A reader asked if I have ever written a blog about how to deal with having been pregnant by your abuser. The answer is no, so I am going to write about this topic today. I am infertile, so I (obviously) have never gotten pregnant through rape. This means that I cannot talk about what it feels like firsthand. However, I can share a few insights that I have picked up along the way from other people who have either gotten pregnant by rape or were conceived by rape. I hope that others who have gotten pregnant by rape will post supportive comments.
I know one child abuse survivor who became pregnant by rape in her teens. Her abuse started when she was around eight years old, so she did not split into alter parts. She always remembered numerous abuses and assumed that she remembered all. Recovering the memory of having become pregnant by her abuser and being forced to have an abortion was incredibly traumatizing for her. The rapes, the pregnancy, and the abortion were all three different levels of trauma for her.
I read the story of another woman who became pregnant by rape. She chose to give birth to the baby (rather than abort) and place the baby for adoption. While her growing belly was a constant reminder of the rape, she also recognized that the baby was also “half her,” and she loved the baby despite the baby’s beginnings. She wrote her story from a place of peace – of seeing her baby as the good that came out of such a horrible situation. She also felt good about the happiness that the baby brought to its adoptive parents.
I have spoken online with adult adoptees who were conceived by rape. (They absolutely loathe the term “product of rape,” so don’t use it.) Most of them were placed into adoptive homes, but they struggle to come to terms with knowing that their conception was through a violent act. They also struggle with knowing that half of their DNA came from a rapist.
No matter how you approach the topic of pregnancy through rape, it is going to be painful. The conception and birth of a baby should be a wonderfully joyous occasion, but conception by rape changes that dynamic. I cannot imagine the horror of having a baby growing in my body as a constant reminder of the rape(s), and I also cannot imagine having to face a crisis pregnancy with all of the decisions and possible stigma by the people in my life.
As with any other trauma, different women work through pregnancy through rape in different ways. Some choose to abort – some regret the decision while others are grateful for this option. Some choose to place the baby for adoption – again, some regret the decision while others find peace. Some choose to parent the baby. This comes with its own mix of joys (the love of your child) and struggles (seeing a physical resemblance between your baby and your rapist). Crisis pregnancy is never easy, and a crisis pregnancy through rape is even more challenging. My advice is to talk with a therapist about a crisis pregnancy through rape and talk through your feelings as well as all of your options.
Photo credit: Hekatekris
Blooming Lotus 
Slightly OT, but I’m interested that most people conceived by rape don’t like the term “product of rape”. As someone who was (almost certainly) conceived through (marital) rape, I use that term in therapy (or other deep conversation) quite frequently. Perhaps it’s because I have such a low level of self-worth.
Anyhow, great post as always, Faith. I can’t imagine the horror of a rape-induced pregnancy; it must be one of the most difficult things to ever have to deal with 😦
I personally have not experienced crisis pregnancy, but wanted to show my support. My heart goes out to those of you who have had to endure another level of pain and trauma. I want to validate your feelings and accept whatever decision you make regarding the crisis pregnancy as what is right for you. May you find peace.
okay. i was the one who asked this question of faith. i guess i asked it because it is a subject ive yet to fully come to terms with. first off..thankyou,faith, for posting the subject. im hoping others will have feedback or insight or a perspective i dont have. and that it will help someone. here is my story: crazy insane living trying to keep a step ahead of my fathers rage and insanity was “normal” all thru our years. secrets lies pain hurt betrayal fear manipulation threats confusion rules rules rules. dont cry. dont feel. dont talk back. dont get angry. work everyday for him. report to him what you did to earn your keep. expect punishment. expect fucking and torture. keep lies. keep secrets.tell daddy you love him no matter what. never call mother “mommy’. do everything you are told without question or flinching. never ever cry. i was sexually abused in my memory from 4 1/2 to 17. i didnt know all little girls werent treated as such until i was about 11 or 12. my father was the main abuser sharing me with others along the way. objects and beatings and torture were normal along with rape. ive written about these things before on here. my mother i am certain knew. this is possibly the hardest thing i am trying to deal with. the center of this pain. i was able to leave this house of horror when i was 16 but it did not last laong. i was totally a skewered mess. i did not behave well and was soon sent back to live again with my mother and brother who had at long long last ‘left’ my father. my sister had come home to get me and take me to live with her. but all i did was cause trouble and hurt in her life. i slept with her husband thinking that was my self worth. i still feel hoprrible horrible guilt over this. tho i know i was emotionally just a disaster. and its 30plus years ago now. but i was sent home in anger by my sister to my mother who had left my father at last. she referred to me as a whore. and did not have room for me in her new home which was a trailer. a far cry from the beautiful house we had lived in. but that trailer in all its decrepit ill repair could have felt like and been a home. a haven. it was not. i felt unwanted and undeserving. my brother and mother got along well and laughed. i was simply deressed. i became anorexic. cutting was normal. and drugs. i simply didnt care. i was told i had to still go and ‘visit” my father every other weekend for all weekend. because i was still a minor and it was in the child custody agreement and my mother needed and wanted that 200.00 a month. i could not fathom that i was being sent back there. i was given no choice and i was already so down on my self with no morality or self esteem at that point it didnt matter. i just swallowed my fear and went. i went several months. at first ..he was nice to me. he had even bought me a tv for that room that worked. i made my usual manipulative chatty conversation for him with him. but. let me tell you i can remember the fear i felt under all that chatter. i was there “alone” with him. he raped me time and again in my bedroom. no reason to be quiet or hide any vicious insane torturous things he wanted to do to me. the bed in that room was positioned in front of mirrored glass closet doors. i could see every little thing that was done to me. i remember vividly much of this. i was his own little prize and all the hatred he then felt at my mother for leaving he took out on me. and, unbelievably ..i could not even conceive this as possible… in august….i realized i was pregnant. illogically, i went and slept one time then with my friends boyfriend. he was available and tho i knew it would hurt my friend..i wanted the baby to be anyones but his. i know that doesnt even make any sense. i had it in my head i could say it was and believe it was this boys child and not my fathers. / c r a z y. i felt crazy. / i refused to go anymore to his house. my mother got angry with me. she wanted the support. we did need it. we had moved to a nicer place and i was going to my last year of high school. the support would have continued into my college and i had already a scholarship to an art college. i was talented. / i wanted none of it. i simply wanted to die. only now i couldnt die i had a baby inside me. i didnt feel ‘alone’. maybe for the first time ever. i did realize the baby was my ‘fathers’ and not the one nite stand boy. i took some solace in the fact( tho i didnt quite believe anything my mother had ever said to me ) that she had told me that the mn i called father was not my biological father. that she had had an affair and i was the product. she had told me this at 14. i never knew whether to believe her and i doubt her still tho there are some features in my daughter and myself which lead me to believe she might have told me the truth. i pray and hope so. i prayed and hoped so then. i wanted the baby. i was not thinking at all clearly. i was so alone and so depressed. and so at odds with my mother and siblings. i was so l o s t. and sad. and i wanted that baby. it made no no no logical sense. i think i was a little crazy then. i was about 4 1/2 months pregnant and at school and in agonizing paina nd went to the bathroom and passed out waking in clots and a pool of blood. weak and nauseaus. i tied my sweater at my waist i remember and went to the nurse and said i was throwing up. my brother came and got me. i said i needed to go to the ER. we didnt have the money he said. he took me home. never in my life have i lived thru as much pain or feeling of despair and lonliness as i ndid that day sitting on our toilet feeling as if my insides were turned inside out bleeding clumps and clots and the pain was doubling me over with nausea and dizziness. it was horrible. and through it all i didnt tell my brother who didnt ask. he just thought i was sick. when i finally was done and could i cleaned myself up enough to get by and crawled into my bed and stayed there for days i know. my mother tried to talk to me and make me eat. i wouldnt. i cried. i cried alot. i mourned i think so much i had lost. not just that baby. i even logically realized that losing that baby was a good thing. God sent. that it wasnt meant to be. i was depressed for a long long long time. i did call a friend at some point amonth or so later and get checked at planned parenthood. i was okay. but i was not emotionally okay. my question is. how could i have so wanted a baby that was conceived out of rape. repeated violent rape. by possibly an incestuous relationship if indeed he was my real father. ??? i was so screwed up back then. how have i turned out to have become decent moral compassionate person raising a daughter who loves me so much ? it seems unbelievable to me. malanie
Hi, Malanie.
My heart goes out to you. I am so sorry for all that you have been through.
Wanting the baby makes perfect sense to me. This was the opportunity to have a safe relationship with someone.
– Faith
I am so so sorry. I don’t have words, even though I feel I should.
***trigger warning***
I became pregnant on regular basis since I was about 12. My first baby’s birthday coming up in a couple weeks. They told me at the time that he was still born. They blamed me and my being a whore for his being a still born. Only much later in life that I learned the truth: they switched babies on me, presented ne with a still born that was not mine. My dad raised my first son with his second wife. I had wonderful interactions with him for several years thinking he is me half brother and nothing else. I learned much later and when it was too late that he was my son. Since then I became pregnant many times by rapes. I always begged for my kids lives, but it almost never were to be. And when it was ‘ allowed’ it turned out really bad. I loved my babies. It’s normal to love them, even when they concurred in horrible way. I will always remember the faces if ones I was allowed to see always remember holding ones I was allowed to hold. I am told that it was never my fault they did not survive. But I am still blaming myself. I was given a choice to die myself. I don’t know if they would have killed me if I chose that, but I never will stop blaming myself for choosing to live.
I am so sorry. This is very hard to write. Especially because I am very raw right now due to one anniversary just passing and another coming up, and I am losing my therapist right now due to my inability to pay for it. Bad timing all around
Whoweare,
Words cannot express how my heart goes out to you for all that you have been through. Here are safe hugs if you want them:
((((((((( Whoweare )))))))))))
– Faith
Thank you, Faith, for hugs and for caring. And thank you for writing!!!
Resilience is an amazing thing, perhaps as amazing as dissociation. It is the only way I can rationalize my “turning out OK,” instead of ruined by the incest and rape.
All my life I felt like I was pregnant, particularly when I was in a bad place. I would say out loud to my friends, I feel as if I could give birth and if I did, all would be better.
It wasn’t until I was in my fifties that I had my first memory of being pregnant and either enduring an abortion or a miscarriage. The memory is so clear, the pain was felt, and I was no older than twelve when it happened.
Interestingly I have what my therapist back then called pivotal memories. Those were memories she described as keeping a record or keeping track of what was happening to me in a conscious way. Though I was dissociative and tucked away most everything, these pivotal memories allow me the goodness of knowing what has come to me in a late age, as real.
THe memory was this. My mother was sitting in her bedroom and I was standing at her knees. She was giving me the growing into a woman line “preparing” me for the changing role of my life. And I clearly remember thinking, why is she telling me this now, it is too late. I am already a woman and I wasn’t talking about my period because in my role of the moment back then, I hadn’t had a period.
Remembering that pregnancy, not knowing if it was my father or brother or whoever, and realizing my baby had been killed or miscarried in one way lifted a weight off my shoulders (I could now connect that pregnancy feeling) and in another led me to great despair and sadness. I hadn’t had two children, I had had three. WHen filling out doctor’s questions I would hesitate when it said how many pregnancies have you had, how many living children do you have. There was a time I wondered if I hadn’t given birth and that the baby was taken from me (part of my abuse was ritual) but I have moved away from that because that seemed more of something I wondered about than remembered.
Since this memory came back to me I have shared my story with therapists and a support group and the amount of care I got was remarkable. THis is not a rare story. It is a hard story to allow out of your mouth. Was I complicit, did I know and allow an abortion, did I give my baby away – and then I remember I was eleven or twelve. I remember I had always been abused since before I could talk. I remember I did all I could do to survive. Now ten years after this memory, I am at peace about it.
Take care of yourself. Esther
Esther,
“WHen filling out doctor’s questions I would hesitate when it said how many pregnancies have you had, how many living children do you have. ”
I am back in therapy re child abuse and ritual abuse after a ‘gap’ of some 5-6 years, when I kept trying to tell myself I was okay.
I had a baby 17 months ago and on the birth certificate I also hesitated when it asked how many births (dead or alive) you have had (this is in the UK).
I feel that I may have been pregnant before, only it makes no sense to me because my body changed so much in this pregnancy. Perhaps I was made to believe I was pregnant by my abusive father and his group who forced me to watch babies being hurt.
I’m actually getting a severe headache just writing these words. I’ve been able to tell my therapist, maybe, and about the excruciating pain I have and dread of my period, blood coming out etc.
It just feels too hard to face it but I will – I will have the strength. Don’t know if any of you know the story of Cindy Owen who has been speaking on media about her survival of ritual abuse, she seems very strong and healed, and when the story first came out that an inquest had found – 30 years on – that a baby stabbed to death had been hers, aged 13, as a result of incest – I had massive flashbacks to pain though little clear ‘memories’.
Thanks for this post Faith.
thanku to all who have responded to this question. amazingly the loss of that baby..that miscarriage threw me into a state of denial about the sexual portions of my growing up. i think just being pregnant and not telling anyone and miscarrying all alone was excrutiatingly hard for my mind to grasp. i cant go back there now in those days following my miscarriage but i somehow ‘forgot’ all the sexual abuse at the hands of those who abused me. i then remembered all the other stuff the crazy living with my fathers drinking and pills and him hitting us and beating my mother. but i forgot being raped. how????? i went to planned parenthooh w a friends mother but told them it was the boy i had ‘wanted’ in my head for it to be. i went on to work and finish school and have a boyfriend. ‘nice churchgoing guy’ who raped me in my driveway with the threat of a knife. i was an easy target. but i still..after that rape.. didnt remember years and years of rape as a child. i went on and had a decent physical relationship with a man i met. i was 19. i was in love. but he was possessive and jealous. and other relationships after him. male and female but i did not remember the chidhood rape. i remembered being pregnant and that our live was abusive and crazy. even when dating one man who wanted to only have sex anally did i not recall my father and all the hell he put me thru. i wanted to hurt maliciously that ‘boyfriend’ tho. i hated him./ only when i took a girl from my work. i was 23 or 24 to a seminar by laura davis and ellen bass on the book ‘courage to heal’ did i remember. minutes into the lecture ..memories came back. i do not kno why the miscarriage and/or being pregnant with my fathers child was so traumatic as compared to all else ive remembered now. how would i just close off those memories of the sexual abuse until 3 or 4 years later? why now after hearing a flashback of a drapery cord hitting a wall in a waiting room would it open up this zoo of memory that i still go from ‘believing’ to finding incomprehensible. how does ones mind allow that. malanie
Hi, Malanie.
I most deeply repressed the stuff I wanted to separate myself from the most. In my case, it was vaginal rape. I went through ~ 18 months of flashbacks before accessing those memories.
– Faith
faith. so did i just deeply repress that as it was so very hard for me to believe i was pregnant with his child. i was beyond rational when i found out i was pregnant. or did i disassosiate? i dont think i did… but i sure didnt remember any of the sexual abuse just all the other ‘less’ horrible abuse. i remembered having been pregnant. but thght it was the boys baby i slept w him after i was pregnant tho. / i also remember being 14 or 15 and running around with a 26 year old guy in his car listening to bob seger and smoking pot. but i dont remkember having any sex w him. however he called me (my father gave him my number) when i was about 32 and told me all sorts of sexual stuff we apparently did. he wanted to come and see me. he scared me. it was weird. / did i just block that out too/ or have i just not remembered it yet? or did i disassociate? it just seems odd that i would disaassociate those 2 things and not being raped anally with hammer handlked and my dolls leg or glass bottles. and that i would not block out the hairbrush masturbation that causes me such shame. or the other men he shared me with. or being told to wear no underwear out in public with him so he could touch me anytime. etc. why wouldnt i disassociate for those things?? so it seems i guess to me i did just regress those memories deeply. any thoughts??? i appreciate all your words and insight. malanie
Hi, Malanie.
Dissociation, just not remembering, and repressing the memories deeply are all pretty much the same thing. It would be too hard to deal with everything at once, so we dissociate/repress memories and then work through them at a pace we can handle.
– Faith
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i discussed in more detail than ever before on here about having been pregnant by my abuser/father. i didnt even realize that it had affected me soooooooo much at the time i asked faith to post this blog/question. i went into a bad state of mind follwing typing it all out to my therapist and emailing it to her. this is what i do. she reads my emails (a books worth of pages already. haha not funny) and we discuss what i can. some things like the self abuse i cannot speak yet. / but i did not realize how extremely traumatizing it was just to write it and heartwrenching to have all of you validate my feelings. i actually cried while writing my therapist. i dont cry. im afraid to. that i wont stop. i know i will have to at some point. i know this. but. i just wanted you all to know that i did not in all these years acknowledge to myself how very sad and hurt i was. and i was. and am. it was the single most horrific experience of all ive shared. and ive shared alot. it was overwhelming ..but cathartic.. to tell it to you all. thankyou for being here and for listening and for giving a damn about me. and that 17 yr old i was then. thankyou. my heartfelt gratitude. malanie
Hi, Malanie.
I am so proud of you for taking that step! I know it wasn’t easy. I am also so glad that you see this blog as a safe haven where you can express yourself. :0)
– Faith
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