“I had no money, no desire to be a mother. ‘You’re 6 weeks along.’ She pointed to a picture on a paper. ‘A heartbeat? Already?!’ 5 minutes ago I didn’t even know I was pregnant. It seemed so fast, too fast for me. I knew some would think I slept around, that I was promiscuous. I knew girls would talk.”
‘Kids shouldn’t have kids.’ Shame spread over me. As a teen, I couldn’t hide my big belly.’: Teen mom explains why she ‘kept her baby’ at 16-years-old
‘At 17, two pink lines changed everything. While my friends were out partying and going to football games, I sat in a rocking chair and cried while my baby cried.’ Disabled teen mom doesn’t want others to ‘feel sorry for her’, reminds us to ‘show compassion’
“It wasn’t about me, it wasn’t just my life anymore. It was about this little baby growing. I didn’t care about myself or my future and it showed in my daily decisions. I was a mess, a completely reckless teenager. Sometime after getting put on probation, totaling my car, and losing credit from skipping school, I decided I needed a change. I was focused on giving her the life I never had.”
‘When my son was 10 months old, his daddy, my husband, left. He left the state. Left me to care for a baby alone. How could this happen to me? I did everything right. It broke me.’
“In the midst of my own grief, my son still needed me, more than ever. I still felt so isolated and alone. I couldn’t just pass my kid off to someone else. He needed me.”
‘I was pregnant. I was only 21. I started bleeding. ‘Maybe it’s for the best,’ one family member said. This was supposed to be the happiest time of my life. Instead, it was a nightmare.’
“Josh came home. He suggested we go for a walk, but when I told him to just take our daughter. He couldn’t understand why – and that’s when I lost it. I was screaming at everyone, ‘WHY AM I HERE? I DON’T UNDERSTAND. WHAT IS THE POINT.’”
‘When my son was 10 months old, I fell in love with a guy who I thought was the one. The one I was positive I was going to marry. Everything was so great – or so it seemed.’
“Motherhood for me wasn’t the typical falling in love and making a baby. In my case, I was a 20-year-old living in a new city, who got drugged, sexually assaulted and pregnant. ‘Why did you keep the baby?’ Well, let me tell you… This baby was a MIRACLE.”
‘I found out I was pregnant at only 17 years old. The news rocked my parents’ world. I was smart in school and dumb in love. I always knew I’d have the baby.’
“My swollen belly served as a force field around me. It quarantined me from regular teenage life. In true Jerry Springer style, I married the childhood best friend of my baby’s daddy.”
‘I was 18 when I had my first child. Now, I’m Mother of the Bride. I am not wearing shapewear. My love for eating and my disdain for Spandex imprisonment rail against it.’
“I’m only 44, so I don’t want some flowy, champagne-colored gown with a bespangled bodice. I’m at least 20 years away from that outfit. Of course, va-va-voom is out. It’s my daughter’s day and I’m not much of a bombshell anyhow. I want to look nice, but not come-hither.”
‘I was pregnant. Talk about the craziest 9 months of my 16-year-old life. My life changed overnight. I found out I was pregnant in May, days after my sophomore year ended.’
“If you want to see friends come out of the woodwork, get pregnant at 16. Everyone judges every move you make as a 16-year-old mom.”
‘Babies having babies.’ That’s what I heard my doctor say as I lay in premature labor at 17 years old, as If I wasn’t terrified enough already.
“I made a decision that evening as I laid in the hospital bed ready to bring my son into the world. I was going to prove that doctor wrong.”
