Rape and Motherhood

7. Rape and Motherhood 

Hello and welcome back. I hope you can stay and walk this short while with me, a sexual assault survivor. And don’t forget to read to the end to enjoy my gem of positivity 

I never wanted to be a mum. I had what my family called an “unnatural aversion” to children. I thought and treated them as little aliens, not human at all. “Children should be seen and not heard”, that was how I was raised.

So when I was told at the age of 17 that I either had my children then or live with being childless, I actually didn’t care. I never gave the subject of having children a thought again.

Then, at the age of 20, I found out I was pregnant. It was the result of being raped by my brother’s boss. I felt fear, shame, incredulity, and anger. Fear of Alex (who was now living in my house) finding out I was pregnant because he would know, as I was fully aware, it wasn’t his child. Shame because I was pregnant outside of marriage. Incredulity that I had fallen pregnant at all; that pregnancy was nothing short of a miracle. Anger because I felt my body had let me down. 

I didn’t want to be pregnant and I didn’t want to be a mum. However, despite that, it never occurred to me to have an abortion. So maybe there was some part of me very deep down that wanted to be a mother after all. I must have had some sort of maternal love to not even consider killing them.

That pregnancy ended because of Alex’s violence at five months. When he found out I was pregnant, he took me to a doctor. He had to drag me into the clinic, pin me down and tape my mouth so I couldn’t scream for the procedure, and carry me out to the car afterwards. My little girl was too small to have survived.

After that, I seemed to fall pregnant with monotonous regularity. And each time, Alex took me back to the same doctor. Each time Alex did the same thing; dragged in, pinned and taped, carried out. My last pregnancy I only discovered after I’d thrown Alex out. So I thought maybe I could keep this one. A workplace incident (where I was violently gang raped) ended the pregnancy, fraternal twins in this case.

I did want to get pregnant in later years, but for the most selfish of reasons. I wanted someone who was mine alone. To love and be loved by. I wanted a real and tangible reason to get well, to actually want to live. However it just wasn’t meant to be.

To me, a mother is a picture of love. They love unconditionally and are deserving of love. When my first little girl was forced from me, I went numb. The doctor placed me on antidepressants, telling me that I’d “get over it soon”. But I never did.

To this day, I feel that I just wasn’t meant to be a mum. And I didn’t deserve to be either. Despite the violence that took my babies away, I feel that I didn’t love my babies enough to protect them. I was unable to provide a suitable, fitting and socially acceptable way of honouring their bodies — each and every one. Instead, I believe that I was the worst kind of scum.

Today’s little gem is a quote from Jodi Picoult:

You don’t love someone because they are perfect, you love them in spite of the fact they’re not.

That maxim can be applied to any relationship, not just that of a mother. And I do mean every relationship. Because, you see, my babies may not be alive and with me, but that doesn’t make me any less of a mother. So I am now learning to love myself — despite my imperfections.

What is your definition of motherhood? Please feel free to leave a comment as to how you celebrate motherhood, whether you have children physically with you, or not.

Thank you for walking this short while with me. I hope you’ll feel empowered to come back and visit again. And until next time, just breathe and believe.