He said what, when she got pregnant?

IN an ideal situation, news of a pregnancy will be greeted with expressions of joy, as the parents-to-be welcome the new addition to their families. But in too many situations, this news is greeted with outright rejection, hostility even, as one or both parties want nothing to do with the idea of becoming parents.

Sometimes the couple will work things out rationally, even if the initial reaction is negative; but at other times, the reluctance to take on the responsibility leads to men, especially, utilising the most devious and cruel excuses and methods for getting out of fatherhood.

Below, women share some of their worst experiences of having to do the pregnancy journey and motherhood alone.

Paulette, 42, mom of a pre-teen:

We had been going out for two years when I got pregnant. He was a decent guy, very good to me, very kind and loving, and we meshed well. We’d use protection occasionally, so it was obvious to me that we would be OK if any ‘accidents’ happened. Except when I got pregnant, his whole personality changed. His exact words were, “I hope you know that if you have the baby you’ll be a single mother, and people will look down at you for being a single mother.” At that point I didn’t even know that we weren’t together, but I guess that was his way of telling me that we were broken up. I had my daughter anyway, but he has never been involved, never showed interest — it’s as if we never even dated. I still see him around and he will say hello, but he has never asked about his child.

Salomie, 38, mom of two:

We had been friends from college days, he was actually one of my best guy friends. It was strictly platonic for a long time, even though I knew that he liked me. But I was always involved in other relationships. I live in the US and he lives in Jamaica, so whenever I’d visit that side, I would stay with him and he would drive me around and stuff. It so happened that in between relationships one year I visited, stayed with him, and we started discussing what-ifs. He confessed that he had always loved me, and a couple bottles of wine later, we were in bed. A few weeks after I returned home I knew the signs, and he was the first person I told that I was pregnant. And you know what my “best friend” said? He said I had to understand that he was a Christian and his parents and family could never know what he had done, because he was supposed to be saving himself for his future wife, and I should really consider adoption. He said if I wanted “to do that other thing” he wouldn’t force me, but would support me. There was absolutely no chance of him being a father to my child, and I had to understand the situation I placed him in. After I had my son I sent him to live with some family members of mine in Jamaica, until I could better provide for him here. And you know that for the three years my son was in Jamaica, he never acknowledged him once. My son is now back with me, and has my last name, and my fiancé, the father of my second child, plans to adopt my first after we get married this fall.

Suzette, 30, mom of a toddler:

He used the oldest story in the book — that he’d had an accident when he was a boy and couldn’t have kids. His family told me the same, and his mother cursed me out, saying that I was trying to give her son a jacket. He had other women call me to accuse me of trying to trap him because he was an up-and-coming artiste who would one day be rich. To add insult to injury, my daughter came out looking exactly like him — the spitting image, with none of my features. The family has been asking to let her come spend time with them, but over my dead body will that happen! The dad is still not interested in parenting though, although he thiefs her pictures off my social media and posts them on his, acting like he’s father of the year.

Candace, 30, mom of a six-month-old:

He said he had told me that he didn’t want anymore kids (he didn’t tell me that), and that’s why he always protected himself (he hated wearing condoms), and called me the worst names for trying to “trap” him. He’s a bus driver so I don’t know why I’d want to trap that, but he made my pregnancy so stressful with his mind games and gaslighting that I’m sure he caused my preeclampsia and caused my baby to come early. Now he’s a doting dad, who by the way tells me to stop telling lies on him when I bring up what a disgusting man he was for treating me so badly when I was pregnant. He is so lying, conniving and convincing, that if I didn’t have some of the WhatsApp messages as proof, I’d probably believe him too, that he never did all of what he did.

Kaydence, 26, mom of a three year old:

He was OK with me being pregnant at first, then he started asking me weird questions. He asked if there was anything we could do to make sure the baby had a “nice complexion”, and said he knew the baby would, because we were both “light enough”. He said he hoped it was a boy, as if it was a girl she would have “hair issues”, and it was just constant emphasis on skin colour and things like that throughout the pregnancy. He asked to come to a doctor’s visit once, and had a list of questions prepared which I thought were all pregnancy related. I was so embarrassed when he asked the doctor what was scientific probability of the baby “lucking out in the genetics department”. I asked him why he was dating me if he wanted a certain type of child, and he said I was hot, that’s why. Our daughter has none of the features he was so obsessed with, but I don’t notice him treating her in any bad way, although I have to still keep in the back of my mind all the fears he had about how she would look.