Focus on Saharah
Who I Am
I am a 21 year old girl from Ontario Canada. I am married but in the process of a divorce, and I have a beautiful 3 year old little girl. I've had to drop out of college recently to begin working full time just to support my daughter and myself. We're surviving - barely.
How My Life Changed
Throughout highschool I craved attention. My parents tried to be strict... but worked constantly so there was never anybody to enforce their rules. During my grade 9 year I began spreading rumours about myself and my imaginary boyfriends in the hopes of getting the attention I felt that I needed. It worked quickly and I soon developed a reputation for being "easy" and guys started swarming me, hoping to "get laid".
I never used any form of protection... I would lie and say I couldn't get pregnant, or I was allergic to latex, or just simply get them going so they forgot about it. In my mind I thought a baby would be perfect. I could do it all on my own, and that baby would always be there for me to love. I needed love. Finally it happened in my senior year. I found out right before graduation that I was pregnant, and I couldn't have been more thrilled.
I couldn't wait to tell my parents, but somewhere things skewed away from my original plan. My parents agreed to support my then boyfriend, myself, and my child providing I married my boyfriend and stayed in school. We quickly agreed and moved into my parents basement, although it wasn't a perfect marriage, we tried to be optimistic and would avoid arguments with each other, usually changing the subject to the impending arrival of our baby.
My Sweet Daughter
Although my relationship with my husband was beginning to feel more like a prison sentence, we carried on, both of us excited about our soon-to-be baby. Finally on January 9, 2004 Amelia Cadence arrived into this world, an extremely low birth-weight, but healthy non-the less.
A Shattered World
Once I arrived home with our precious little girl we focused our energy on our schoolwork and our beautiful daughter. Our relationship crumbled slowly and we began fighting almost all of the time. One day during a stressful argument I let it slip. "Amelia's not your daughter!" The words stung him, and although it was out of anger, it may have been true. I didn't really know who her biological father was. He left me that day, only contacting me for a paternity test. When we finally received the results the news was devasting and my estranged husband was crushed to find out that his little girl, was never really his little girl.
My heart was in a million pieces, Ryan was filing for divorce, and my parents decided that they did not want to support a slut and her daughter any longer. Amelia and I moved into an emergency shelter, I dropped out of school and soon found a job at Tim Hortons.
Picking Up The Pieces
It has only been a few months but things are slowly improving for the two of us. We're living in socialised housing and receiving some social benefits which are the only thing allowing us to survive right now. I'm in the process of tracking down a few other guys that were possible fathers to my baby girl. I work full-time and am trying my best to keep my head above water. If I could go back in time and change my decisions I would. I love my daughter and can not believe how selfish I was to bring her into a world like this, to plan to become a parent at 18 when I had no way to support us. This life is much harder then I have ever imagined. Ryan helps out occasionally and still buys her Christmas and Birthday gifts, he misses being "Daddy" and still hurts from my decisions. But what's done is done, and I can not change the past, just hope and pray that others out there do not make the same mistakes I did.
** Focus on Saharah was written by Saharah in conjunction with OYP staff, Saharah is a close friend and has no computer access and therefore orally told her story, while OYP staff typed and submitted it. **