February 20, 2008 is a day I will never forget. I was woken up by the sound of the door of the hospital room being knocked on and opened without our answer, and wheels squeeking arcross the floor as a cart with a clear plastic tub containing a bundled up infant glided our way, nurse propelled. “He’s hungry,” She said as my labor tested then fiance stirred next to me.Soon he was in our arms, a strangely colored little monkey getting his breakfast from Mariah. We signed the birth certificate not long after that. Mother’s name/ age- Mariah Saul Powell- 16, and Father- David Alex Powell-18. Welcome to parenthood, kids!
Since then we’ve become a family, but it was a long and difficult process. It has taken all my attention until now to balance providing for my family and taking care of them. I never stopped to wonder how the time between getting a positive pregnancy test and having Alex affected my wife because she has recovered gracefully and she’s functioning fine. Now, with this project I have finally gotten the opportunity to dig deep into her experience as a pregnant teenage girl.
Mariah was a very bouncy girl in high school, that is, she was always energetic and skipping around, very bubbly. She was always smiling and enjoyed my stupid jokes. We only lived a few miles from each other out in the country and she would pretend to miss the bus so that I would have to drive her home. We spent so much time together, and we were teenagers. It was romance. Then in June of 2008 she found out she was pregnant and we were going to have a baby together. We were pushed into an engagement and my parents pressured me harder to do better and school and work harder to take over their business, so I didn’t get to be around Mariah except for once or twice a week after she dropped out of high school to go to community college. Finally now I got to ask her some very meaningful questions about that life changing period of her life and I want to share it with you because teen pregnancy is tough and from my Wife you can understand how important it is to make the right decisions when you’re young. Here are some things that expecting teenagers have to deal with:
THE REVEAL
Mariah shared with me how she felt the first moment she knew we were expecting:
“At first, I didn’t believe it. When I went to the preganancy clinic, the young lady there was very vague about how to use the preganancy test…” She describes how the volunteer brought her to a room in the back and started talking to her. “I really don’t remember much because I was so nervous, I just wanted to know what the results were first before anything else. She finally looked down at the test and said, “Ok so this looks positive, so…” and she kept rambling on, just like that! She spoke so quickly but I was still trying to remember what she said. Positive? Wait, I’m pregnant? Whoa, back up! Are you sure? So the first moment I definitely felt disbelief, bewilderment, I really felt like I had been placed in an alternate dimension because my reality was effectively reconfigured.”
She says how her world changed. Think of it this way- right now your biggest concerns are how to dress to impress your friends and boys at school, homework, whatever team you’re involved in, and who’s asking you to prom. Forget all that, now. You’re not going to fit into your prom dress with that baby bump, anyway. But what do you do when you’re young and just trying to have a good teenage girl life and all the sudden you have to make a life altering decision?
CONFUSION
Being told you’re pregnant isn’t easy. Mariah felt like her world was turned upside down. She had some serious things to think about when faced with pregnancy. What do you do?
“I knew I had to tell you because as the father I felt like you should have some input and maybe have an idea about what to do. I had no idea how I was going to tell my parents, though. I never like the idea of abortion, so it didn’t cross my mind to terminate the pregnancy but I was still grappling with reality. I wasn’t convinced that I was pregnant. I mean, all the rational proof was there, it just wasn’t registering and I couldn’t see myself as a mother or as a person entirely responsible for the life of a vulnerable little person.”
Preganancy is hard to grasp mentally. Coming to grips with the condition is one thing, but it will not wait for your permission go on ahead. There are generally three options a young pregnant girl can make: becoming a mom, getting an abortion,and giving up the child for adoption. According to the womens issues section of about.com, %57 of teen pregnancies end in live birth, and another 14% end in miscarriage. Granted that you don’t miscarry, you need to calmly figure out what is the best decision for yourself and the child. “I think abortion has its place in the most unfortunate and dire situations, but that it shouldn’t be so lax. That being said, I’ve always respected life. It’s such a miracle to me[….]So abortion was never considered. Adoption, I maybe should have thought about more,” she goes on to say that adoption should have been considered just as muc as abstinence for the best, and “These may have been smarter decisions. But I was in love, and I felt like I could handle becoming a Mommy with grace. Apply thoughts on destiny and fate here, I can’t imagine life any other way now that I’m Alex’s Mom and we’re a family. I’m very proud of all of us. It was indescribably hard, though”
dapowel3 