year and then someone else will come up and they will forget you but at least my baby’s father supported me from day one or so it seemed.

Things  got worse for me when we had a fall out with him because he was became violent to the point that I thought I would lose my baby at 6months and so I had to choose what was right and go my separate way.

The constant feeling that he had disappointed me and hurt me physically as well just made matters worse. I was now all alone in this matter, I had not informed my parents or anyone else and it just tormented me day and night and that is when I decided to confront my fears and tell them what was going on.

 I was bitter! I was carrying a load in my heart that was so heavy it felt like it was exploding inside me! I was confused as well for I did not know what the future held for me. I had given up on life, I was ready to let life go any moment. There was a time I told my brother as we were sitting outside on the lawn that I wanted to die and up to now I cannot forget what he said, he said ” sure! how do you want to die? Tell me what you need and I will get it for you but someone who wants to die does not yell about it.  They just do it, so you must let whatever is disturbing you go and not break you because when you arise again, you will be better than you are now” At that time, these words meant nothing, in fact I was angered but  I am here now. Looking back now, he had wisdom for the situation than my wounded heart could not absorb at that time.

My parents reaction…..

My mother was shocked from the news. The day I  was able to tell her, my baby’s father was awaiting outside the room as I  talked to my mother. He said he wanted to be there for support. So after I had told her about it, she looked at me for a very long time and kept quiet. I guess she was lost for words and also disappointed because she had taught me about celibacy till marriage.

After we left the room we all went separate ways. She was able to talk to me the next day and she told me that she will always support me and the baby and that she was happy that I did not choose to abort the baby.  I felt so undeserving of her love and held back the tears for I was already tired of crying every day.

My father, well like all fathers flipped at the sentence “your daughter is pregnant.” He was in a state of hurt and great anger,  I am his only girl and he had put so much trust in me and I guess the last thing he expected from me was to bring home a grandchild at this point in my life. There are many times he would not talk to me as before but he would always make sure he brought me yoghurt to drink.

My parents have been my co-parent,  in this sense, they have been Chiiwo’s father. They have walked with me from the time they discovered that I was pregnant by ensuring that the baby and  I were emotionally at peace . They have supported me financially  from buying the baby products to paying my maternity fee, hospital checkups and providing  all that a baby would need. They were  there with me  in hospital.  They also stood by me when baby Chiiwo was being dedicated to God.

When I went back to school, Chiiwo was about four months and a half, my mother would always be home early to ensure that he was okay or would take some days with him because we did not have a caregiver at the moment. We would leave him with my cousin. They took me back to school, employed a house help to take care of my son and adjusted their lifestyle to  be there for the baby while I am in school.  They have been a true blessing.

 Picking myself up…

The first thing I did was to pray for strength to be able to face another day then I forgave myself for I felt I had let myself and my parents down. Second, I cleared my mind of all the doubt I had that I could not be able to pull through this. Later on because of the circumstances, I forgave my father’s baby and also got an opportunity to talk to him about all the areas I felt he had let me down. I then concentrated on what I loved from music to art and that made me feel good about myself. Every time I would feel dispirited, I would talk to someone about it, write it down and talk to myself as well.

From this experience I was inspired to start Amira Africa.

The mission is to  motivate, elevate and encourage young mothers across the continent to run their race.

I do weekly articles on different things that touch on young motherhood. In the blog I have been able to start two projects which touch on violence against women and the other on special needs.

The reason that I touched the special needs program was because I have friends who are young and have special children, so I thought how hard is it to be a young mother and also have to take care of a special child, a lot of mothers would not want to open up about this and therefore I  decided to start a section where every mother can get information on this and if you are going through it you are able to find encouragement in this. The other project on violence against women is close to my heart. 

I wanted to show ladies that you decide how you are treated, a lot of women think that once you have a baby with someone then you can stay around even when there is physical and emotional  pain. In my opinion, this is  totally  unacceptable, you can do extremely well separately and the man can still be in his child’s life if he wants to, do not force him to.

In my blog I like touching on the emotional aspect more because I know when I am able to elevate these women emotionally for them  to let  go and   forgive themselves, the situation and in most cases the baby fathers for walking out on them then they will be better people tomorrow when they have let go of all the emotional hurt. I  do this by sharing my experiences during my pregnancy journey and after birth  in the  Dear Teko segment which I hope to publish as a book.

We managed to share a story of a young mother as well and hope to feature more stories of different mothers  in the future  so that the young mothers out there may see that they  are not alone . What they  are going through someone else is going/has gone through it as well.

The Amira blog is 6months old and recently we met with the young mothers  we had a fun day and we  were able to talk about various issues affecting us It was such a wonderful time!! We hope to have more soon. 

The meeting  led to a Whatsapp group where we talk of various things, share quotes,  our babies’ progress, it is quite beautiful!! Other times I have phone conversations, text messaging, emails with women who are going through different things and would want my opinion on that, but the hardest I had to deal with was when a lady asked me if she should go back to her baby daddy, it was a matter of the heart and I did not know what to tell her at that point.

There is  a lot Amira has Envisioned for the future, for instance most of the young mothers I interact with, about 80 percent of them are single mothers and what comes with this is the financial struggle. Amira would like to create opportunities and services where these ladies have the best services such as respites but at affordable prices if not completely free. To allow them to run their race in life more comfortably.

In Africa where a lot of these women face stigma, we would want to curb that by more awareness through programs and also counselling for them so that they can also be able to forgive the situation and those who have sidelined them because they had a baby early, to create a bigger platform where the young mothers can bond and give each other that support more like a support group system.

Lastly, in the rural areas most of these ladies drop out of school unlike the urban centers and are not able to have financial projects to make their lives better. Amira Africa wants to create such opportunities for them around Africa. I believe that to make a difference I must start from the lowest unit in society and that is the family. In all families the mother plays a very critical role so if she is at peace with herself, she can be able to nurture her family in the best way. It just hit me though, in some five or so years I will not be a young mother anymore but i trust to continue in this journey no matter my age.

My son Chiiwo… brings  out the best of me. When I look at him it makes me more passionate to go out there and try and reduce the figure of 500,000 babies aborted every year for one reason or another to none. I understand there are people who are pro-choice and i respect that, but when I look at Chiiwo, I do not want any woman to miss out on this opportunity.

An opportunity to smile at random, to work harder in life because you know there is someone looking up to you.

An opportunity to be the best you can be for I tell myself, I faced one of my greatest fears in life, being pregnant at 20 and keeping the baby therefore I can now achieve anything I set my mind to it because I know fear is the preparation of something great just depends if you want to embrace it or overcome it, all these I probably would not have realized if I did not have my son in my life.

Having become a mum ,I view life differently compared to before. I now have someone who depends on me unlike before where it was me, myself and I.

It has also made me work harder in things I do for example school work, before Chiiwo I did not realize that it is possible for me to get all  A’s in all units.

I am happier, babies are just awesome! you come home after you are tired and there they are smiling at you, sometimes you just marvel and laugh at the littlest things they do.

I realized true friendship as well, when friends would go beyond their means to make sure I am comfortable while I was pregnant and even after that, you know you are kind of tired and there are so many places you can’t go anymore even if you would like to. My friends would come home just to save me the trip of coming all the way and leaving my baby.

I appreciate the littlest of things in life and it has also made me more prayerful unlike before. Above all, I now know true love when I look into my son’s eyes. Motherhood is the best thing that ever happened to me.

 The words of advice I you give to young girls going through what I went through:

I am sure pregnancy was the last thing on your mind at such a tender age and you had all these goals and aspirations for yourself and now you are looking at the mirror and probably feeling like a total failure and all you see is dirt and darkness.

The best thing to first do is accept your position that soon you will be a mother and the second thing is to forgive yourself, the situation and anyone else you feel has wronged you and then take best care of you and your child so that you may deliver a healthy baby.

Going against the current  like a fish in life will only lead to more frustrations and you do not need that now for you need all the peace of mind you can get. A few months or years down the line you will look back and rejoice that you kept your baby.

Do not constantly feed your soul with “how can I raise this baby alone” now that my co- parent has left, you will do much better than you think! Everyday wake up and tell yourself, I will do this! I am doing this! proclamation!!

Lastly do not let go of your dreams, you now have the greatest motivation of all times,your baby! run your race regardless of the challenges.

I am not an advocate of premarital sex but I believe that whichever situation you find yourself in life, make the best of it as the Bible says you have two choices: life and death, choose life. Make choices that are inclined to life.

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 How we met Fiona.

Supamamas normally has exciting online campaigns of which mums get to win various prizes from various brands.

Together with Philips Avent, we ran a competition for one lucky mum to win an Electric Single Breast Pump worth Ksh. 10,000 of which Fiona was the winner.  

Thanks to Philips Avent, Baby Chiiwo will continue enjoying his mums milk and Fiona will be able to express at ease and concentrate on her studies.

 To Contact Fiona: You can reach her on: +254734033376   Emaill: fiokumu@gmail.com

 Find out more about Fiona’s Amira Africa initiative on www.amiraafrica.co.ke