Being a mom is not an easy task. It is more challenging if you are a single mom. I have a friend who is a single mom. Her name is Lorrie. She arived in Canada last July of 2009 as a permanent resident. She was two months pregnant when she arrived here. She doesn't know what life she will be having in her and how she will start her new life in Canada knowing that she is pregnant. She stayed on her aunt's place. It is not easy for her to search for a job. After a month of searching she found a descent part time job as floor associate in Walmart. Few months later she was hired as a food service worker in a hospital. She worked hard so that she can buy stuff for her coming baby. She worked two part time jobs and make nights as days just to earn money.
February of 2010 at nine o'clock in the evening she gave birth to an 8lb and 52.5 cm baby boy. She was so happy when she saw her first baby. She is now a mom. Since that day the struggle of being a single mom started.
After two months of giving birth she went back to work because she doesn't received any help from the government since her hours of work doesn't met the requirements to get an employment insurance when she give birth. It is not easy for her to leave her son at a very young age to the babysitter. Good thing her sister helps her take care of her baby when she goes to work. Her routine everyday is dropping and picking up her son to the babysitter, work and after work taking care of her son.
Months later she got a permanent full time position in the hospital . She worked a full-time job and a part-time job. Sometimes she worked 12 hours a day just to sustain their basic needs. It is hard for her to be away from her son for long hours but she can't do anything for it because she is the only one making money for them to live. The first year of her stay in Canada was full of struggle.
After a year her son still cannot speak that much. He uses his gestures to communicate. She brings him to a community clinic for a vaccination one day and the nurse asked her if her son is talking lots. She told the nurse that he is not talking that much as the other kids of the same age. So the nurse give her an advice on what to do and she decided to send her son to a speech therapist. It is another challenge to her since no one will bring her son to the theraphy. So she decided to trades all her shifts just to compensate the days of her son's theraphy.
Everytime the season change her son will get sick and always have a high fever. He is prone to seizure so evrytime he got a high fever he will have seizure. He can only take tylenol for medication because he is allergic to advil. So it's another challenge for her not to let her son's fever go high. Her son will always have an ear infection and it comes to the point that her son was admitted five days in the hospital for having a pneumonia. That time she decided to quit her other part-time job so that she can spend more time looking after her son. She decided not to take any overtime to her full-time job so that she can spend her days off with her son. Her son is everything to him.
I feel sorry for her because I can see the struggle that she is having. One day I finally decided to help her I asked my husband if it'sokay to him if we will help Lorrie. We've been married for ten years and we don't have a son. So September of 2012 we decided to move to a duplex together with Lorrie. I help her taking care of her son. When she goes to work early in the morning I am the one who babyset's her son. When she goes home after work we take place of taking care of her son. If she work late she drops her son to the babysitter. We treat her as our younger sister and her son as our little nephew. So far this situation helps her. Me and my husband are very happy to see them everyday.
Right now her son is a three year old boy. He is very energitic and very active. She let him join some activities this summer. Brings him to his therapies and doctor's appoinments. She is now used to their daily routine. Being a single mom is really challenging role. I am very proud to my friend Lorrie because she is brave enough to face the storm by herself. I know that there will be more trials that she will be facing later but I think she can manage to face it. But there's one thing that she is afraid of , the day wherein her son will ask him these questions. "Who is my dad?" "Where is my dad?".
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