Alyssa: "Since I was 12, I was mainly focused on my enormous desire to have children, I just had to..."
You are 12 years old and while some still play with Barbies, I had to consider whether I would want children in the future
I could never get pregnant easily anyway. My body was rejecting my uterus and it had to be removed. I started menstruating at the age of 9. Quite young. I quickly started on the Diana pill because of severe menstruations. Every month was a drama. When I switched pills, my pain attacks began. I was 12 years old. And I no longer had my menstrual cycle. At 14, I met my first great love. My boyfriend and I quickly started talking about children. I was actually very open about it right away. But it was very conflicting, because at 14 you don't want to be concerned with that at all. My friends didn't understand and it was hard to explain to others. At 15, I was also told that I would not be able to make my mother a grandmother. That's how simply the doctor put it, but for us, it was a huge blow.
In addition to my bouts of pain, I now also had to deal with the fact that I would never become a mother
My body was rejecting my uterus. If I had a strong desire to have children (which I did!), we had to enter a medical process quickly in the hope that I could become a young mother. This wasn't immediately about getting pregnant, but rather about ruling out what was and wasn't possible. Many hospital visits and discussions followed. My boyfriend at the time and I both supported this process. Several years went by. At 17, the pressure increased. My chances of having a baby were minimal. Only if I tried to get pregnant before turning 20, there would still be a small chance that it could be successful through various treatments. By the time I was 20, they would want to definitively remove my uterus, as everything around it was also being affected.
In the summer of 2017, we decided to really go for it
After our vacation, we were going to start with hormones. By then I was 18 and my boyfriend 20. Young. But definitely ready to take it on. I can tell you that my drive to become a mother was enormous. It preoccupied me for years and not always in a good way. We still had a strong, beautiful relationship together and so we were ready for parenthood. Or so I thought...
We all have a rough patch in a relationship sometimes, and we had ours after our summer vacation
A setback. After 4.5 years, we decided to split up. It was a huge blow and caused a lot of sorrow. For the first time, I let go of my desire to have children. I put it on hold. After a month, we got back together, with the idea of working hard on our relationship. But two days later, on December 7, 2017, I took a pregnancy test without suspecting anything. Two very clear lines. Pregnant. Without any medical intervention. Without giving it a single thought. A miracle. Truly. I texted my boyfriend and jumped into the car in my pajamas with the pregnancy test. Still both in shock, we planned to work it out together. We had to make it work. We had been together for 4.5 years and were ready to really work on it.
I was vomiting for weeks, so the pregnancy secret didn't stay secret for long
At Christmas, there was an ornament on the tree for the family with the very first ultrasound. A tiny little baby of 9 weeks. I truly felt pregnant. I also sensed some doubts in my boyfriend. Looking back, I think I could already feel it... The constant postponing of sharing the news with his family. More and more often he would come home and get out of bed in the middle of the night. He didn't understand my visits to baby stores. He found it very difficult to talk about. And we argued quite regularly.
The day he told the news to his parents
After that, I never saw my friend again... Do you understand this? I don't! And I don't want to either. Apparently, he was not at all ready for this step and I think he thought beforehand: "It's never going to work out". But it did. My pregnancy was the most beautiful thing for me and his disappearance didn't affect me much. I was pregnant and with a girl no less. My happiness was complete. He didn't matter to me. He gave me what I had wanted since I was little. I was going to be a mother.
My pregnancy was not at all easy, but for me it was something special
Every day I enjoyed it. I traveled far and wide with my mother for nice things. I almost gave birth at 28 weeks of pregnancy, but I managed to stretch it to 37+ weeks. I gave birth to a dysmature baby on July 16, 2018. It was questionable whether she would survive. Inside my womb, it was dangerous. Her first weeks were tense. It turned into 15 tough months. A crying baby, an overly sensitive girl, a girl with a very strong will, quick, funny, sweet, and of course the most beautiful of all.
I myself have been through various roller coasters
There were various emotions towards motherhood and especially single parenthood. I felt anger, incomprehension, sadness, and disappointment towards the “biological father” of my daughter. Only now am I processing all of that. It will always remain a painful spot, but by now my daughter is 15 months old and I am overjoyed. Often it's very hard and not how I ever envisioned it, but I would do anything for my little one. I give everything I can and for me the most important thing: I am a mother. She is truly my miracle. The girl I dreamed of since I was a little girl myself. My baby girl Madée Joy.
ALYSSA
