Gisette, 29, lives in Brussels. At the age of 16, she made a denial of pregnancy and could not abort because she was already eight months pregnant. At the microphone of Olivier Delacroix, on Europe 1, she returns on this painful episode of her existence and the particular relationship woven with her daughter Rachel.
"It was a club shot, we have no choice, we assume ... I was very surrounded ... but the maternal instinct did not happen right away, I got it later [...] It took five to six weeks, the time also that I get the idea.Finally, I was pregnant - and did not have time to prepare myself to be a mother -, that during one month [because of denial of pregnancy, note ].
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I am the eldest of two little sisters. It was more like my mother when my parents were not there. In fact, I continued my role of mother with one more person. My daughter was born in October. I returned to high school in the second quarter of January.
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What was hardest was the classes, the high school and then the college.
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I do not feel like I missed anything, I missed my adolescence or my youth.
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In the early years, Rachel's father, also 16 years old, did not assume this sudden paternity. He turned away from Gisette before returning to contact after a few years.
On the spot, I wanted it because I was young, and that one does not necessarily have the maturity to think further than the end of its nose. Now, I do not blame him anymore.
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It was a shock for him as for me. But I was the mother, it was me who had Rachel. I had no choice. He had the choice to leave, which I understand.
I'm glad they can link together. Rachel was quite small, three or four years old, when she saw her father again. We continued to review it punctually. She has always known him. She knows who he is, she knows he had trouble managing all that, he left but he returns. She knows everything and she lives it very well. Beside that, I had a companion for almost 12 years, who raised my daughter as her own daughter. She has never missed a father figure.
On the side of Gisette's parents, her father welcomed this early pregnancy, but her mother had a harder time getting used to this idea.
My parents are Rachel's gaga. It's their first granddaughter. My father was overjoyed when he learned that I was pregnant, my mother a little less. She did not want me to have children, when she learned that I was pregnant, and at 16, it was 'no way'. My father, on the contrary, has always wanted lots of grandchildren. It's a grandpa gaga.
Now my mother has accepted the situation. She has become a grandmother many times, she is very happy.
The particular conditions of this maternity led Gisette and Rachel to weave a relationship that, at times, abolishes mother-daughter distance.
Our relationship is special, not because of age but because of the education I gave him. During all my years of school, Rachel has followed me everywhere, even in the evenings - except big ones -, at friends', for small dinners or birthdays. She has always been with me. [...]. We have a facility to speak both. What I did not have with my mother and father, I have with Rachel.
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She also has an ability to talk with adults and people in general. His social intelligence is a little higher than that of other children. When I see her with her friends, her friends, her friends, I realize that she has a little more.
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Sometimes we have a little friend-girlfriend attitude, but I put things in their place when it exceeds the limits. It happens very rarely. [...] Hop! We reframe a little, and we put the barrier mother / daughter.
The big early, a public health issue
If two-thirds of unwanted pregnancies before 19 years are interrupted in France, each year 4,500 girls who have not yet reached the majority become mothers. A figure that represents 0.5% of births in the country. "One might think that information is accessible, more and more accessible, but unfortunately we realize in consultation that the questions, over the years, are always the same.This is often related to a misuse of contraception or a pill stop, "says Nicolas Dutriaux, secretary of the National College of Midwives of France.
50 to 75% of girls who are at the end of their pregnancy stop school when they become pregnant. Many also face complex social situations. "In the profiles of these mothers, there are many breaks in schooling and social difficulties, with the impression that education or the job market will not offer them a place in society. its place for a certain number of them ", points out Nicolas Dutriaux.
Although these pregnancies are rarely at risk, they do require special psychological guidance. "There are no specific recommendations.The monitoring of the pregnancy is the same as at a later age.The medical risks are identical, even less because of the youth.It really are the psycho-social disorders and the sometimes complicated family environment that can be a source of disruption in care ".