Nadia by Amy Jayne Ott
Seventeen
I gave birth to a daughter.
So young,
Everyone thought they could tell me what to do.
“Get an abortion.�
“Give up your baby.�
“Get married.�
I did not listen.
I kept my baby and I do not
Regret.
I had a person growing inside me,
Changing.
Like a tiny alien taking over my body,
My life.
Everything I did from that moment on
Had a purpose.
My child was born in my living room.
Less than five hours of labor,
Pain.
I became part of it,
Completely gone into myself,
To a place I didn’t know I had.
People were in the room and I had no idea who or what.
I was opening, moaning, becoming.
Gravity changed.
Panic, for just a moment,
My body did what it knew,
What women’s bodies have always known.
No control, just surrender.
And then, in a slippery rush of tiny arms and legs and fluid
I was a mother.
She cried for a second, opened her eyes,
And I knew her.