Page 25 - May/June HER 2020

25 MAY HER
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Once the week was up, Fitzpatrick left her friend’s aunt’s house and, by fate, landed a job as a nanny for a single mother named Elisia. At that point, having given up on her dream of receiving higher education, her plan was to work for Elisia for one month so she could earn enough money to return home to her mother.
“In the meantime, once I moved into the apartment with (Elisia) and her girls, I was feeling sick,” she said. “And I was so sick, but I had no idea what was wrong with me, and I was throwing up, and I couldn’t eat, and one day, about a month later as I was saving my money to go back home, (Elisia) said ‘You know what Lorena, do you think you’re pregnant? ... You have all the symptoms of a pregnant girl.’”
Fitzpatrick said, after only having had sex once with her boyfriend before leaving for California, she thought pregnancy to be nearly impos- sible. The next day, at 17 years old, her fear was confirmed at the doctor’s office: Fitzpatrick was pregnant.
“That right there changed my whole world,” she said. “I couldn’t go back home because my mom would kill me ... (And) I couldn’t get an abortion because if my mom ever found out, she would kill me. ... I remember that was the end of my dream of becoming a teacher, but I remember thinking I can’t kill this baby, I just can’t.”
The decision to keep the baby went hand-in-hand with the decision to stay in California with Elisia.
Fitzpatrick continued to work as a nanny throughout her pregnancy until her boyfriend came from Mexico to California to find her, and they bought a home together. After living with him for a few years, and having another baby, she decided to leave an “unhealthy” relationship, becoming a single mother of two.
She lived her life, raising her two children and making ends meet with jobs as a nanny and a housekeeper.
Fitzpatrick ended up meeting her now-husband Jay Fitzpatrick in 2005, while still in California.
“Education was so important to me that I always instilled in my chil- dren that they were going to have a college education, and they did,” she said. “Once my daughter graduated, the day she graduated, she was walking to get her diploma, and I remember thinking, ‘Lorena, this is it.
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HER MAGAZINE ¯ May/June 2020 25