A young mother

I came to college a year early, I was seventeen and so naive. I had taken summer school 2 years so I could get out of that small town Kentucky high school. I was so ready to have a fresh start. My first semester was awesome. I joined a sorority and made my 3 best friends. But when I came back after christmas things changed. My best friend Lindsey had dropped out because college wasn’t for her, and my other friend Amara had dropped the sorority because she couldn’t pay. So it was just me and Maya.
Maya didn’t like to go out so when I got an invite from a guy a new from a previous class, I went alone. I knew a bunch of the people that were going to be at this small party. It was a fun night but as the night started to die down I realized I wasn’t okay to drive and needed to Uber home. But then the guy I was there with started being aggressive and pushed me into his room and raped me.
I didn’t tell anyone. I tried to ignore it. But then 2 months later, I knew something was wrong when the morning sickness hit. I was pregnant and I had no idea what to do. I wanted to go through with the pregnancy because I didn’t feel comfortable terminating. But when I announced that to my friends and family, no one believed I had been raped. They said “If you want the baby then how did you get raped. Who wants to keep that?” Even my mom ( my dad passed away when I was 11) wasn’t convinced. My older brother, Tommy. was the only one who never left my side.
I ended up moving to California to live with him and taking community college. My daughter Camille is 2 now and I am almost graduating college with an Elementary Ed major. I wanted to share this because if you get pregnant from sexual assault, then whatever you decide to do is YOUR CHOICE. Abortion, Adoption, or Keeping it is all up to you and all okay.

— Mackynzie, age 21