Special Valentines Day that turned awry: Bellas story

This is the story of Bella.

She shares the ordeal she went through after getting pregnant in third year.

“In early 2017, I met a man and we started dating. On the eve of Valentine’s day, we wanted to make it more special…,” Bella begins.

When she later missed her monthly periods, she thought that it was normal as it used to happen with climatic changes.

However, on consultation with her friend, she decided to go to hospital for a checkup.

She says her worst fears were confirmed: she was pregnant. She went to the man she had spent the special Valentine’s Day with and broke the news to him.

Bella recalls how he accepted the news and she was relieved, albeit for a little while, only for him to leave her.

At the time, Bella lived away from home and she says she could not tell her parents.

“After the father of the child deserted me, life was becoming tough since my needs were also increasing and I was only depending on what my parents sent to me. I could not tell them I needed more money since I didn’t  have the courage to say I was pregnant. I later called a friend who stays near our home to go tell my parents that I was pregnant and needed some Ksh. 500,” Bella says.

She further intimates how she expected all hell to break loose but heard nothing of the sort from them.

They remained silent on the matter, but still sent her the money as she had requested; this disturbed her even more.

With no one to talk to about her situation, Bella says she became stressed and often thought of abortion but could not go through with it.

“My conscience could not allow me to kill my baby. That is something that could have haunted me for the rest of my life. I also could not imagine bearing the pain that comes with the abortion process, including risking death,” she admitted.

One day, when she was going for class, she suddenly felt weak and fell on the stairs. When she regained consciousness, she found herself at the university dispensary.

It turned out that her classmates had taken her there and it is only then that they came to know she was pregnant.

When she was five months pregnant, Bella decided to go home to talk to her parents. Still, they did not talk about her ‘condition’ and she says she has never understood why.

“We could talk to them about anything else but not pregnancy. They never asked anything and that haunted me most. I spent a weekend there and then returned to my rental apartment, vowing never to come back home,” she told Citizen Digital during the interview.

Bella says she found life more difficult and decided to take a up night job at a nearby hotel but as fate would have it, her body would not let her. She resigned two weeks later.

When she was six months pregnant, she fell very sick and when was admitted to hospital. Test results revealed that she had contracted  Urinary Tract Infection (UTI).

Also Read: What causes UTI? Signs and symptoms 

Surprisingly, her sickness turned out to be a blessing as it rekindled her relationship with her parents.

They even took her back home after she was discharged. “My parents became more loving than ever” Bella says.

She later gave birth to a bouncing baby boy, who will be celebrating his second birthday on October 28.

Looking back at her journey, Bella says she has learnt what having a family means, especially for pregnant women who’s mental and physical health is sensitive.

Bella urges parents to be supportive and reveals that thanks to them she will be graduating in December this year.

“I will become the first girl in my extended community to graduate with a degree, something I am proud of considering the struggles in the family,” she says.

She also holds on to the hope that there are good men ‘out there’.