Darrel and I got married in 1989 with lots of family and friends around us. We were so in love and excited about our new life together. We moved to a small town when I was 3 months pregnant with our daughter. Darrel found it real hard to get a job and he started drinking more and more. We started to argue and sometimes he'd give me the bash. I couldn't even go to the shops because I'd have black eyes most of the time. Living in this new town though, I felt really dependant on him and alone and isolated from my family. And he always would stop hitting me after a while when his anger was over, and he would always not hit me near the stomach. I was so confused and scared I thought this made him punching me OK. But when I was about 7 months pregnant he came home drunk again and wanted me to cook him some food. He woke me up at 2am and dragged me to the kitchen. We only had eggs and bread so I did him some eggs on toast. I put them on the table in front of him and he banged his fist on the table and started yelling "What's this shit, bitch?", the eggs had gone all hard in the middle and he liked them soft and runny. He grabbed me by the hair and slammed my face into the eggs. Then he threw me to the kitchen floor, screaming "F*** you!" and kicked me hard in the stomach. Before I could get up and get away, he'd grabbed the baseball bat and I lost consciousness after the first blows.
I woke up to find the house empty, I could hardly see my eyes were so swollen, and I crawled to the neighbours house. They tried to convince me to leave but I was so scared that I couldn't think.
When my baby was born, her left leg was shorter than the right one and some of her organs were deformed and didn't work properly. The doctor said that this must have happened because of the violent attacks. Now I couldn't take it anymore, I didn't really care what happened to me, he'd made me feel so bad about myself, but I couldn't risk any more stuff happening to my baby. I got really upset and talked to a nurse that I liked. She was really kind and helped me get in touch with Women's Refuge. The women from the Refuge came and picked me up from the hospital and took us to the Safe House. I felt so safe with these women who understood and supported me in making a fresh start. Now I am studying to be a nurse. It's really hard with a little girl but the Refuge women continue to support me and my dream.