{"id":176906,"date":"2017-12-29T12:19:03","date_gmt":"2017-12-29T17:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=176906"},"modified":"2017-12-27T14:50:27","modified_gmt":"2017-12-27T19:50:27","slug":"13-pregnant-after-rape-uncle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/13-pregnant-after-rape-uncle\/","title":{"rendered":"At age 13, I became pregnant after rape by my uncle, and a judge called it irrelevant"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(Save The 1<\/a>) It was Y2K New Year\u2019s Eve the night my uncle first began making advances toward me. I was 12 years old and he was 19, married, with a two-year-old son. My mom allowed his family to move in with us, and inexplicably moved them into my bedroom, since my three sisters were already sharing a room. The inappropriate advances continued, as he and his wife argued more and more. Eventually, his wife and son moved out, and when I was 13 and he was 20, he began molesting me in the middle of the night. I was scared to death.<\/p>\n

My mom and step-dad were suspicious of what was happening but were scared to say anything because my grandfather would have killed someone. My mom and her sisters had been molested by my grandfather when they were growing up. When my grandfather found out she had told someone, he showed up and put a gun to my mom’s head, threatening to kill her if she ever breathed a word. So my mom would tell me, “It happened to me. I just needed to suck it up.”<\/p>\n

I know what it\u2019s like for someone to have that fear instilled in you, but I don\u2019t understand allowing horrific things to happen to your children without one ounce of remorse. My step-dad just wouldn\u2019t speak up and still won\u2019t. He is very passive and people easily take advantage of him because he doesn\u2019t defend himself, let alone his family.<\/p>\n

It just became a thing that my Uncle Lenny started sleeping in my room more frequently. One day, child services showed up at our house and said there was a call stating that my mom was letting a man sleep with her daughter. They brought my mom, my uncle and me into the living room, and I just fell mute. My mom and my uncle controlled the conversation and denied the allegations. She never told the social worker that the man was her brother, so they didn\u2019t find any cause to intervene, and closed the case.<\/p>\n

I’m sure you\u2019re wondering why I didn\u2019t speak up, and my answer is: I don\u2019t know. I wish I would have now, but then it was almost a way of life. I didn\u2019t feel I had any choice in what happened to my body. What if I would have told? What then? I would go to live with a family member? They were each as bad as the last.<\/p>\n

When I became pregnant at 14 years old, my mom freaked out! She told me she wasn\u2019t getting into trouble for this crap, so she took us to Tennessee to get married because it was out of state and they figured no one would make the connection that we were closely related. I don\u2019t even know if he was divorced yet, but my mom signed papers to emancipate me so she wouldn\u2019t be responsible for me any longer. But we got into a fender bender that day and never made it to the court house.<\/p>\n

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A couple of months later, at 15 years old, I started bleeding and went to the doctor\u2019s office. I ended up miscarrying that pregnancy. Surprisingly, this doctor never made a call to child services, and never inquired of me as to who got me pregnant. Today I realize it was this doctor\u2019s responsibility to report this situation. I could have been freed back then.<\/p>\n

My mom then moved the family to Florida with my grandfather, but said she didn\u2019t have a room for me. I was stuck with my uncle. My whole family assumed I was his responsibility. It\u2019s just bizarre to contemplate, but this was the hell I lived in.<\/p>\n

I always felt my mom could have stopped the abuse from happening, but my grandfather pushed for it. I guess he didn\u2019t want his son to get into trouble because he was just as much of a creep.<\/p>\n

My uncle and grandfather took me back to Alabama, where I became pregnant again by my then 22-year old uncle when I was 15 years old. This son is now 14 years old. Regardless of the horrible circumstances — conceived in incest — I loved my baby and would do anything to protect him.<\/p>\n

I withdrew from school and homeschooled through my 10th grade year. I hated school, though I got good grades. It was painful that I had to see all these kids who seemed to have it all going for them, while I was trapped living in a hell with no hope to get out.<\/p>\n

My uncle had always been verbally abusive, with pushing, shoving, and jealous rage. But when I became pregnant with my son, the abuse intensified. Lenny would tell me, \u201cI have a son. I don\u2019t want another one!” Well, too late \u2013 he should have thought about that before molesting his under-aged niece. I think his anger came from fear… fear of being caught or of going to jail. He would choke me, sling me around by my hair, try to crash the car with us in it, and beat me.<\/p>\n

I would go to my mom\u2019s and beg her to help me leave — to get away from him. She would tell me that we had children together, and if anyone found out the “secret,” I would go to jail and my kids would be taken away. She convinced me of this and I believed her. I\u2019ve kept this secret until now.<\/p>\n

This abusive life continued until I left him for good. It just progressively got worse and worse each time. When I did try to leave, he even had his sisters come after me and beat me.<\/p>\n

When my son was born, I instantly loved him. From the very first time I laid eyes on him, my love was unconditional. But I was terrified the hospital staff would somehow find out the big secret and take him away from me. He received my maiden name. Under \u201cfather\u201d on his birth certificate, it is “unknown” because the family all said it was best, to keep Lenny safe.<\/p>\n

At 18, I got pregnant by my uncle for the third time. My son was sickly and the doctors wouldn\u2019t listen to me. After a lot of doctor visits and my persistence, my son was sent to a children\u2019s hospital where he was eventually diagnosed with Krabbe Disease — a disease where children inherit a defective gene from both parents. I remember the doctors asking us if the two of us were related, because they said that this is a disease usually seen when the mother and father are related. Again, I was terrified because he was there and because my mom had convinced me that my children would be taken away.<\/p>\n