I am woken up by my baby, kicking away inside me. I started thinking about a documentary I heard on the radio recently about Anne Lovett.
In 1984, she was found dead with her new born baby beside her at a roadside shrine in Granard. She was 15 and apparently no-one knew she was even pregnant. I was 9 years old at the time. I don’t remember it but it was all over the news. I gather the conservative people and schools and the influence of the church were blamed for the tragedy.
An acquaintance of mine told me a similar story with happier consequences recently. A friend of hers had accidentally gotten pregnant. The first her family knew about it was in the middle of the night when she went into labour. They didn’t mind her being pregnant, the community didn’t mind her being pregnant. She did not want to admit that she was to herself or anyone else. Nobody knew. This happened in the last year. Everyone in Ireland has heard a story like that.
I lie in bed thinking about these women. In the wee small hours I think how lonely they must have been. How could they have ignored the kicking?