A mother remembers

It happened several years ago, but sometimes it seems as if it were yesterday. It was the night a stranger broke into my home, stabbed me multiple times and left me for dead. My son, a little boy at the time, witnessed the entire thing. He was in the room when it happened. I was nine months pregnant.

The stranger had tried unsuccessfully to rape me. He didn't attack me right away. I spoke with him for 20 minutes, trying to talk him out of what he had planned to do.

The young man broke in through the kitchen door. When the noise woke me out of my sleep, I got up to see what was happening. It didn't dawn on me to be afraid.

The young stranger told me that he had been sent to kill me. I kept him in the kitchen - out of my son's view - because he tried to rape me.

I think the stranger was afraid. That's why he allowed me to talk to him for 20 minutes. I don't think he was prepared to face me because I was supposed to be asleep. Also, I was calm and gave no appearance of being afraid. As I talked with him, I took careful note of his appearance and prayed to God.

After 20 minutes, the young man lost his patience. He shoved me into the room where my son was, then knocked me to the floor. Then he started stabbing me in the top of my head. By the time it was all over, I had 17 stab wounds in my head, face, neck, arms and hands.

The stranger did not physically harm my son, who had the presence of mind to remain still until he was sure the stranger was gone. Then my little boy ran to the phone to call police.

I lost consciousness for a short time. I woke up just in time to hear parmedics say, "Oh, my God, she's pregnant!"

I was rushed to the closest hospital, where I was stabilized. Then I was transferred to the hospital where my doctor was on staff.

Because I was pregnant, I was hooked up to machines. Some monitored me, others monitored the baby. The doctors said that if I weren't pregnant, they would have operated on me immediately because a stab wound in my neck disturbed them. The doctors decided to wait 24 hours to see if the wound would get better. It did.

Seven days later, I gave birth to a large, healthy baby - my daughter.

There was a lot of activity for the next several days. A police investigation was underway. Since I was working as a journalist at the time, I became headline news. The news wires even picked up the story.

Five days later, police officers told me that they had arrested two people. One was the young man whom I had identified in a photo. The second was my daughter's father. Police say it was a murder-for-hire scheme.


tags: abuse, domestic violence, relationships, naomi-usa, the journey to naomi