When the time for my period arrived without anything happening, I told myself that it was study stress that was keeping it away – I was due to sit my Leaving Cert in less than three months. Then I tried the trick of telling myself that my period wouldn’t come until I stopped worrying about it not coming. But I couldn’t stop fretting – every twenty minutes I ran to the bathroom to check if it had arrived yet, and I analysed everything I wanted to eat to see if it could be classed as a craving’. But that I might be pregnant was literally almost unimaginable.
I couldn’t bear the not knowing, I had to find out that I wasn’t pregnant, so when I was three weeks late I went into town and – anonymously, I hoped – bought a pregnancy kit, and while Shay’s mum was out, we did the test in the Delaneys’ bathroom.
We grasped sweaty hands and watched the stick, willing it to stay white, but when the end of it went pink I lapsed into deep shock. The kind of shock that people end up going to hospital and getting sedation for. I couldn’t speak, I could barely breathe, and when I looked at Shay, he was almost as bad. We were terrified children, the pair of us. Sweat broke out on my forehead and gaps began to break up my vision.
‘I’ll do whatever you want,’ Shay said dully, and I knew he was just acting a part. He was petrified as he watched the bright star of his future implode. A father at eighteen? ‘I’ll stand by you,’ he said, like he was reading from a crappy script.
‘I don’t think I can have it,’ I heard myself say.
‘What do you mean?’ He tried to hide his relief, but already it had transformed him.
‘I mean… I don’t think I can have it.’
The only thing I could think of was that it didn’t happen to girls like me. I know unplanned pregnancies happen to lots of women; even then I knew it. And I’m certain most people are distraught and wish it hadn’t happened. But I felt – and maybe everyone feels this – that it was somehow worse for me.
I suspected that if someone wild and breezy like Claire had got pregnant at seventeen, it would be as if everyone had almost expected it from her, and would just sigh a little and shake their heads, ‘Oh, Claire…’
But I was the well-behaved one, my parent’s comfort, the one daughter they could look at and not have to say, ‘Where did I go wrong?’ The idea of having to break this news to my mother was unimaginable. But then I thought of having to tell Dad and I shrivelled entirely. It would kill him, I felt.
I was gripped by intense panic. Being pregnant felt like one of the most frightening things that could ever happen to anyone. Within the boundaries of my middle-class world, it was as bad as it got. I thrashed around like an animal in a trap, torn asunder and trapped ever deeper by the ugly realization that no matter what choice I made, it would have terrible implications that I’d have to live with for the rest of my life. There was no way out – every one of my options was terrible. How could I have a child and give it away to someone else? It would break my heart wondering how it was getting on, if it was happy, if the new people were looking after it and if my rejection had scarred it. But I was also terrified of having a baby and keeping it. How would I take care of it? I was only a schoolgirl and felt young and incapable, barely mature enough to take care of myself, never mind a helpless scrap of life. Like Shay, I too felt my life would be over. And everyone would judge me: the neighbours, my classmates, my extended family. They’d talk about me and scorn my stupidity, and they’d say I’d got what I deserved.
Fifteen years later, I can see that it wouldn’t have been that much of a disaster. It was all survivable – I could have had the baby, taken care of him, eventually sorted out a career for myself. And of course, while my parents wouldn’t have hung out the flags, they would have got over it. More than that, they would have loved him, their first grandchild. In fact, as the years passed I saw people live with far worse stuff than being presented with an illegitimate child by their best-behaved daughter. Keiron Boylan, a boy from our road a few years younger than me, got killed in a motorbike accident when he was eighteen. I went to his funeral and his parents were beyond recognition. His father was, quite literally, wild with grief.
But back then, I was seventeen and knew none of that. I was inexperienced at life, at standing up to people, at going against expectations. I had no capacity to be rational and I was in the grip of extreme fear, which woke me on the hour every hour through the night and turned my days into lucid nightmares.
I dreamt about babies. In one dream I was trying to carry a baby, but it was made of something like lead so it was far too heavy to carry, but I still struggled. In another, I’d had my baby but it had an adult’s head and kept talking to me, challenging me, exhausting me with the strength of its personality. I was constantly nauseous, but I’ll never be sure if it was because of the pregnancy or the accompanying terror.
Shay kept parroting that he’d stand by me, no matter what I decided, but I knew what he wanted me to do. The thing was he’d never say it straight out, and though I wasn’t able to put words on it, I hated feeling that I alone was responsible for the dreadful decision. I’d have preferred him to yell at me that I’d better go to England and get myself sorted out pronto, instead of him acting all caring and ‘mature’. Even though he looked like a man and was the head of the Delaney household, it began to dawn on me that perhaps he wasn’t as mature as he seemed; that it was merely role play. And despite us being inseparable, I felt oddly abandoned by him.
Three days after I’d done the test, I broke the news to Emily and Sinead, who were appalled. ‘I knew something was up with you,’ Emily said, her face white. ‘But I thought it was exam worry.’
They kept shaking their heads and breathing, ‘Jesus!’ and ‘I can’t believe it!’, until I had to tell them to shut up and advise me on what to do. Neither of them tried to convince me to have the baby, they both thought that not having it was the best – or least bad – option. Their eyes were so full of pity and relief that it wasn’t them, that once again I yearned for all this to be a terrible dream, for me to wake up, shaky with relief that I’d imagined it all.
They decided my best option was to go to Claire, who was in her final year at university and very vocal about women’s rights and what bastards the priests were. In fact, she used to go on so much about the right to abortion that Mum often sighed, ‘That one’ll get up the pole and have an abortion just to prove a point.’
I couldn’t bear the not knowing, I had to find out that I wasn’t pregnant, so when I was three weeks late I went into town and – anonymously, I hoped – bought a pregnancy kit, and while Shay’s mum was out, we did the test in the Delaneys’ bathroom.
We grasped sweaty hands and watched the stick, willing it to stay white, but when the end of it went pink I lapsed into deep shock. The kind of shock that people end up going to hospital and getting sedation for. I couldn’t speak, I could barely breathe, and when I looked at Shay, he was almost as bad. We were terrified children, the pair of us. Sweat broke out on my forehead and gaps began to break up my vision.
‘I’ll do whatever you want,’ Shay said dully, and I knew he was just acting a part. He was petrified as he watched the bright star of his future implode. A father at eighteen? ‘I’ll stand by you,’ he said, like he was reading from a crappy script.
‘I don’t think I can have it,’ I heard myself say.
‘What do you mean?’ He tried to hide his relief, but already it had transformed him.
‘I mean… I don’t think I can have it.’
The only thing I could think of was that it didn’t happen to girls like me. I know unplanned pregnancies happen to lots of women; even then I knew it. And I’m certain most people are distraught and wish it hadn’t happened. But I felt – and maybe everyone feels this – that it was somehow worse for me.
I suspected that if someone wild and breezy like Claire had got pregnant at seventeen, it would be as if everyone had almost expected it from her, and would just sigh a little and shake their heads, ‘Oh, Claire…’
But I was the well-behaved one, my parent’s comfort, the one daughter they could look at and not have to say, ‘Where did I go wrong?’ The idea of having to break this news to my mother was unimaginable. But then I thought of having to tell Dad and I shrivelled entirely. It would kill him, I felt.
I was gripped by intense panic. Being pregnant felt like one of the most frightening things that could ever happen to anyone. Within the boundaries of my middle-class world, it was as bad as it got. I thrashed around like an animal in a trap, torn asunder and trapped ever deeper by the ugly realization that no matter what choice I made, it would have terrible implications that I’d have to live with for the rest of my life. There was no way out – every one of my options was terrible. How could I have a child and give it away to someone else? It would break my heart wondering how it was getting on, if it was happy, if the new people were looking after it and if my rejection had scarred it. But I was also terrified of having a baby and keeping it. How would I take care of it? I was only a schoolgirl and felt young and incapable, barely mature enough to take care of myself, never mind a helpless scrap of life. Like Shay, I too felt my life would be over. And everyone would judge me: the neighbours, my classmates, my extended family. They’d talk about me and scorn my stupidity, and they’d say I’d got what I deserved.
Fifteen years later, I can see that it wouldn’t have been that much of a disaster. It was all survivable – I could have had the baby, taken care of him, eventually sorted out a career for myself. And of course, while my parents wouldn’t have hung out the flags, they would have got over it. More than that, they would have loved him, their first grandchild. In fact, as the years passed I saw people live with far worse stuff than being presented with an illegitimate child by their best-behaved daughter. Keiron Boylan, a boy from our road a few years younger than me, got killed in a motorbike accident when he was eighteen. I went to his funeral and his parents were beyond recognition. His father was, quite literally, wild with grief.
But back then, I was seventeen and knew none of that. I was inexperienced at life, at standing up to people, at going against expectations. I had no capacity to be rational and I was in the grip of extreme fear, which woke me on the hour every hour through the night and turned my days into lucid nightmares.
I dreamt about babies. In one dream I was trying to carry a baby, but it was made of something like lead so it was far too heavy to carry, but I still struggled. In another, I’d had my baby but it had an adult’s head and kept talking to me, challenging me, exhausting me with the strength of its personality. I was constantly nauseous, but I’ll never be sure if it was because of the pregnancy or the accompanying terror.
Shay kept parroting that he’d stand by me, no matter what I decided, but I knew what he wanted me to do. The thing was he’d never say it straight out, and though I wasn’t able to put words on it, I hated feeling that I alone was responsible for the dreadful decision. I’d have preferred him to yell at me that I’d better go to England and get myself sorted out pronto, instead of him acting all caring and ‘mature’. Even though he looked like a man and was the head of the Delaney household, it began to dawn on me that perhaps he wasn’t as mature as he seemed; that it was merely role play. And despite us being inseparable, I felt oddly abandoned by him.
Three days after I’d done the test, I broke the news to Emily and Sinead, who were appalled. ‘I knew something was up with you,’ Emily said, her face white. ‘But I thought it was exam worry.’
They kept shaking their heads and breathing, ‘Jesus!’ and ‘I can’t believe it!’, until I had to tell them to shut up and advise me on what to do. Neither of them tried to convince me to have the baby, they both thought that not having it was the best – or least bad – option. Their eyes were so full of pity and relief that it wasn’t them, that once again I yearned for all this to be a terrible dream, for me to wake up, shaky with relief that I’d imagined it all.
They decided my best option was to go to Claire, who was in her final year at university and very vocal about women’s rights and what bastards the priests were. In fact, she used to go on so much about the right to abortion that Mum often sighed, ‘That one’ll get up the pole and have an abortion just to prove a point.’
