Gayle's Story
"When birth control doesn't work"

I am 36 and the mother of two, I was married back in 1990 and longed to have a baby but due to medical conditions of my husband we were told we could probably never have children, I was devastated.

In 1992 I was excited to find out that we were expecting a child. In 1992 our son was born, what a happy day! One year later my husband died leaving me to care for a baby alone.

A year after my husband died, I finally decided it was time to get back out and live again. I met a man whom I thought was wonderful, a blessing that I could fall in love again. Things didn't work out that way though. As it turned out he never really cared for me, and was cheating me with another woman, this was very painful for me. I didn't want to be hurt anymore, but I was. Shortly afterwards I found out that I was pregnant with his child, he wouldn't even tell his family, leaving that to me which I finally did when I was 5 months pregnant, this did not go over too well, and shortly after the father decided to run.

I gave birth to a 9 lb 5oz baby girl 3 weeks early and I had to do it alone without the father, when I called to tell him that the baby was coming, he told me to go to hell. Not something you like to hear in the middle of labor, on what should be one of the happiest days of your life. My daughter was in no way planned but in every way wanted. He didn't see his daughter until she was 5 months old, and to date still isn't there much for her, everything is more important to him then his daughter, including his many girlfriends. I was so saddened by all of this because I truly loved him.

I decided with no father for either one of my children, that I needed to do something about it to make sure that no more unplanned pregnancies occurred, so I scheduled myself for and got a tubal ligation. I found out that shortly afterward the operation that I was once again pregnant. To my dismay one of the tubes was not clamped properly and the clamp became dislodged from the tube. I forgot to mention that my daughter was the result of the depo-provera not working.

Well on May 23,1998 I gave birth to a premature son weighing only 2 and a 1/2 pounds, he died in my arms an hour later, the premature delivery was caused by a fall which put me into early labor. Once again I was left alone to deal with it, my son's father had once again walked away from the situation to let me deal with it alone. You see, it seems that all he cared about was the sex, and not the reality of what can happen.

Well like a fool I once again gave into him thinking I would be ok because only one tube was unclamped and I was again on depo-provera, I mean what are the odds, right? Wrong, now here I am 3 months pregnant with my fourth baby.

My point is, that it doesn't matter what kind of precautions you use, nothing is 100% and I am proof of that, the only way to prevent an unwanted pregnancy with 100% surety is to not have sex at all, I am learning a very hard lesson, and ultimately my children are the ones that are paying the price, because even though this baby and my daughter (and the child I lost) all have the same father, he isn't there for them or for me and no one should have to go through this alone.

So If my telling my story to everyone was helpful to even one person, then it was worth my time to tell you. Please, please, please do not have sex if you are not ready to become a mother because most of you will be left to deal with it alone, most men do not care what happens to you as long as they are gratified when they need gratification and it is not worth it - tell him to take care of himself and leave you out of it, because as soon as they get what they want, you are no longer important to them. They do not have the feelings and sensitivity that a woman has. Take the time to think about what could happen to you if you have sex, whether it be protected or unprotected.

Left alone again.

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