At age 16 I did something really stupid. I dated a guy who had been arrested several times before. One night we met at a car park. I had no idea why. But then he smashed the window of a car. Of course, the alarm went off, but my boyfriend quickly turned it off again.
We both searched the car for valuables but found nothing. Then, suddenly, a police car stopped right in front of us.
My boyfriend jumped out and ran away, but I was so scared, I just froze.
The police arrested me and the next day I got trialed and sentenced to 1 year in prison. You can’t imagine how mad I was at my boyfriend.
In my opinion it was all his fault. And to make things worse, he had gotten me pregnant. I didn’t wanna have a baby, but once you are inside the prison system, you have no choice, they force you to keep the baby.
After 3 months, my beloved boyfriend paid me a visit and said “thanks you didn’t rat on me. If they had caught me, I would have gotten a long time. But once you are out of here, I will take care of you.”
Wow, the guy that couldn’t get a job, wanted to take care of me. How romantic. I told him to f off and that I never wanted to see him again.
He responded “fine, then good luck raising our kid on your own. You got what you deserve.”
Ok, I had enough. I filed a report to the police and told them how my boyfriend had helped me break into the car. From there, it was easy to convict him, because the police had DNA traces from the crime scene that matched him.
It also wasn’t his first felony, so now he is serving a 3 year prison sentence. And all because of me.
But I was still miserable. Because being pregnant in prison at age 16 is no fun. The older women didn’t respect me and often forced me to give them my food. It meant that my baby and I often had to hunger.
That was my life until I felt myself cramping. I screamed “My baby is coming! My baby is coming!” I expected the guards to bring me to a hospital. But instead they brought me to another cell and handcuffed both my arms to the bed.
I couldn’t believe it. I mean, where was I supposed to run? When a doctor finally arrived, I was already screaming out of pain. He told the guards to free me from my handcuffs, but they refused and said “we aren’t allowed to do that.”
I had so many thoughts racing through my head. What if something went wrong? What if I couldn’t push out the baby because I’m tied to my bed?
Well, giving birth to my baby took 5 hours, but everything went well.
You probably didn’t know that prisoners are allowed to raise their babies inside their cell. But for many women, that’s they only choice. And I can tell you, it was horrible. The other inmates often looked at my daughter as if they were planning to hurt her.
So to keep her safe, I gave her to my mom until I came out.
Looking back, I can tell you that going to prison was a life chaining experience for me. I realised I had to become a responsible adult or my life would only become worse.
That’s why I graduated high school and got a job as a Dental Assistant. It doesn’t make me rich, but I’m happy to help people and to have a secure job.
Most importantly, I’ve learned to not date dishonest people like my ex-boyfriend. Those people will only ruin your life.
0 Comments