I had a child in high school. Here's how it changed all my life.

My daughter is now 17, the same age I was when I had it.


When my daughter was a year and a half, she was admitted to the New Year's Eve hospital for a serious infection that needed to require surgery. And I cried. A lot. But not only because I was worried about her - because I was supposed to go to a party that night.

I do not blame you again at the moment, "it's terrible.What kind of parent Would worried about a party in these circumstances? "And you're right. It was selfish, manifest and something that aanguish teenager Short, because that's exactly what I was.

Just before you have 17 years, I missed a bus and it changed my life forever. This bus trip has led me to plan parenting for abortion. But the clock was holding ticking and past minutes and the next thing I knew, I wasstill pregnant.

It was not a great moment of revelation that led me to become ateen mom. It was a series of small decisions - without using condoms; Do not ask someone, anyone, on birth control pills; Do not catch this bus.

From the moment I missed my rules, I threw myself in the first step of the sorrow. Because that's exactly what I did. I mourn the loss of the person I thought I was all my life until this point. I was the smart girl who has good grades and a perfect partition on the normalized Florida test in 10th year and who did not really cause problems.

I was not the "pregnant teenage woman" ... until I'm.

Woman holds pregnancy test in hands, what it's like being a teen mom
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But in the decline, this identity slid me for a while. I had moved from a small town to Vermont in a city of Florida University when I was 12 years old. My father died a year later and my relationship with my mother went hardly existing for relatively toxic enough quickly. I discovered older boys with bad reputations and started skipping with them. Soon, I completely stopped going to school completely.

Through all these changes, one thing remained: this sadness of teenage invincibility. I could leave my mother's house at 16 and that Count-Hopport of the city with my older boyfriend and my lucky my year's high school and always be "the smart girl", is not it ?

But then it was five weeks without period, then six, then seven.

At one point, I told the above-mentioned older friend that I thought I was pregnant, but I cut the short conversation by jumping to abortion like the next logical step. He did not discuss. I have never even taken a pregnancy test before calling for planning the appointment I had never shown. I must tell him that I was not gone, but I do not remember a big discussion on what it really meant.

So I passed my 17th birthday that vomited bile without stopping, who is when I discovered the first lie on pregnancy and maternity that society bore the company: "Morning disease" looks more like "an open disease 24/7.

For six months, I told anyone else to pregnancy and, instead, is getting better I is getting better than I could. The boyfriend and I were homeless for a lot of this time, jumping from home at home on the basis of whom we let stay a few days. I worked hard so I lost weight. Soon, the lack of self-care has landed me arenal infection, a trip to the emergency room and a long conversation suffering with my mother who did something like that:

"I need to know if I have health insurance. I'm in the hospital and they ask for my information."

"What? Why are you in the hospital?"

"I have a renal infection."

"A renal infection? But ..."

"Well, too, I'm pregnant six months."

Obviously, the tact was not yet a skill that I developed. My mother - a real New-Yorker who is the definition of direct line -Jumped directly into planning mode. As children adopted, adoption was his obvious recommendation.

"No," I told him. "I amBaby. "

I do not think I said it's hard to someone until it can say. For me, this statement was the first of many steps towardsmaternity to come.

Pregnant teen stands on beach with sunset behind her, what it's like being a teen mom
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At this point, the boyfriend had a quick restoration work and I had managed to convince the Office of Social Security that I lived independently and was entitled to the monthly payment of my father's death. My mother had already received for me.

We could use this money to rent a town house. So when I left the hospital - after a series of exciting new experiences, including visits to a nutritionist, women, infants and children (WIC) and the Ministry of Health. and human services - I started cooking meals for myself. To be honest, it was a lot of oven potatoes and steamed broccoli. But it was more meals than the occasional fast food burger that I ate.

I finally reached by my friends and told them that I was pregnant, which led to what I am convinced was one of the most clumpy baby showers in history. Everyone has tried to balance the traditional excitement of the new arrival with the whole of the whole new thing to life to life to life. A friend offered me a winter coat in a 2T size for the baby, which was due in June in Hot Humid Florida because teenagers do not even know what to buy for babies, not to talk to them.

As my approached due date, I balanced loyallyAmerican idol (The show had made its debut this year and I had been relegated to rest to bed) with an attempt at certain national activities. I cleaned. I organised. I had my hands on a sewing machine and I made several horribly proportioned baby dresses and a pretty baby blanket - okay (that my daughter still has today).

But apart from this blanket, basically, everything has changed since then.

Shortly after my daughter be born, his biological father (a.k.., the ex-boyfriend) and I are separated, and I found myself in my own daughter with my daughter.

I ended up at school through a dual-registration program where I was able to earn secondary and collegiate credits. So, although I did not get my degree of origin, the following year, I had both a high school diploma and an artistic associate degree.

Woman holds newborn in lap, teen pregnancy
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Then a chance to leave Florida (a place I never really liked to live) came one day while I was working as a hostess in a tgifridids. One of the managers headed for Colorado (a place I had always wanted to live) with his wife and two children. They had a person ready to move with them like a nanny, but the person retreated at the last minute. I was happy to enter, I told him, as long as my daughter two and a half could come too.

It was a gesture that probably would not have had ever happened without my daughter out there as a factor of motivation to take a risk on a better life and a pure chance that I was in this dining room Kitschy at the good moment.

Before long, I brought a full business car and a toddler and drive to the rocky mountains. I'm pretty sure everyone I knew in Florida took bets how long it would be before coming back. But that's just hitting my motivation to prove that people do not go high gear. And that's exactly what I did.

I finished my bachelor's degree by working part time as a receptionist. While I was at school, a classmate that had noticed my tendency to write about food (I stayed stuck with the kitchen and had moved the way beyond the cooked potatoes beyond ) encouraged me to apply for a job covering the local restoration scene and I got the Gig.

Parallel to a full-time career in marketing, I always write food on the side, which also means that I also had to share meals with incredibly intelligent writers who often let me ask me how I arrived here after having been a shelter pregnant teenager. But then I remember it was a lot of hard work that I could attack me because I had already taken the most difficult work in life:parenthood.

Mom and daughter sit on park bench looking at sunset, pregnant teen
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When you become a mother at a young age, you hear "you look too young to have a child as old," Are you his sister? "And" So how old were you when you had it? "Pronounced on everyone from the clerk at the grocery crate for guys, you are on dates. At first, these questions were accompanied by Feelings of shame. But finally, I learned to answer with confidence, to embrace my new identity with confidence and approach life with confidence.

It was not all accomplishments and happy moments along the way. I slept in the living room of a small apartment that I could barely afford for my daughter to have the bedroom to herself. I looked at my traveled friends abroad and I wondered if I would never be able to take a vacation. I spent a lot of time saying: "No, I can not, I do not have anyBaby sitter"And" No, I can not, I do not have the money. "And later, I saw my peers have babies and openly celebrate this new life in a way I'm not left me there for almost two decades.

My baby played Jouchby is now 17 years old, the same age I was when I had it. She plays a trombone and throws up killing and saidGreat jokesAnd look at colleges. We spent his birthdayclip And eating frozen yogurt and making facial masks - a distant cry of my 17th anniversary filled with pregnancy induced vomiting.

At one point, my daughter thanked me to spend the day with her and to make it fun and be a "great mom." Yes, I left the New Year's night hospital all these years to go to a party (it was not even so great). But it seems that she forgives me. And I forgave too.

And for more ways to have good relationships with your teens, here's 40 fun ways to link with your teenage kids .

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Categories: Relationships
Tags: kids / Parenthood
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