Dr. Ivanah Thomas Carr had a bright future ahead of her when her whole world came crashing down. The former Glenmuir High School student enjoyed a close bond with her father, who lived in May Pen, but all that was shattered when he died in 1983.
She recalled being so devastated that she had to be pulled off the casket as she determined she would follow him to the grave.
In the midst of her grieving, the unthinkable happened: she was raped, and as she revealed during a recent interview on Sheena Power Talk, she got pregnant too.
The incident happened during the ‘winding down’ semester at Glenmuir after her father died. Her mother was overseas, and the decision was taken that she would live in Manchester with her aunt.
“And so that Christmas Eve, winding down from first semester at Glenmuir, preparing now to start Manchester High School, I was violently assaulted. I was raped at knifepoint. Three months after my father passed away,” she shared.
She got pregnant by her attacker, someone she was acquainted with.
“So when my mom got the call, we were at the doctor’s office with my aunt, and you know the doctor said you know ‘she is in high school; she’s so brilliant it’s a shame; she needs to have an abortion,” Dr. Carr related.
Her mother, while sympathising with what had befallen her, said regardless of it, she could not give her permission to have an abortion.
Being a God-fearing woman, the decision was taken that she had to carry the child, resulting in her dropping out of school in fourth form.
Dr. Carr said she thought her life was over.
Although the decision was taken for her to bring the child to term, Dr. Carr said she did everything to hurt the foetus she carried.
“You hear all these stories about if you run and stuff like that, how you know you’ll have a miscarriage and you’ll lose it. I got up every day running like you know, like Usain Bolt or Shelly; nothing was happening. I purposely flung myself on the floor, on the ground, nothing was happening, that baby was staying,” she told Sheena.
After giving birth to her son, Carr did not want anything to do with him. She shared that she couldn’t bring herself to it and recall that on the third day after giving birth, one of the nurses came to her and requested that she hold her baby and that she must feed him.
“I think that kicked in reality, like yeah, this is really real, and then I was very sick, so they were taking care of him for the first couple of days, as my blood pressure was through the roof.”
Carr said it took three years before any love could be generated for her son and any real interaction as a mother.
She is thankful for the support of her aunt, who stood in the gap until she could join her mother in the States.
It was another rough journey there to put her past behind her and open up herself to trusting a man. With counselling and a restored relationship with the Lord, she later got married.
Her past came back to haunt her when her son was 12 years old. He had an argument with his stepfather, and when she came home from work, he told her he wanted to talk to her—he hit her with the news that he wanted to know his father!
She stalled for some time with the promise that they would talk about it even while she prayed, asking God to help her deal with his request.
Her response was to book a flight to Jamaica to go searching for the man who abused her. Flying from New York, with no clue where she was going or how to find him, she started asking around until she located his mother.
One look at her son and his grandmother confirmed that he was the image of his father. She told her he was living in Canada and gave his number to her.
After returning to the States, Dr. Carr said it took her months to make the call. Following prayers and even more therapy, she gave in to her son’s request and made the call.
Having dialled, she could not say anything, he told her she didn’t have to and started apologising for what happened and saying he was sorry. She burst into tears.
Her son ended up going to Canada to spend two weeks with him, meeting his other siblings and his father’s wife.
“He bought the ticket, and I took my son to the airport, put him in the hand of the flight attendant and the hand of the Lord, and sent him to Canada. I prayed, but I knew I had to do this; he needed this. He honestly needed this, and I just cried and prayed every day and just asked God to cover him,” she reminisced.
After a second visit, her son never went back. He went to college and university. He knew something was off, and one day, at age 17, he told her he wanted to have a talk with her. He took her to dinner and asked about her relationship with him and how he came about. As she said things were not adding up, he was not being the father he should be, and he had broken promises regarding monetary assistance.
After sharing her story, tears started to fall. Her son got up and came to where she was seated, hugging her and apologising.
“Weeks later he called me; he says, Mom, you know I’ve been thinking, and I just want you to know I’ve made a decision. I so appreciate you giving me the opportunity to get to know my father, and you know the two times I visited and we talked, but I’ve made a decision on my own that I really don’t want to have anything to do with him.”
Carr said her son also made a pledge that he was going to be a super dad when the time came—fighting ‘tooth and nail’ for his children.
He fulfilled that promise with his two children. He also went through university and played a year in the NFL before going to Canada for the Canadian Football League, where he played for 10 years, winning two championships.
Her son’s father died at the age of 50 from lung cancer.
With all that she has gone through, Dr. Carr can now offer encouragement to those who are going through their storms.
“I want to encourage somebody today that the journey may seem long and hard; you may not know how you’re going to make it out of this absolutely difficult circumstance, but can I tell you that God is, and He’s not going anywhere, and He’s got you?”