A Second Chance
Hi, my name is Ali, I’m 20 years old and 9 months pregnant with a girl.
Let me begin when I was 12 years old. I was raped by an older gang member. He told me all the things I wanted to hear and then he told me he would kill me and my family if I told the police. After that I started running away from home. Every night I would go to the Beaverton Transfer Center to drink, do drugs, and fight people for no reason. Now that I think about it, the reason behind my actions was that I wanted a man/dad relationship, even if I got it in a negative way.
When I was 14 ½ I was locked up and put in the Whiteshield Cottage Program. I did really good for a couple of months and then ran away again because I thought I was missing out on the fun I used to have. I did go back and it took me 2 years to graduate. I was so proud of myself and was doing really good.
I went back to live with my mom and 3 months later I was pregnant with my son Gabriel. I was 16, young and dumb. I stayed clean while I was pregnant and for about 3 weeks after he was born, but...
