Soo, another day of being a pregnant fifteen-year-old.
Today in my first-period class ( in which no one knows of my secret), some popular boy in my class, stands up and asks me if I’m pregnant?! I reply, ahh. why would you say that? He replies back all short, Well, take a look, I mean with all due respect, you ARE gaining weight. I couldn’t help but cry, I feel so unsafe in this school! I’m overly emotional as it is, but that crossed the line.
The super gorgeous girls in the class of course stereotype, that the pregnant teenagers these days, have horrible issues and are usually along the line of being a slut. SOO the whispers began, making me nervous and completely stressed out. I cracked once again. I then stood up in my first-period English class and yelled, ” Actually, I’m in love with the guy I’m with. I’m proud to be a future mother. I AM a beautiful person and I WILL stand up for all the teen moms who each and every one of you scare and frighten. I HAVE my sister support, and I WIILL NOT take this from my own peers.” And then, I broke down.
It’s hard when we struggled to have friends as it is, when you were the ugly one, the loser and then now in an even harder part, you find yourself struck with more from their ends.
I’m ready to take this one, but I’m emotionally breaking down, I’m alone..
When I first found out I was pregnant, I thought the world was ending and decided straight away to have an abortion.
It was in January this year and I was 16 at the time and had been with my boyfriend for a year. Trouble was, I didn’t love him like I used to as he had been violent for about 6 months by then. The first time he laid his hands on me was at his mam’s bonfire night party. Everyone had just left and we were arguing because a girl had told me she had also been seeing him for the first three months of my relationship with him, I didn’t know what to believe so I spoke to him about it and told him I didn’t know what to think. He just lost his temper and we argued. He punched the wall first then he put his hands round my neck and strangled me. I was in shock. Anyway, the violence carried on and got worse and worse, but we stayed together.
One weekend, I was just at home as normal and my mam asked me if I was pregnant. I said no, I couldn’t be. But it took me by surprise and made me think. The following Monday, my boyfriend picked me up from work on the morning it was about half past 9. He spoke to me and he also said he thought I was pregnant and should do a test. So we went to get one. I did the test in the toilet at Tesco but didn’t look at the result till I got back to the car. When I saw those two lines, I burst into tears and couldn’t stop, but my boyfriend smiled. I didn’t understand how he could be happy about it. When I asked him how he felt, he said he didn’t know. I told him I needed to go to my mam so he took me to see her and I couldn’t tell her. I just kept crying but she somehow knew and just said to me you’re pregnant, aren’t you? I just nodded and she started to cry as well. The first thing I said to her when I could manage was I know what i want to do. I want an abortion. We didn’t really get too speak much as she was at work so she told me to just go home. So I did and to be honest, I can’t remember the next two months or so. I just went through life in a depressed haze.
When I eventually went to the doctor’s, I kept changing my mind about if I wanted an abortion or not. Eventually, I agreed to go and see a counsellor and when I did, she told me in detail what a abortion would entail. I made up my mind for good then that I couldn’t do it, especially not at this stage in the pregnancy as now this was a baby, not just an embryo.
It was hard to accept everything going on. My boyfriend was still violent towards me even though he knew I was pregnant. Once, he was grabbing at my stomach saying that thing in there, I don’t want it. He left my stomach bruised and I worried for days if the baby would be OK. I went through a terrible time. I had extremely bad sickness all day and night and was in bed most of the time. It lasted four months. The day came when I had to tell my dad I was pregnant. I couldn’t do it though so my mam did instead and he completely lost it with me. He called me a lot of names and told me I had to move out, which made him and my mam argue because she said that wasn’t going to happen. I had an amazing amount of support from my mam, I was very lucky. I know she was disappointed that it had happened but she supported me and helped me more than I could ever thank her for.
She still is my rock now and has been supportive all the way through even though I know I have been hard to deal with at times. My family is amazing. I have support from everyone except my dad. He still hasn’t come round although he is starting to be a little bit more accepting of the whole thing. Everyone believes that it was meant to be as we had lost 3 close family members in a short space of time: my Grandad (Mam’s dad) died in October 3 years ago, and then 18 months later, my nana (mam’s mam) died in May, then later that year again, in October, my uncle (dad’s brother) died at the age of 34. All of it was sudden. Then I got pregnant and my mam believes that it’s meant to be especially as the baby is due on the 22nd of October, my grandad’s birthday. I think so too and I know that my gorgeous little girl will bring a light into all my family’s lives, not just mine. I hope my dad will start to see it in a different light when the baby does come along (I’m due in two day’s!!) because everyone else is supportive and can’t wait.
My story isn’t tragic or awful but the feelings I felt and sometimes still do, even with all the support, are hard to deal with. The depression is a crushing weight that is really hard to lift off your shoulders and sometimes, I feel like it will smother me altogether. I don’t know why I still get depressed although I believe it may be because of hormones. All in all, teenage pregnancy is something I used to look at in disgust myself but now I’m truly ashamed of the way I judged other girls.
Everyone makes mistakes and we all have to deal with the consequences.
Well, tonight was a VERY emotional night.
I honestly can’t stop crying and it’s killing me that my family refusing to talk to me. I’m keeping this baby, because the breath of a baby, is like the sun that kisses a bloom, it’s essential, it’s beautiful, it’s AMAZING. I’m just scared. I’m fifteen and by myself. My boyfriend is back in Berlin for a few weeks and I’m struggling without him. Today was my sister’s birthday ( she was shot and killed in a hit & run last summer) and she would be the only one right now to grasp my clammy nervous hands through this all. I’m a strong girl, and I will do this, I AM BRAVE,
I love you sisters, and NEVER EVER, you forget that.
Take my grasp, and we won’t ever be alone<3
So yesterday was the worst day of my life!
My “best friend”(not speaking to any of these people anymore) my cousin, my sister, and my baby’s dad all betrayed me. My baby’s dad was flirting with my cousin and my “best friend” before I found out I was pregnant. I am now 5 months along and I am just finding out about this. It feels like everyone is in on everything and I have no information on my own life. My sister of all people should’ve told me something but she didn’t wanna ruin any of my happiness but it is my right to know my own business. I mean, everyone knew about this but me. I swear as I get bigger, the more people I’m losing. I never thought I would be pregnant, let alone doing it on my own. It sucks going to doctor’s appointments alone and having no one to share this happiness with. The only good thing about my life right now is the fact that I’m going to have a child to call my own to love and to cherish.
Just wish I didn’t feel so lonely all the time.
Today, my thoughts are in high gear about kids, kids with babies. The United States has the highest rates of teen pregnancy and births in the Western industrialized world. Teen pregnancy costs the United States at least $7 billion annually. I never considered educating myself on these statistics or any of the other information and articles that can be found on the 24,500,000, hits on the web. It just didn’t seem to be a necessity, until the epidemic came to the small town of Parrsboro, population approximately 1600. Last year, five young girls gave birth under the age of 17 years, my own fifteen-year-old being the youngest of these.
I would never have thought my little girl would be a victim of teenage sex. Only months before her secrets were revealed, we were discussing intercourse. “I don’t think I’ll like sex.” She told me. “I’m just going to do the deed to have kids and be done.” I laughed at that time and told her sex, when you’re older and married, is one of the most beautiful intimate experiences one can have. I never considered the choices that were beginning to unravel for her that day. My baby, the lover, in our family, wanting steps and ex’s to be her aunts and uncles. This is a girl who passionately loves her brother and sister. Yet one day, almost a year and six months ago, I’m looking at her prom pictures and something strikes me odd. She’s holding onto her boyfriend with the strangest grasp. I try to convince myself that I’m exaggerating, yet the picture provokes feelings of dread. The look I see on my little girl is not one of innocent abandon, excited about prom. No. She seems weirdly attached, panicked… holding tight for…? I file my thoughts away and make a mental note to talk with her later….
Later, we’re driving to Amherst, the closest town that has a Wal-Mart and a Dollar store. It’s her brother’s graduation and we are getting supplies for his party. I love the chance to travel with my kids. They’re enjoyable, funny, and nice. They’re not perfect. They’ve had their share of poor marks, nights out too late, answering back, but as my mother always shares with me, “They’re good kids, they’re not into drugs, and they haven’t been arrested.” I nod my head and acknowledge this to be true. In today’s world, raising kids is like navigating through a strong current of shark invested waters, every kind of temptation and vice, circling around waiting to take its bite. The pressures for kids are overwhelming. I breathe a sigh of relief, mom is right. My kids are for the most part doing OK. There is so much to feel blessed about.
I like listening to my kids share about their lives and the engaging way they share with me and one another. Today is no different. We’re sharing about everything. She has always been blunt. We talk about her sister in Hawaii and how well she’s doing, her brother graduating, and other small talk. Finally, she gets to a point, looking out the window, she says, “I don’t know if I’m going to do well this year in school, but next year for sure, I’m going to try my best. ”
All at once, I see an open door. I take this opportunity to bring up every reason why, in the past she has not done well. She was so obsessed with a boyfriend she should not even have, too much time playing WOW, more fixated on things she thinks she needs, but does not. And finally, I threw in, “… and you can’t fool me, I know you’re having sex.” Why I said that? I don’t even know why. Maybe it’s just the compulsive intuition of a mother, or the signs that were never acknowledged, but felt. I would like to think it’s the hopeful naiveté of thinking, “my child would never do that” and the confirmation of that making it reality. This was not the case.
“OK, mom, you want to know the truth?” “I’m pregnant, and I can’t live with you anymore.”
It’s out now, as simple as that. No apologies, no remorse, stoic. I can’t read anything in that sweet little face that looks rather bland at the moment. I don’t think I could’ve at that moment anyway. A flood of emotions emanates from every human part of me. My head is throbbing, my heart is beating rapidly, every emotion my little girl should be feeling is transferred to me with that blank look. I pull over. It’s times like these when one needs a better perspective on life. I’m a Christian, for goodness sake. Perhaps, something more productive would have been to pray at that moment. I should have asked a mighty God for direction, something; anything but at this moment, only humanness prevails. I grab her head by her hair and start pulling it and screaming, what have you done?!
I’m going through the toughest time right now.
It seems like I’ve FINALLY gotten over the morning sickness phase, but life isn’t any easier. My boyfriend (& father of the baby) has been bugging me non-stop about making love. He doesn’t seem to understand that I just don’t want to, not to mention almost every time I do, I get UTI. Where’s the fun in that? So now, he’s never satisfied. I feel bad but at the same time, I have to do what’s right for me.
Pff, if only HE was the pregnant one.
