My forced exit from Illinois back to NY to be among the same people who despised my very being is where I found myself again.And while I was happy about reuniting with my child, I was also slowly suffocating again in my attempts to regroup and find a way to get as far away as possible from the life I had known thus far.With my older brothers’ upcoming nuptials and the first wedding in my immediate family quickly approaching, my parents were thrilled and equally hopeful they would somehow be reinstated to the same community that had exiled them a little over three years ago.I on the other hand, took another chance at finding true love just for it to be short-lived and overshadowed by the regrets of my unhappy past. Like a poisonous snake, the reminders of my shortcomings in life would wrap itself around and strangle every longing, hope and desire I had for a decent future.

A weight equivalent to a ton of bricks is what it felt like I was carrying upon returning to school for the first time after giving birth, and having to finish out my junior year of high school.

In our close knit Indian community, an unwed teenage mother was viewed as an unforgivable stain on the family honor. My parents’ house, once filled with social and frequent gatherings, had become a tomb of cold and suffocating silence in the wake of my delivery.

I was faced with having to make difficult decisions about my immediate future and also ill prepared and unequipped to navigate the pain and distance I would be met with in having to leave my baby behind in order to secure a good future for us both.

I became a teenage mother overnight but the discovery of my hidden pregnancy over the last nine months were now the least of my problems.I was now faced with the pressure of having to give up my baby for adoption, and simultaneously endure the blame and shame for my family’s once well regarded reputation.My father now also for the first time in my life, was indefinitely gone leaving my mother to bear the burden of having to answer endless questions she had no answers for.