Prologue

Colette Smith (P.O.V.)

I took a deep breath as I looked at the pregnancy test in my hand. I was not nervous, but I was hopeful. My boyfriend and I had been trying for four months to get pregnant. This process is quite frustrating. In the beginning, it was fun because – you know, a lot of unprotected sex without any fears about something bad or unwanted happening. Every time we tried; I would take the necessary precautions to make sure that I increased my chances of getting pregnant. We would try even when I was not ovulating. We were desperate at this point. I could not count the number of times I would just lay upside down on the bed after sex. It is quite a funny image to think of and as the thought crossed my mind I blushed deeply. Seems embarrassing now that I think about it.

I never knew how hard it was to get pregnant intentionally. The first time I got pregnant, I was eighteen years old, and it was with a guy I had no intentions of being with for the rest of my life. Despite the fact that we had dated for approximately two years at the time of conception, he was not an ideal partner. He was my first boyfriend and while he made me happy, the bad outweighed the good. We met when I was sixteen years old, and he would then go on to be my first boyfriend ever. I was naïve and I was in love. I made a lot of excuses for his actions, and I allowed things I should not have. Thinking back to those years that I had given to him; I could not help but blame him for everything. He groomed me to think that his way of treating me was the way boyfriends treat their girlfriends. He even told me that him cheating on me was a normal thing and that is what boyfriends do. Worst of all when he convinced me to let him have sex with me, he said he needed to make sure I was a virgin and that either way, he knew he loved me, so it was not an issue that he took my virginity.

It was a lot to take in at the time. I did not know better, and I believed every word he told me. Eventually, when we hit our fourth-year mark in the relationship, I began to think more for myself. We started university together so this meant that we would have been seeing each other a whole lot more. While attending university with him, doing the same degree as him as well, I began to see for myself as he would cheat on me while I was around. There were multiple times when I would be walking behind him and another girl. I would text him and I would literally watch as he ignored my text messages and continued talking to her. When I would call him out on his actions, he would then go on to ignore me and do what he wanted with her either way. I grew tired of his manipulations and the pain he caused me. After much convincing from the new friends, I made at the school, I left him and moved on.

It was then he realized what he did, and he began to stalk me and beg for my forgiveness, but I had already gotten over him. Out of desperation, he even began to do all of the things I begged him to do for me while we were together. His frugal attempt to get me back together with him was rather pathetic because his tactics were also so manipulative. For instance, when we were together, I would beg him to post pictures of me online because he had a lot of female friends. He would always tell me that if he were to post pictures of me online, he would lose a lot of followers because then girls would know he was not single. When we broke up, he began to post pictures of me except he did it on social media accounts where he had no followers at all so him posting those pictures for no one to see was his way of manipulating me.

It was quite funny to witness but I digress. My boyfriend had left me alone at home to go out to visit his family who lived two hours away from us. Although we were only twenty-two years old and had only been dating for a couple of months, we thought it would have been a great idea to start trying to have a baby. It is probably the dumbest idea we could have had considering we spent so much money on renovating and moving in together so quickly, but it was something we both really wanted and the longer it took to happen the more desperate I became.

We had spent so much money on pregnancy tests that we decided to just stop checking and wait. Whenever it happened then it happened. The constant disappointment when I would wait to check and then when I did check it would be negative was beginning to get to me. Every time I would get those subtle cramps or spot a little, I would assume that I was in the implantation period but then I would get my period right on time every single month and it would then be a very emotional moment.

I stood in my bedroom with the pregnancy test in my hand. My boyfriend had no idea that I had it and I waited until he left to take it. In the case that it is negative then I would not have to tell him the unfortunate news and disappoint him yet again. As I mustered all of the courage and urine in me, I took the pregnancy out of the box and made my way to the bathroom.