This is my autobiography told as I saw it….

I was born December 31st, the first child of my parents. I grew up a fairly normal child. I have a younger sister  who is 15. As a child, I loved dance and gymnastics since I was 2 as well as music. I’ve been playing the piano since I was 4 and flute since I was 10.

The summer before I started 7th grade, my dad left my mother for the man he had been having an affair with for the past 5 years. We were totally blindsided. We had no idea and we have not seen or heard from him since. That’s when I went downhill. My mother, who had been a stay-at-home mom for the past 13 years, was now forced to get 3 minimum-wage jobs to afford the tiny apartment we had to move into.

Now I’m not trying to condone my choices or my behavior. Its just important to know that there wasn’t much of a home life for me, that year I met an 8th grade boy. He was cute, tall, and a bad boy, I fell head over heels in love with him. We started dating and I began skipping school, drinking, and doing drugs. Shortly after I celebrated my 12th birthday, I lost my virginity to him on a dirty couch in the trailer behind his uncle’s house. Over the summer, we were having sex everyday, and without protection, I became pregnant.

August 27th was my first day of the rest of my life, I just didn’t know it at the time. I went to the doctor for my yearly check up. My mother made us go every year before school started, it was tradition. They ran the usual blood tests and mine came back positive for HCG. I was 12 years old and I was pregnant!!

I was in a fog, I don’t remember much of what happened. My mother cried and so did I. When I told him, he freaked out. He immediately told me he wanted me to have an abortion and I was 100% on board with that choice. My appointment at the clinic was scheduled for the first weekend in October. I was looking forward to putting this all behind me and getting on with being a normal 8th grader, Then on September 28th, I started bleeding at school. It was a huge gush of blood. I started freaking out. Of course, my teachers all thought I was just starting my period and sent me down to the nurse to get a pad. I told her that I was pregnant and having my period. She called my mom and told her to bring me to the ER, miscarriage….

I got to the ER and was immediately hooked up to a million machines, the bleeding had stopped and the doctor came in and did an ultrasound. I saw my baby, I got to hear the heartbeat. There was a little person inside me and I loved that little bean. Everything was fine, my baby was perfect. The doc gave me an estimated due date, April 23rd.

I went home happy, and scared. I told my mom I wanted to keep this baby. She cried and told me if I really wanted to do this, we could do it. It would be hard and it would change my life, but the choice was mine… Such a big thing to decide at 12.

I told him, he was against it, and told me if I wanted to have a baby, he wasn’t going to have me anymore.  And so that was the end of us….

Pregnancy wasn’t easy, but it was amazing. I loved all the milestones, and the baby belly, finding out she was a girl and feeling her kick.

Esme Ariana was born on April 1st. My life as a 13 year old mom had begun….