From The Marshall Project:
When I got pregnant at 15, my family disowned me. They were real religious folks — Jehovah’s Witnesses. My church didn’t want to be bothered with me. And when everybody at school found out, they stopped being my friend. “Oh, she’s pregnant,” they’d whisper. “She’s pregnant.” So I hated being pregnant, and I hated children.
My pregnancy was a shame.
The second time I was pregnant, I was in and out of jail. I was consistently arrested for selling drugs because that’s how I supplied my habit. Once, three weeks after giving birth, I was locked up in the Decatur Street annex of the Atlanta City Detention Center, which has since been closed. I told them at intake that I had just had a baby, but they did not come check on me or take me to medical so they could watch me. I was still bleeding, but I could hardly get any pads. Eventually, I had to use torn-up sheets.
For weeks, until I was bonded out, I cried and slept all day. I didn’t want to deal with the other ladies who were in the pod. I didn’t even want to deal with the reality of getting up and taking a shower. I was suffering postpartum depression, I had been on drugs, and I was locked in a room all day.
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