A Younger Mother's Experience

Pregnancy is made out to be that time of life when a woman shows her virtue by hosting a child inside of her body for 9 months.  Those around her are to congratulate her and make her feel welcome and positive in a life of new challenges as well as heartbreaks.  

Despite all the anticipation and the stereotypes that are brought forth on channels such as TLC, I was fundementally heartbroken at the struggles I faced when I decided to carry my child through my senior year of high school. 

It wasn't as if I made a mistake (per se), but I made a choice to carry this child no matter how much those around me put me down for my decision.  I loved my boyfriend, but I never thought I could love another so much.  It was the moment I saw that little movement on the ultrasound machine at 7 weeks that did it.  I feared abortion, but when reality hits and one realizes the burdens they are about to carry, it seems sometimes the only option. 

 After I experienced that first moment, that first glimpse into the future, that first reality that made me understand what I was carrying, I was determined to give this child life.

I walked through hallways of passing strangers, their eyes and their disgusts.  I was given lecture upon lecture on how I was too young, too immature to really make the right decisions for myself as well as my child.  I understood now how much foolish pride was offered to those who "did the right thing" to those who took the conventional path - the path that pushed them into an order that was created by society itself - high school, college, career, marriage, and child. 

Despite their looks, I knew from the moment I made my choice that my path would be different and that I would face indifference - high school, child, college, marriage, career.  I knew my choices were out of order, but I also knew this - I would be strong and I will strive to do the best thing for myself and for my child - maybe no one else believed in me, but I believed in God.  He leads me in paths of righteousness - and although my actions are sometimes deemed as mistakes, I believe that God can always take any situation and create good out of it. 

I made a choice to believe in God just as I made a choice to carry that child.

When it was all said and done and the child in my arms, I was shown respect and dignity for not giving up.  I was given credit for my work in college as well as high school - graduating with my class of 2002 and those who graduated from a local community college as well.  I received my AA degree and my high school diploma all in one weekend - all because I was determined not to give up, not to abort, not to ever allow myself a reality that sometimes seems set in stone to the rest of the world - that the pregnant teenager is incapable of making it out alive.  I know that I will never give up in any situation and I know I will believe in myself as well as He that has created me - my love, my partner and my friend through all things. 

I remember distinctly sitting in class once and listening to my peers talking - the class president, the popular crew, the respected above all other cliques, the envied.  They spoke of the guys they'd been with and the abortions they'd had already.  I had only been with one person my whole life - the one I am with even now and have been married to for over five years now.  My ears burned at hearing the way they viewed their relationships, sex and the men in their lives.  And I learned a reality that shook my very being - people are never who they seem. 

I was never given credit to do anything better in my life than screw up - so says my family.  And I now I realized that I have never been more happy in all my life that making the choices I made in the past (that many believed I would regret).  I do not condone my behavior as being best, but I do believe that if I put down all that I've become up to this point, I will fall - I am strong - I love my children and my husband and my new found friends.  I reside nearly 2500 miles away from a place I used to call home.  I know now that whatever anyone says or any look I could possibly receive, that above all else, I am a mother and a damned good one!  Here I am now finally living a dream, my reality, with my husband and my three children, and this new found love for my Maker and friend.  Amen.