@sham 25 September 2020 edited

Solo Parent, My Choice

***Solo Parent*** is upholding the responsibilities and obligations to your child/children alone without a life partner. Being a solo parent is sometimes a choice for others its what they want, while others it was un-intentional. Fifteen days from now will be my three years of being a single parent for my child. As for my situation, since I know that I am already at my right age, with a stable work and longing for someone to be with me when I grow old; I intended to have a child out of wedlock. I am always left behind by the person/s that I fell in love with; so I see myself being alone. I see myself that I will be ok in the future since I have a child already that will guide me until I grow old. I am 30 years old when I got pregnant and gave birth at the age of 31. During my 4th months of pregnancy I never heard about the father of my child I didn’t contact him also, I never asked her father to be with us. I was all alone during my delivery; there is no one that assist me overnight in the lying in Clinic where I gave birth to my child. I woke up in the morning find myself half of my face was being paralyze, it is called ****Bell Palsy******.** It is said that Bell Palsy is the effect of stress and having many thoughts. During that night I could not sleep because my child was crying and I do not know how to take care of her because I am a new mother who just gave birth to a baby and no one is taking care of us because it is not allowed to have a lot of people inside the small clinic. I am not aware of Bell Palsy at first before, I thought it was due to my toothache. It is said to be that eating dark chocolate before delivery will help during labor, but it cause me toothache. My sister in-law told us that what happened to me was the same with her friend and its call Bell Palsy. When I searched about it was confirmed that it is. I am still very lucky despite all the trials and hardship that I encountered, my face returned to normal after two months of self therapy. I conduct my own therapy, I massage my face every time I go to sleep, and every morning I practice moving my paralyzed face; I follow the steps that I saw in therapy session of people with this type of disability on how to massage the face of someone with bell palsy and for 2 months my face improve. I also make sure to consult the doctors and take all the medicines that are prescribed to me. I am happy that I manage to survive and my face was able to go back to normal. **One thing that never encourages me being married was;** During my childhood, since I was born to a poor family surviving for the daily needs was very hard for my parents; they need to strive hard just to put food in our table. There are times that they are having a fight that result to my mother being beaten by father. When I saw my mother with a lot of bruise in her body I feel very sorry about her. Every time that scenario happened, I told myself that will never marry someday; I would never allow anyone to hurt me physically. I am happy that despite the situation and the struggle of my parents together, all the fight that they had they are still together, growing old and loves each other very much. I envy them, because they survive all the problem and hardship that comes their way. So for now I am enjoying myself being single mother, although I have lots of question regarding being a single mom and having a lot of thought of how to survive on my situation. What keeps me to move forward was I had survived that challenge of life for me during that time, as a single parent then I can handle it more now. I do make sure that I am ready to every challenge of life that may come on my way and until now I am still ready for more trials that are yet to come in my life, in our lives me and my daughter. 💪💪💪 I know I have nothing to be afraid being a single parent in the society, since I do believe that it is not a crime. It was our choice and we alone are the one who’s going to face the reality and consequence of life. I love the idea of having as complete family but I am not ready to have one.