What followed my getting suspended from school was a remarkable four months or so…

South African schools run from January to December and I was suspended at about the end of October 1990, and Damien was due on April 6th 1991. I went to school to write my exams during the weeks that followed- but that was it. I had to wear civilian clothes because I was in disgrace and so was not allowed to wear the school uniform (every school in South Africa has a uniform) but I enjoyed that and took every opportunity to show off my baby bump! I got such a kick out of everyone knowing I was pregnant and that I loved my baby and that I intended keeping it! My baby daddy was also writing his exams as his suspension had the same terms mine did- and we had similar grade 11 subjects- but even when we saw each other at the school we barely spoke. On the one day I tried showing him the ultrasound pictures from my OB-GYN visit the week before, half hoping I could kindle some kind of paternal fascination for the little bean growing inside me… but he hardly even looked up. I think that may well have been the day that I came to the total realisation that there was no future for us together at all.

I tried to carry on as "normally" as I could. When my grade 11 "home room" class had a year-end celebration at a classmate's house, I was invited; and I would see friends on weekends as well. And when the schools reopened in the January, I attended sports events and the school beauty pageant and basically attempted to live as if I had finished high school the year before instead of having had to leave. I kept a lot of my friends, and made many new ones… discovering people cared, when I didn't even know they knew who I was, was just one of the suprises in store for me… but I also lost a few friends- and some of my friends parents reacted like pregnancy was contagious or something!