Becoming a Teenage Mother

Posted By:
Anon, USA, Becoming a Teenage Mother

As I sat in the doctors office exam room swathed in a white gown open from the front, I began to replay events from the past year in my head. Opening day at orientation at college, my first experiences with racial tension in the cafeteria on campus later that semester, all the way through to my days of saying goodbye at terms end that previous spring. The doctor ran the wand over my belly, confirming those fears of yes, I was pregnant. However, I was not pregnant by normal standards. I was six months pregnant, not six weeks pregnant. I had gone from simple irrationality to a state of unbridled fear and confusion. How could I have not known? How could a doctor not have known? Am I some mutant that I have not foreseen this? It is then you realize that at this young age of 19, we are so unprepared for our own lives that we are unilaterally oblivious to everything else. I came home in tears so afraid to face my mother, whom I have told unabashedly everything I have ever done, except what has led me to this. How was I to tell her that I have played with fire and let myself get burned? I came in the house, tearfully as it were, and proclaimed myself. I was taken by surprise when my mother did not banish me but instead hugged me. I will not say that she was not disappointed in me for that would be to tell a lie. My mother is a mother, just as I am today. She was disappointed in me, but she loved me regardless of my error in judgment. Regardless of her hug, I felt alone. It is a lonely place, being a teenage mother in this world. Not many relate to it, not many can feel the power of what it is like to make that decision. It is a difficult task to change course and I do not advise it. I chose that road because I knew deep down that I was supposed to be a mother. Apparently, it was to happen long before I was ever ready.