Her Name is Frances

It’s taken me a very long time to write this. I’ve flip-flopped for over a year now about whether or not it was a good idea to share my story, because it’s not just mine, but also my daughter’s.

I hope one day she understands that by publishing this I’m not only trying to teach her a valuable lesson about integrity, bravery and fighting for what is right, but also doing it in the hope that it helps someone else who finds themself in a similar situation. Staying silent would be easy, but as I’ve said to many people who know this story: I would hate for Frankie to turn around one day and ask me why I didn’t stand up and say something. 

Over the last few years, I’ve learnt an incredible amount about people and how much they’re capable of. I’m not perfect; I could’ve been better in many situations, but I do not inherently do bad things. I try my best to be a good human while doing my best to raise a good human. In a world as messed up as it is today, it’s the least one can do. 

The plan wasn’t to have a baby alone, especially when packing up my life in South Africa and moving thousands of km away for the second time. My plan included opening successful eateries in Bali, buying a home in Cape Town for my family, travelling the world, and maybe one day meeting someone who wanted the same things as me which may or may not have included a family.

Even though things didn’t go according to that plan, becoming a mom was the best thing that ever happened to me. Frankie comes with no regrets, and I believe with every fibre in my body that she was sent to me for a reason. I believed that during the first few days of knowing I was pregnant, and I know that every time I look at her now. 

I explained to a close friend the other day how I was flying way too close to the sun during the first half of 2022, and going through what I like to call my “Icarus Phase”. As glamorous as that sounds and despite how much fun I was having, my wings would melt at some point and I would hurtle violently to the ground. Falling pregnant instead was the landing I needed. It didn’t come without its pain and suffering, but instead of killing me, it made me come alive and see the world in a completely different light. 

Besides all of this, the elephant in the room around who the father of my baby is remains, and that is where this story gets pretty wild…

I was dating actively during my first few months in Bali, using Bumble and Hinge to meet new people. I quickly realised that Bali is an incredibly transient place and that the people I met there were likely not going to be there in a couple of weeks or months. I was casually looking for something serious but a big part of the whole exercise was meeting a few fascinating people from all over the world, making connections and possibly a few new friends along the way. 

After matching on Bumble and briefly chatting to an American epidemiologist who said he was in Bali for a few months writing his next book, we met for an afternoon drink. The drink resulted in many drinks, a weekend fling that ended with a morning-after pill, and me being triggered by some of the most intense gut feelings and anxiety I’ve ever felt before. I made no effort to pursue it further and even went as far as deleting his number and blocking him on WhatsApp.  

Initially, the date itself was great. The conversation flowed, there was a major spark between us and I found him insanely interesting. He was well-travelled, exceptionally educated and smart, handsome, funny, and charming. He told me a lot about his life and was very open about certain things (which would come in handy months later), but I couldn’t shake the nagging in the back of my mind that he was hiding something and had a side to him that I didn’t want to find out about. I think this was one of the biggest reasons why when I locked my hotel door behind him, I remember breathing a huge sigh of relief and thinking: “Well, you never have to see or speak to that man again”. 

A few days after I ghosted the American I met a lovely Brit who had been living in Bali for 10 years. We dated for a few weeks but something was off and I made the call to end things, delete all the apps and focus on myself. I was emotionally, mentally and physically exhausted (early weeks of pregnancy will do that to you), and I needed a break. 

A few days later, I found out I was pregnant and confirmed after a scan at the hospital that I was 5 weeks along. The problem with the timing of this was that it was so close I couldn’t be 100% sure who the father of my baby was, but as I’d taken the morning-after pill (which should’ve been 95% effective in my case), all bets were on the Brit. 

The Brit and I openly discussed the situation and agreed that a paternity test needed to be done because we needed to know for sure. I returned to South Africa and we stayed in touch while waiting for Frankie to arrive so we could go the non-invasive (and way less expensive) route of cheek swabs which would be sent to a lab for testing.

I decided that getting back in touch with the American in the meantime would be the right thing to do, just in case. As I’d deleted his number I had to contact him via email, and that’s when things took a very strange turn. 

In an attempt to get his email, I sent an enquiry to the generic address for his business and a woman replied to me who shared his last name. This was an immediate red flag and when I Googled her, their wedding registry from 2018 came up tops. My blood ran cold as I realised that my intuition about something being odd about him was right. The trauma around not being 100% sure of the identity of my baby’s father all came flooding back, even after I’d managed to get a really good handle on it. That coupled with pregnancy hormones sent me to a very angry, dark, and anxious place. 

In hindsight deep down I knew the chances of him being Frankie’s father were higher than 5%, and by the off chance he was, I became obsessed with trying to find out as much info about him as possible so I knew what I was dealing with. I continued trying to get hold of him via email which was met with complete radio silence. 

After a few weeks of this, I realised it was causing more harm and stress not only for myself but for Frankie, so I parked it. Despite this hiatus from playing detective, the whole situation had a huge impact on not only my conscience but also my confidence in my ability to be a good mom. December 2022 was difficult and despite putting on a very brave face and masking a lot of my emotions, I was incredibly depressed and scared, especially towards the end of my holiday in Cape Town. It got so bad that one night during a panic attack I even considered giving Frankie up for adoption, which is something that I find difficult to think about now without feeling a tremendous amount of guilt. 

The 8th of March finally arrived, and shortly after 7.59 am when they put her on my chest and I felt her warm skin on mine, everything melted and magically faded away. I didn’t care who her father was, she was my baby and I felt the most indescribable love for her. She instantly put my broken heart back together again and everything that I had been worried and afraid about leading up to that moment was completely inconsequential.

A few weeks later once I was beginning to emerge from my newborn bubble, the Brit and I proceeded with the paternity test and received the results via email about 2 weeks later. They confirmed that I was indeed part of the 5% where the morning-after pill was, in fact, ineffective. 

As I sat there staring at the 0% match result, I felt a wave of calm wash over me. The reason for this is most likely because I finally had validation for what I knew all along but was too terrified to admit. No more nights of tossing and turning, wondering. Also, nothing had changed and Frankie was still my baby whom I loved unconditionally regardless of the paternity results.

In truth I didn’t want to have to deal with the fact that the man who had ignored me for months and who wasn’t acknowledging me or his potential child, was married and now Frankie’s father. It was a battle I wanted to avoid at all cost, but yet again the Universe had other plans for me. 

The Brit exited the chat and I wished him well.

I could go into detail about what followed, but in short, I continued trying to get hold of the American and resumed my research. One night, after spending hours going down multiple rabbit holes in search of his phone number, I found it. I added him back to my contacts and sent him a photo of Frankie via WhatsApp, along with a message pleading with him to get back to me. He read it and didn’t respond. A few days later he blocked me.

I sent him more emails, which he ignored and then they eventually bounced back due to my email address being blacklisted. To this very day, he hasn’t acknowledged his daughter. 

Few might argue that I decided to walk this walk alone as a single mom and that I should just leave things as they are, but I know that my daughter is going to come to me one day with questions that she has the right to know the answers to. Frankie deserves to be acknowledged, she deserves to know who she is and where she comes from.

I’m also not going to keep secrets for or from anyone anymore. I refuse to be part of a societal problem where men continue to get away with deplorable behaviour and abscond from their responsibilities, especially as fathers.

I’m proud of my daughter, and I’m proud of myself for having the strength to deal with everything that I’ve had to deal with up until now, and what’s still to come.

Through my investigative work, I’ve made contact with a few key people who have confirmed several things I suspected. A huge shock for me was the discovery that he wasn’t actually in Bali simply writing a book, but rather on a family holiday with his wife and two young children.

He was confronted about this situation by someone close to him, and he denied everything, citing not only not knowing who we were but also fobbing us off as “a scam”. 

The final nails in the coffin of his blatant lies were the DNA test results from a test conducted with one of Frankie’s half-siblings, which confirmed in writing that they are a 99% match, that I am not a liar, and that our daughter is very real…

Her name is Frances.