South Africa: My children also growing in shelters

*Trigger warning: violence*
My name is Lebo (not a real name) I never knew my parents. I grew up in children homes. The last children’s home I was at is Harding KZN. I stayed there when I was a teenager. I met my boyfriend, the father of my first child. He was working at the children’s home as a caretaker. He approached me and I was falling in love with him. We would see each other secretly without the knowledge of any house mothers at the children’s home or ant staff member. We dated for about 5 years while I was staying at the home. In 2010 I fell pregnant for him, at that time I was about to be 18 years old. The house mothers at the home noticed that I was not getting my periods at the same time I was gaining weight. They took me to the clinic for check-up. At the clinic it was discovered that I was pregnant. The staff at the home asked me who the child’s father was and I told them that it was Mongezi, the care taker at the home. We were both called at the offices of the home and he admitted that he was the father of my child.

Since he had admitted being the father of my child I thought he would take care of me and the child since I had nobody, I grew up as an orphan. Eventually I reached the age of maturity which is 18 years, I had to be placed somewhere with the child. The child was moved to Johannesburg children’s home and I was referred to stay with another family in Howick KZN. We were not getting along with the mother at that house and she said she can only take a child and I had to be moved to a shelter. I stayed at the Haven shelter for a year. I met a friend, together with my friend we planned to get a job in Durban. We told the staff at the shelter that we are leaving, we got jobs in Durban.

Luckily, they let us move because they trusted us. In Durban we stayed together with my friend for a while and we started working and everything was going well. Eventually we had a fight and my friend chased me out and I ended up staying with her sister. Also there we had a fight with her sister because I was not working at the time. Then I met my second boyfriend, a Zimbabwean truck driver. I went to stay with him. I fell pregnant and told him but he denied that the baby was his, because he was staying together with his friend so, he suspected that I had slept with that friend of his.

He chased me out and I had nowhere to go. I told my friend that now I’m pregnant and so she advises me to go back to the shelter. I came back to Pietermaritzburg, at the Haven, and I was so glad that they accepted me again. They have supported me and I have started antenatal clinic, I am now 7 months pregnant and my child’s father is nowhere to be found. I have tried several times to call him and sometimes he would ask me to leave him alone and other times he would say he was in Zimbabwe he did not know when he would be back. So now I am holding my breath because, I do not know where I will I go if my time expires at the shelter and also I don’t know what is going to happen to my baby, but I want to keep this one because the first one I have lost her.

When this child is born, I want to have a paternity test with Emmanuel to prove that the child is his and I want him to pay maintenance for the child. I loved him but he gave me a child and whole lot of sexual transmitted diseases and left me.