I made a concious decision to keep my baby, not to conceive her.
That happened on a drunken night when I was seeking comfort in wine and someone's bed I guess. I used condoms, I was unlucky, I couldn't make the choice to abort, not when the reason I was so upset was losing two close family members so closely together, there was too much grief in my life already.
I figured that if I was big enough to go out and make a baby, then I was big enough to face up to the consequences and deal with it. Her dad didn't. Got away with doing nothing for two and a half years, then with no contact until recently. Now I take her and drop her at the door as it's the only way she gets to see him and her sisters, she loves her dad and his family, so I'll continue doing that if it's the only way. In private I think he's an immature tosser who has prioritised his own self over his child for a long time, but I'm still willing to encourage a relationship because he does love her and it took me a long time to grow up, so I'm not going to hold it against him unless he upsets my baby, so far so good, he is well warned.
And now in some ways believe my baby was meant to be, because she was the thing that really smacked some common sense into me. And I mean steam rollered. And holy cow when I woke up I'd dug myself into a deep deep hole, and I'm still looking up thinking HTF do I climb up there! But I've made what we do have full of love, happy moments and education.
And when I do climb out I'm not going to cover it over and hide that hole and be embarrassed, people can make mistakes and learn from them. If I can share my experience and show someone that great big whole I dug for myself, and help them to avoid that in any way, then I'm happy with that.
Nobody taught me what abuse was, nobody showed me how to have self esteem. I'm not making excuses, but when I look back at myself, I look back at someone who started off knowing nothing and having a very bad life experience to model my own self on, I thought a man would fix that for me. I learned that actually most of them will just take what you have, and some of them won't even ask nicely. Then I thought playing at grown ups would fix that for me, if I pretended it would become real, but I was still dysfunctional and I ended up on my own with my two babies before I saw life properly and realised only I can fix it for me. And first I have to make sure my children don't start off badly, to minimise the impact my mistakes will have on them, because starting off disadvantaged makes for a long learning curve with some unpleasant moments.
So if people want to judge me, do feel free. What they think isn't really going to impact on me any more than I already managed myself, just don't get all stuck up in the negative, because that's a poor way to live life, and our children model themselves on what they see. I'd rather teach them to see the good, to offer a hand out to people, to strive to achieve, to know that where we come from does not always define us, but how we choose to act does.