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I am T’Kia Bevily and I was a devoted mother, wife, daughter, sister, aunt, nurse, and much more up until I was WRONGFULLY CONVICTED and sentenced to LIFE W/O the possibility of parole.
Here is my story. (Retold by my best friend)
Here is my story. (Retold by my best friend)
I married the man of my dreams July 2016 and relocated to his hometown Port Gibson, MS which is one of those “small, everyone knows everyone” towns with approximately 1200 citizens.
While in Port Gibson, I worked at a nursing home overnight (while pregnant) and later switched to working at a local school as a school’s nurse.
While adjusting into PG, one day I randomly received a “prank” message stating that my husband fathered a child before our marriage.
After swallowing this huge pill, I went to him and asked him about it. He confirmed it to be true. Of course, I was devastated. I was currently pregnant & had just learned my husband possibly had a child.
I could not stand not knowing so I immediately encouraged him to contact the mom and suggested we just get a paternity test. (I felt that if the baby isn’t yours, what’s to worry about and if she is, she deserves a dad.)
The bio mom had no form of transportation at the time and no one in her corner who would take her, so I volunteered to take both the bio mom and their daughter, Jurayah, to get tested in the city over.
We waited.
I was contacted by the bio mom (not my husband) confirming that my husband indeed fathered her baby. I immediately asked her when could we get her and if she needed anything. From then on we established a healthy (or so I thought) coparenting relationship
Don’t get me wrong, this was a huge blow for me. But I never held any ill intentions towards the bio mom or Jurayah. They were not the ones to blame. My husband was the only person in this equation responsible for me.
I decided to stick with my husband. This was tough on me especially considering I am still pregnant learning all of this, but we prayed and turned to God. We worked this out.
So, a typical day for us would be Morris (my husband) teaching throughout the day, I worked overnight, and the bio mom worked as a car hop at Sonic.
We set up a group chat & tagged team parenting. On days the bio mom had to work, I would get off work, sometimes take her to work, keep Jurayah for the day (we both love to take naps) & Morris would step in after school which is usually the time I’d start getting ready for work.
Everything was smooth for the most part. Me and the bio mom even established a relationship outside of my husband. We communicated often and often I would take her to run her errands.
This was what worked for us. The only thing that I addressed with the bio mom was for her to be more considerate.
She developed a pattern of asking us to get Jurayah only to learn that she would be out partying. Mind you, I am still very pregnant and working full time overnight as a nurse at the time.
Our Jurayah was very active and the life of the party. I loved her almost instantly. After getting her for some time, I decided to share with my close friends (I told my immediate family about her from day one) that we now have a daughter.
Everyone was supportive of our decisions. I then decided to plan a cookout to formally introduce “J” (that’s what we called her) to our families. Our families both fell in love immediately.
Our little family was unconventional but it was ours. We purchased our first home together and we transformed that house into a home. I went into overtime working because I wanted to buy double of everything for our girls. They deserved that.
As my pregnancy progressed, our arrangement had to be reworked. I literally had less energy. So we went from getting Jurayah almost anytime we wanted her to only during the times my husband would be home to assist me fully.
After our baby girl was born, we temporarily agreed to do every other weekend. I needed time to adjust to working and having a newborn. Jurayah was about 8 or 9 months when her sister was born. I eventually found my motherly balance.
Fathers Day Weekend I decided it was time to share our family with my extended family & Facebook friends. People had their questions but I was truly in a place of peace. This was MY family & it didnt have to make sense to others.
(Heres a behind the scenes video from that day)
(Heres a behind the scenes video from that day)
Life was beautiful. I was a successful nurse, my husband was an educator and we had our two gorgeous girls to raise.
Then our whole world crashed the weekend of October 20th, 2017.
