In 2023, TikToker Makayla (@maxxbymakayla) arrived in Los Angeles and immediately met someone who was extremely abusive. Ultimately, her money and passport were stolen, and she was left with a broken sternum and hair ripped out of her head.
Four weeks after the attack, she went to downtown L.A. to get her phone fixed. She was in a terrible mood and was storming down the street in a rage when she ran into a very attractive man.
They started chatting about the bad situation she was in. They exchanged phone numbers and began hanging out. He worked in construction, but as it turned out, he was also a gang member.
She had a baby with said gang member, who is currently incarcerated. She got pregnant in January. In May, she went back to Australia to visit her family, and while she was in Australia, he got arrested. She decided to fly back to L.A. to give birth to the baby to reduce complications with paperwork.
She gave birth alone, with no one to support her but her doula. The father of her child was already locked up at that point. He was in a maximum-security prison, which meant he only got to have a one-hour phone call every day.
She ended up being in labor for 59 hours and had to have an emergency C-section. She gave birth at 3:30 a.m. on a Saturday. She didn’t hear from him that day because the prison was on lockdown due to a riot.
The next time she heard from him was during their once-a-week video call, so he got to meet his son over 24 hours after he was born. By the next morning, her child’s father was being transferred to another prison.
“Now, when you get to prison, you’re in intake, which means you generally don’t have access to a phone,” explained Makayla.
“You can write letters, but obviously snail mail is slow. I didn’t know how I was getting home from the hospital because I had no family and very few friends in L.A.”
One of his friends helped bring her home from the hospital, which she was grateful for. But now, she had to figure out everything else on her own as a first-time mom. She didn’t hear from her baby daddy for two weeks.
Luckily, her mom came over and stayed with her for five weeks. When the baby was three months old, Makayla went back to Australia to have some familial and financial support.
She and her child’s father are now able to talk on the phone every day and do video calls.
“Everything costs, and to give you an idea of the cost, it’s cost me $6,000 USD since last July to be in communication with this man,” said Makayla.
“When he got to prison, he had to send me visitation forms for me to fill out the forms and get approved to be a visitor, which took 12 weeks. My baby was three months old when we finally got to go and visit his dad.”
Her baby daddy’s mother actually passed away while Makayla was pregnant, so she doesn’t have much support from his family. The family members he is closest to are incarcerated as well.
But they are able to provide emotional support at least. One of his brothers and one of his cousins call to check on her all the time. A couple of his friends have also been very helpful.
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By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
