I was a teen mom. I left home 2 days after I turned 17. Left with my boyfriend ~ who was 4 years older than me.  My boyfriend & I lived in a car for a few weeks. Getting to school was hard.
He had friends who were getting their girlfriends pregnant or already had kids, so we decided we wanted to have a baby too. I did get pregnant. I quit making it to school altogether. We moved into a house with friends.  It wasn’t a home, but a party house.
We didn’t stay there too long before he was put in jail. When he left, I moved in with my grandparents. They were very generous to me. Unfortunately, I didn’t appreciate it then. This all happened in a matter of months.  It seemed like a long time but it wasn’t~ my life was completely changed within the first semester of my Junior year of high school.  By the time the second semester started, I was pregnant, living with my grandparents, and my boyfriend was in jail. I was back in school & experiencing not morning sickness but all-day sickness.
My due date was in August, my boyfriend got out of jail a month or two before. We moved into a place together. My grandparents were upset & wanted me to stay with them. My baby was born about a week late with no problems. In October, I started at an alternative school & finished my senior year within 6 weeks.
Before my baby had even turned one. my boyfriend & I had broken up & I was pregnant again, with no idea what I was going to do.
I had a choice to make, & it wasn’t an easy one, it would affect my life & my children’s lives.

When you are young & you know you don’t have what it takes to raise the child growing inside of you, it’s scary.
We don’t talk about all the choices we have enough. Girls are left with a lot of questions. They are misled, they are manipulated, & coerced into choices they didn’t feel comfortable with. I have been a teen mom. I am also a birth mom who released a child through an open adoption. I have received blessings & joy, as well as heartache from this decision ~ but those are things that come with life.  I feel very strongly that the choice for adoption, especially open adoption, be talked about & people be educated.  If you have questions you want to ask, please ask.

I’ve been a teen mom, I am a birth mom, I am a mom who has lost babies to miscarriages.
I have been there, I have experienced the pain. I have come through it & have healed.