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Witch Weekly · January 13, 2019 – 1:52 PM

A shocking testimonial from a woman with a terrible secret!

"I Was Pregnant Once" - The Story of a Fallen Woman Who Chose A Risky Alternative To Elopement
After our recent feature article regarding the fate of fallen women, one reader wrote to tell us her own story. For obvious reasons, she wished to remain anonymous, but will be called "Daphne" by our writers. Daphne is a young socialite who was recently married, but her apparently perfect life is not without its secrets!

"I was only eighteen when it happened," she told our interviewers, from behind a magical secrecy screen which obscured her identity even from our staff. "I was out of Hogwarts, but my parents had decided not to let me debut yet. My older sister was out and my mother couldn't handle the stress of handling both our seasons at once. To be honest, I was bored, and I think that's why it happened — though that isn't much of an excuse." Daphne began flirting with, and eventually started to spend unchaperoned time with, a male friend of the family. "We were always sneaking around," she recalled, "And it was exciting. I didn't really realize how far things had gotten until it was all over."

All over turned out to be a relative term; as she would discover a few weeks later, the new path her life had taken was really only just beginning. Daphne was pregnant.

"It never occurred to me to try and marry him. It just wasn't that sort of thing. I don't think he would have, unless someone forced him into it — and the idea of going through that sort of thing to just be saddled with someone who would end up hating you is mortifying. Looking back now, I'm glad I didn't marry him. I didn't tell anyone, either. I wanted to deal with it myself."

So how does a young woman, barely more than a child, deal with an unwanted pregnancy? Daphne acquired a controversial (and illegal) potion, which caused her to miscarry early in her pregnancy, before it had become noticeable to her friends or family.

"I knew the risks, but I honestly thought I was making the right decision. With how everything turned out, I still think so. Drinking it was awful, and I was in a lot of pain afterwards, but it could have ruined my life to have gone through with it." Daphne described the symptoms following her taking the potion as the worst illness she had ever had. For several days she couldn't get out of bed. Her family thought she had pneumonia. "My maid knew it wasn't just that, of course. The sheets were bloody — but I think she just thought it was my monthly, come late. If she suspected anything else, she never said anything."

After her recovery, Daphne debuted into society with her parents entirely ignorant of her past indiscretions. She avoided the man who had deflowered her, and he eventually left the area. "Some distant family business took him abroad. I don't know what became of him, in the long run. It doesn't much matter to me anymore," she said. Instead, she focused her attentions on other suitors, and after a few uneventful seasons — during which, she told us, she remained chaste — she began a courtship and eventually married her current husband. The union has yet to produce any fruit, which leaves the question of whether Daphne was permanently scarred by her past miscarriage unanswered.

"Plenty of women have miscarriages naturally, and they can go on to have healthy babies," Daphne said. "So I think it will be the same for me. But even if it isn't, I don't know that I regret what I did. I could have been an unwed mother, and been kicked out on the street and died in poverty and rags and such, or I could have the life I have now — with or without children. I think anyone would have made the same choice. I think other girls in my situation, the situation I was in, just don't think they have any options."

How much of a viable 'option' was Daphne's decision? Since the potion in question is used solely for this purpose, and therefore both illegal and difficult to acquire, that question is entirely up for debate.

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