I was 17, and I was a vulnerable girl thinking that she needed a boyfriend. So I was with the wrong boy. Very immature and really only after one thing. Sex. I wasn’t ready. I always thought that I would save my virginity for my wedding night. But I caved and consented to keep him interested.
Shortly after, I made an appointment with an OBGYN to get onto birth control. As is customary they did a pregnancy test on me, which came back negative. After talking with the doctor, we decided to give the depo-provera injection. The depo shot gives you three months of medicine during which you have no period.
So I was about a month and a half into my second dose, and I had been having some health problems. I had an appointment with my primary physician and due to being on depo, pregnancy never came up. My doctors’ prognosis was that my gallbladder needed to be removed. As a pre-surgery procedure, they brought me in to have an ultrasound of my gallbladder, only my gallbladder wasn’t where it was supposed to be. So the technician started to look around, which is when she found the little baby inside of me.
I was instantly overcome by so many emotions all at once; joy because I always couldn’t wait to become a mom (the correct way), anger because the boy lost interest in me even though I had sex with him and now I was pregnant with his child, fear because I haven’t even graduated high school yet, and so many more, but most of all dread because I knew my parents were going to kill me.
The technician took a couple of measurements and informed me that the baby was about twenty-three weeks old. She told me that the baby was a boy. She printed me a couple of pictures and then she let me have a few moments before she sent my mother in from the waiting room. When my mom walked in and I told her she simply said “We’ll talk about this at home” and she left.
When she got home from work that night,,, my parents and I sat down and they told me that I was going to have an abortion or I was going to find somewhere else to live. My family had always been very tight, so this hit me like a ton of bricks. Being that I was so far along I had to think fast, as it was there were only a couple clinics in the state that would do a late term abortion at the gestational age I was at, and in less than two weeks even that chance would be gone. With no job, and very little money I knew that there was no real choice, so I agreed to the abortion.
The closest clinic that would do the procedure was still over an hour away so my dad drove me to the clinic. I remember seeing some people at the front of the building protesting the clinic’s work and it made me feel horrible. We entered in the back of the clinic and checked in. After signing consent forms and filling out some paperwork, they took me back for another ultrasound and some other lab work. They then informed me that due to how far along I was the abortion would be a three-,day process, and that I had to be sure this was what I wanted because once they started, there was no going back.
I told them that I was sure and they got started. The first step was to insert several medicated “sticks” into my vaginal canal to start the dilation process. Then they said I was free to go, and to come back the next day. For convenience my father got a hotel room for me to stay up there, and my sister stayed with me. I cried a little bit before I fell asleep that night.
The next day, my sister took me back to the clinic where they removed the older pads and put in new ones and more of them. They told me that I would probably have some pretty bad cramps that night and sent us on our way. They were right. They were worse than any menstrual cramps they brought me to tears. I cried myself to sleep that night.
The next morning, we went back in to the clinic for the last time. I checked in, they had me undress and they put me to sleep. When I woke up,, I was no longer pregnant. They had me get dressed and they sent me home.
It was a lot harder to do than I thought it would be. I ended up having to go to therapy for a while. It took me quite some time to come to terms with what I did. I still have the ultrasound pictures. They remind me of the consequences of stupid decisions. And every November, I think about how old my son would have turned. I think about what kind of child he could have become. I think about how different my life would have been. Would I still be where I am now with him? Would my parents have forgiven me? There are millions of what ifs. And so many regrets, but now as a parent myself, I am able to see that my parents had my best interest in mind. I know that as hard as it was for me to go through it, it was probably equally hard for them to make me go through it and also to have to watch me go through it.
I believe that abortion is a woman’s decision, but I do not believe that it should be used as a form of birth control. It is a bigger deal than you might initially think.
More Reading My sister had an abortion | Embryoscopy
Our daughter was a junior in high school when she told us she was pregnant. You already know about all the scary stuff so I won’t dwell on that. I will say the biological father (17) & his parents were a problem, then gone, then back but not in a good way, then tolerable with the help of a great family law attorney. We had initially hoped for marriage but we now know that would have been a disaster. I must say before “the news”, our daughter was most likely going to end up out of town, maybe even out of state, attending a college with no career plans in mind.
Although alcohol and drugs were never a problem with her, we feared for college life’s influence on her, and we considered her very susceptible.
As it turns out, we quickly met with a Christian pregnancy center and they helped all of us get through this difficult situation. Our daughter grew 5 years in maturity in a matter of weeks. She embraced this as a very serious Mom who needed to make plans and provisions for herself and her child as a single parent. She grasped that she now had a clear purpose in life, which is something that almost all of her peers lacked and that many are still looking for 8 years later. Instead of wasting time and money and debt going to a college without any direction, she quickly determined how much money she had to make in order to provide for herself and child, and what occupations were in demand and paying what she needed. She made plans to graduate high school early and chose an Associates Degree plan that would equip her to immediately get a good paying job. She stayed at home with us and insisted on working part-time to pay many out of pocket costs for her and her child. While we were there to help with our grandchild, she totally maintained her role as Mom in every way. This was all VERY tough for her, as you all know, but she made it through. By staying home with us, persevering, and utilizing grants and scholarships not otherwise available to her, she graduated college debt free!
She ended up getting a good paying, fairly flexible job immediately upon graduating, and one that she truly enjoys (how many people can say that!). While attending school, she met a man through a church group, one who loved God and children. Soon after graduating, they got married and now have a child of their own. Given the difficult initial circumstances, I believe God then used that teen pregnancy and baby, in many ways, to save my daughter’s life. And we know many people who (although they wouldn’t choose this particular path) certainly wish their adult children had the same purpose, maturity, family life, and financial stability as our daughter, or shoot, even HALF of that.
I am praying for all of you.
I’m 18 years old. I’m a senior in high school and I’m 4 months pregnant…. This is my story.
Let me tell you a little about myself. I had a very tough childhood growing up. I grew up without parents; I live with my grandparents instead. Growing up, I loved art & anime but what I loved the most was drawing anime or painting anime…. It became my dearest passion. It was my favorite thing in the world. I even considered going to art school, but all of that changed, in September.
I met a guy online. He was very sweet and shy like me. We began chatting then he eventually met me on September 24th. I walked all the way to the mall just to meet him. We had a connection, it was nothing like I ever had with anyone else… I fell in love with him that night. In early October, we had unprotected sex and later in October, I started having all the pregnancy symptoms…expect vomiting. But I would feel sick, but not like I would have to throw up. My period was also late. I was supposed to get it on the 26th, but it was a couple days late. I had a 28 day cycle and my periods were never irregular. I was really worried, but thought maybe it’s late this time. I was so WRONG!
Forward to November 11th, I took a pregnancy test and BOOM! Positive! Then I wanted to see a doctor just to make sure the test wasn’t inaccurate. I went to the doctor’s on the 16th of November and sure enough, I was indeed pregnant. When the doctor told me, I just froze. I was scared, anxious, worried. I wanted to give up and die that day. I felt so stupid and irresponsible. I didn’t know what to do… How can I take care of a baby? I’m too young for this! People are going to judge me! I kept getting all these thoughts in my head at once. How am I getting to tell him? Or my grandparents?
My grandparents eventually found out on their own and they were supportive, but I had to tell him. I had to tell him, I just didn’t know how! I sent him a text message a couple days after the appointment, then I waited for a response from him. He was pretty angry and scared. At first, he ended up cutting off connections with me and deleting me off everything…. It broke my heart. He also refused to tell his parents or anyone about my pregnancy, which I ended up writing them a note when I was 3 months pregnant. They responded back and they were also supportive and they even said I could live with them when I’m finished with school or when I get my GED. He also apologized and now we are back together.
At first, this pregnancy was a nightmare! I hated being pregnant and I was considering abortion, but now I’m happy with my baby! I had my first ultrasound and I fell in love whether he was there or not! I couldn’t get an abortion from that moment on. I’m happier than I ever was.
Four years ago, Lauren came home from college for the weekend with an excruciating announcement to tell her parents. By the time she was packing up to head back to her dorm room, though, the right moment still hadn’t presented itself.
Time was running out, and Lauren wasn’t going to be able to hide the truth much longer.
With a four-hour drive ahead of her and short on daylight, Lauren’s mother urged her to get on the road. Finally, Lauren sat down on the floor, took a deep breath, and broke the news.
Midway through her second year of college, Lauren was pregnant. With twins.
“I felt like when I was little, you know, when you lied about something and they know you’ve lied, so you’ve eventually got to admit it,” Lauren said. “All I could hear was my heart beat at that point. So I finally blurted it out and she just looked at me and hugged me. And then she said, ‘Okay, you’ve got to tell your dad.’”
Adjusting to a New Reality
Growing up in a prominent family of a large church in the Bible Belt, Lauren had never pictured herself having that conversation with her parents. What started out with a feeling of dread, however, turned to relief over time as the family began to process their new reality together.
On her drive back to school, Lauren made two phone calls to tell her grandparents on both sides—both grandmothers had the same reaction: “Oh, Lauren”—so by the time she arrived back at campus, the major players were all in the know.
Now all she had left to do was follow through with a workload that included 18 units of undergraduate work, 25 hours a week on campus in the admissions department and 35 hours a week on her feet at Texas Roadhouse.
That, and adjust to life as a single mother with a high-risk pregnancy that would land her in the emergency room just a few weeks after she told her parents they were soon to become grandparents.
Tweet This: “We need to celebrate those girls who didn’t get an #abortion.” #prolife
“I just holed up the rest of that year,” Lauren said. “I told a couple of my really close friends, an I started showing way sooner than what a normal person would, so it became harder to hide. I never talked to people about it, and sort of made a wall, so nobody ever asked me or confronted me about it.”
After wrapping up her spring semester, Lauren—a straight-A student who started her collegiate career as a sophomore—transferred to a college in her hometown and moved in with her parents during last few weeks of her pregnancy.
By the time her two sons, Christian and Caden, arrived in mid-summer—a month ahead of schedule and both under five pounds—Lauren was so immersed in her studies that she brought her schoolwork with her to the hospital during the first month the boys were outside the womb, at the hospital NICU.
“They were there to basically try to learn how to eat,” Lauren said. “That was a brutal month, just going back and forth. Because of the pain medication I was on, I wasn’t allowed to drive yet, but I was there every day.”
Paying it Forward
When Lauren told them she was pregnant, one of the first calls her parents made was to her great uncle, David, who had been a key financial and visionary supporter of a pregnancy center in her hometown since 2000.
Today, when he’s not bragging up his status as the boys’ favorite uncle to the rest of the family, David relishes every moment with his 3-year-old nephews, driving them around his farm and introducing them to his stock of cattle.
“Our entire family loves these little boys are we are so grateful they received the gift of life,” David said. “We are so proud to be supporters of the pregnancy center and appreciate the way they helped Lauren through a difficult time. Our entire family has been blessed by the work of this organization and we look to the future as we watch the boys mature into great young men.”
Lauren knew her parents would be in her corner as a single mother, and they have been nothing but supportive of their daughter and grandsons, providing them a home for the first year-plus of the boys’ lives while Lauren finished school, began her career, and launched a floral business she has run out of her home ever since.
Moving back to her hometown, Lauren took advantage of the pregnancy center’s parenting classes, and the center’s executive director was one of the first visitors to come congratulate her while she was recovering in the hospital.
Though it wasn’t her first experience at a pregnancy center—she had gone to a location near campus to get a free ultrasound early in her pregnancy—the help Lauren found at the center her uncle had helped build has gone a long way toward her becoming the mom she is today.
“It was great just to have somewhere to go where other people were going through the same things that you were,” Lauren said. “They understood the emotional state I was in, and they always made a point to make me feel loved and not shameful or judged. They just always, genuinely, 100 percent meant what they said, and that was very rare for me at that point in my life.
“They just thoroughly radiated care for me and the love of Christ.”
Celebrating Life and Courage
Lauren’s journey to motherhood hasn’t been an easy one, particularly in a small town and home church where any glance can be interpreted in a negative light. Noticing a pattern of strangers peeking at her ring finger while she was pregnant, for instance, Lauren resorted to wearing a fake wedding ring out in public.
“It’s not so much the spoken word as the unspoken word—people’s body language and the way they look at you when they think you’re not looking,” Lauren said. “When you’re already so hyper-sensitive to that fact you’ve got a yoga ball sticking out in front of you with no wedding ring on, you notice the stares.”
Though she’s a natural optimist and was treated with love and acceptance by her family, as well as many in her church and community, Lauren said she wishes more of her peers and fellow church members would have been more vocal in their support of her during her pregnancy.
This side of her rather public unexpected pregnancy, Lauren has been contacted by friends and acquaintances looking for advice and help either for themselves or for the women in their lives who are battling through a similar situation.
In each of those encounters, Lauren is quick to point out the need to cherish the lives represented in each pregnancy—planned or unplanned, married or unmarried.
“There’s no way to train a congregation not to stare at someone,” Lauren said. “But we need to celebrate the fact that people are choosing life, and when they do, they’re sacrificing their pride and their ego, and choosing—ultimately, humiliation. Not that it’s humiliating to have a baby, but it’s humiliating to be like, ‘Look what I did wrong. Look at my sin.’
“We need to celebrate those girls who didn’t get an abortion. They didn’t choose to take the easy way out, the quick fix. They made that decision to follow through, whether that means adoption or to raise the child on their own.”
[Resource from: https://pregnancyhelpnews.com/proud-mom-of-twins-lauren-rejected-the-easy-way-out]
When Lacey Dunkin first thought about becoming a mother, she saw one thing in her future: boys. “It wasn’t that I believed I could only bond with a son—when I was daydreaming about having a family, I just saw myself with a boy,” says Dunkin, 32, of Fresno, California. Then in her mid-20s and living with her parents, Dunkin longed for a child and didn’t view marriage as a prerequisite. At her mother’s suggestion…
Dunkin considered fostering a child first and found Aspiranet, a family-services agency with offices throughout California with a special focus on foster care and adoption. Dunkin applied to become a foster parent and was certified in June 2011, after completing multiple hours of training and passing a home study. She accepted a family friend’s gift of a race-car bed, and waited.
By late September, Dunkin started to worry that as a single woman, she might never be contacted. Then late one night, a social worker called: “She told me she had a foster-care emergency placement: four sisters ages 5, 2-year-old twins, and 1,” says Dunkin. (In the interest of privacy, Aspiranet chose not to reveal the particulars of the circumstances surrounding the girls’ story.) “I was barely awake, but I said yes.” Within a couple of hours, Dunkin had four confused little girls burning off nervous energy darting around her living room. “They were small and scared, and brought in the middle of the night to this stranger’s house,” says Dunkin, who along with her mother calmed the tired, crying girls and tucked them into bed and rocked the baby to sleep.
The next morning, Dunkin called in to work and prepared to take Sophia, the eldest, to her kindergarten class. “I was making her breakfast and she asked me if I had any daughters and if she could be my daughter, which broke my heart,” says Dunkin. “She asked what she could call me and I told her, ‘My name is Lacey, and you can call me whatever you want to call me.’ By the time I found her school and dropped her off, she was introducing me as her mom.”
Later that day, Dunkin learned the girls—Sophia; the twins, Natalie and Melanie; and the 1-year-old, Kaylee— had a sibling, Lea, born the night before. (Lea temporarily went to a foster couple with prior experience with newborns.) Nine months later, the older girls reunited with their birth mom. Says Dunkin: “I tried to keep faith that they would end up where they were supposed to, and in my heart, that was here.”
After about a month, the girls’ birth mother concluded it would be too difficult for her to care for them. “She called and asked if I would take all five,” says Dunkin. “I immediately said yes.” She formally adopted them in July 2013. “They asked me if I was sure they were staying. I reassured them, ‘You’re adopted. You’re home forever.’ ” (Dunkin has her parents’ help and financial assistance for the girls’ needs.) There was one more surprise: The children’s birth mother was expecting again: a girl, Cecily, born that September. Cecily eventually also came to live with Dunkin and has been adopted since.
“I want people to know that foster children are not bad, they’re not broken,” says Dunkin. “Children are resilient, and want and need a loving home.”
Read full article at: Gail O’Connor from Parents Magazine
Image courtesy of: Kimi-G Photography http://www.kimigphotography.com
When Nick Hagelin stepped onto the stage to audition for The Voice, he had a big fan backstage in his young son Bash. Bash, along with his mom Christina, joined Hagelin on stage after the audition and it was immediately visible that Bash has special needs. Hagelin explained that doctors told them Bash might never be able to walk, but there he was, walking out onto the stage to show support for his dad.
At just nine days old, Bash was diagnosed with Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita (AMC), a condition in which joints are permanently fixed in a bent or straightened position. Some children born with this condition do not survive, including one baby boy who was born just hours apart from Bash in the same hospital and delivered by the same midwife. That baby’s spine was bent and locked in a C shape and he was unable to breathe. In Bash’s case, his elbows were locked straight, and his hands were locked in a bent position. His knees and feet were also affected. Doctors said that he may never be able to take care of himself, but his parents were determined to help their son become independent in any way they could.
“Hard work has always been a part of this boy’s life and it’s his perseverance and winning attitude in the face of adversity that make him such a remarkable individual. […] It’s never about what you can’t do and always about what you can do,” Hagelin says in a video about Bash. His family chronicles Bash’s challenges and achievements in order to raise awareness for AMC and help other families discover therapies to help their children.
Hagelin describes his son as “full of wonderment and bliss with a big appetite for life.” He says that Bash “greets each day with a smile, grateful to be alive.”
Bash’s devoted family has used every therapy available to them to help Bash, and that plan eventually paid off. When Bash was one and a half, he was finally able to move around on his own by rolling, scooting, riding his toys, and using a specialized device that allowed him to walk with assistance. His parents worked tirelessly to help him stand up and flex his arms. Then on Easter Sunday at two years old, he took his first independent steps, which Hagelin called a “miracle.”
Without elbows that bend, it has always been extremely difficult, and one would think even impossible, for Bash to feed himself, but this boy doesn’t quit. Even after so many attempts that end with the fork on the floor, he keeps going and keeps smiling. At age two, Bash became eligible for surgery on his elbows that his parents hoped would finally allow him to overcome this challenge.
“I want to feed myself,” he says as his parents prepare him for his surgery by having him perform “surgery” on a Buzz Lightyear toy. And he would. That surgery was successful, and his elbows now have a 90-degree bend allowing him to feed himself consistently. He still has a lot of work to do to strengthen his muscles which are weak and underused, but his family recently learned about a device called Magic Arms that can help him gain even more mobility.
Most of his treatments have not been covered by insurance, so the Hagelins have had to rely on donations, but Bash, now age four, has a huge network of support which has grown even larger thanks to his father’s appearances on The Voice. Bash is showing the world that children with special needs and different abilities live beautiful lives. He has a contagiously happy spirit, a hilarious sense of humor, a dimpled smile, and a very bright future.
Article by Nancy Flanders
#NICKANDBASH #THEVOICE #HAGELIN #BUZZLIGHTYEAR
