I kept my baby after being raped

By Emma Midgley
BBC Berkshire

Miriam did not realise she had been raped until she fell pregnant

It seemed like the safest place possible - a work party, surrounded by her colleagues.

But after taking two sips of her first drink, 19-year-old Miriam Virgo passed out and remembered nothing until waking in a friend's bedroom the next day.

She had been found by a taxi driver passed out by the side of the road with no money.

Weeks later, Miriam learned she was pregnant, and realised she been raped while unconscious that night.

"I was at a work do." she told BBC Radio Berkshire's Andrew Peach. "It finished at 23.00, and I didn't get there till 22.40. Someone gave me a drink, I took two sips and then I literally passed out.

"Some of the girls there thought I was drunk. The girls who had taken me there knew something was wrong, and they got a colleague to take me outside.

"The next thing I remember was waking up at someone's house. A taxi driver had found me left at the side of the road with no money.

"He had to go through my phone, calling the last-dialled numbers. A friend answered and he took me back there."

Miriam said she felt sick, nauseous and very tired the morning after her ordeal.

But she didn't realise that she had been raped until 16 weeks later, when she discovered she was pregnant.

"I collapsed one day in a supermarket," she said. "I went to the doctor immediately, he asked me if I was pregnant. He took tests. I was still having periods, and I hadn't been having sex, so I thought it was impossible."

To reassure herself Miriam took a pregnancy test at home. It was positive.

In shock

"I was in shock," she said. "For about eight hours I just sat there, I couldn't do anything. "

Miriam had been told that a man she worked with had been seen pushing her against the wall and kissing her on the night she passed out.

"The first thing I did was call the individual involved," she said. "He went completely quiet, and said 'I apologise for what I did. I didn't think this would happen'."

Three days after she learned she was pregnant, Miriam felt her baby kicking for the first time.

But she was unable to feel love initially for her unborn child.

I felt as if I was on death row walking towards the abortion clinic and I suddenly said 'if you want to kill this baby, you will have to kill me' Miriam Virgo

"I didn't consider it a baby," she said. "It just felt like I had an alien or a foreign body inside me. I thought, if I don't have this thing inside me any more, I'll be ok."

Although she initially chose to have an abortion, Miriam prayed and asked God to help her make her decision.

"I was in the clinic, and at that point I'd been told the sex of the baby by accident. The lady gave me a scan and she said to her colleague 'it's female', and when she said that, it became a person to me," said Miriam.

"On my way to the clinic it was like something invisible touched my stomach and I felt this love I'd never felt before.

"I felt as if I was on death row"

"I felt as though, this is my child, this is my baby. I felt as if I was on death row walking towards the abortion clinic and I suddenly said 'if you want to kill this baby, you will have to kill me'. I went outside the clinic, held my stomach and said 'it's you and me now'. "

Today, Miriam's daughter is a healthy, bright seven-year-old, and Miriam cannot imagine life without her.

The work colleague who Miriam believed attacked her when she was unconscious has since denied fathering her child, and Miriam has had to face people in the community who do not believe her story.

She has reported the rape to the police, but the case has not been pursued.

Miriam said: "I went for quite a lot of counselling. Some people around me didn't believe I was raped, like people from my church.

"It was just a horrific thing. That was the hardest part. You're trying to get the support you need but you're made to feel like the offender yourself. "

She has since written a book, called The Naked Truth, about her ordeal.

Email us your comments:

[e-mail]