Reckless moments, desperate measures

I read this tragic news in the Malaysian papers and felt quite ill and sad. It is the one about the teenage boy who was said to have stabbed his pregnant teenage girlfriend. Its a nightmare for every parent. And I thought long and hard before writing this one. Afterall , I am a parent too.

For the rest of my life I will never erase this image from my mind, even if I tried.

“I had settled the week old baby in the baby seat, specially bought for the black cab, fastened the seatbelt and kissed him for one last time. Then I turned to the mum, barely a child herself. After much coaxing, I persuaded her to give her baby one last kiss, before he was taxied off with a nurse to his foster parents outside London. She did. And for the first time, I saw big fat tears rolling down her cheeks. For the first time, I saw the bonding but it was too late cos she had made the decision.

It was her decision and nothing would move her. She wanted to give the baby away. She had just emerged from the denial phase that she did not give birth and was not pregnant. She thought she was just fat and was eating so much jeruk and slimming pills to slim down. When I first saw her, her young face registered nothing. If there was such a thing as nothingness, that was it...on her face. The baby in the cot next to her could’ve been someone else’s cos when I asked her about the gender, she didn’t know.

For once, my job as a freelance whatever sucks! I hated it when I was called to interpret for this young Malay girl who had just given birth. I got too emotionally involved and knew so, as day after day, I went back to the hospital and fed and changed the nappies as his own mother wouldn’t do so.

Finally, I was asked to ask her what she wanted to do with the baby...and her reply was, to give him up for adoption. That posed the question of the rights of the father, whoever he was. After much coaxing, she gave a number and the hospital called the boy who was totally in the dark about the whole thing. Totally shocked that he was already a father. But no denial here.

Again, when I asked his views about adoption, this child said – whatever the girl wanted, he would respect her views. Would he come and see the baby? No, he was at school.

It must have been desperation that drove her to ‘hide’ away from her family and come to London as a student. It must have been desperation too that she was taking slimming pills knowing that they could induce miscarriage...which in her case, thankfully, did not work! But it is still a question mark whether she shared her secret with the boyfriend.

Whatever it was, it must have been a great shock that called for desperate measures. And if the newspapers reports about yesterday’s news are correct, the action was certainly a desperate one. And a tragic one.

At the end of this whole sorry saga, which lasted just a week, I was left an emotional wreck. I had become attached to the baby and watching it being ferried away to the home of a stranger, just broke my heart. I stood a long time by the road side, after the taxi drove away with the baby and just cried.

Then, there was tension at home. My husband thought we should have adopted and I said, there was no way we could afford to and with me being involved like this, there was no way, I’d be qualified. "

Imagine, brief moments of reckless pleasure that could end up so, so tragically!