Real Patients:

The challengers I faced as a pregnant teen, his father wasn't there, didn't help me. That was the hardest one. One of the bigger concerns that I had was whether or not I could keep control of myself and handle the situation. I was scared about the future of my baby, and I was scared his father was going to be around. I had trouble with my parents, but I knew they would still be there for me. I knew they still loved me and they would still be around. When I found out I was pregnant I didn't really take good care of myself. And even when I first found out I was pregnant I didn't take the best care of myself, so i was concerned that: is he going to be underweight, or you know, he'll be missing fingers or toes and just natural fears. I always thought I’m never going to be a little kid again. I can't be a teenager. I'm missing the whole, high school, college, you know, transition here into being an adult. I kind of jumped right into it. I had the challenge of being alone and, you know, having to figure out, how am i going to do this by myself? And working, that was, that was a tough thing, you know, being big and pregnant and trying to work and hold down a job so you can save money. Reaction from my family was shock. This is our little girl. How could she do this to us? My little brother was, he idolizes me I guess, and was really upset with me. When I told my mom, she was more disappointed than upset or anything else, but the first thing she told me was we'll get through it. My parents didn't talk to me for the first couple of months or so, but after that they kind of accepted the idea. We worked through it, and now they're great. They were wonderful through the whole last part of it, and then they're great with him now. The most difficult thing for me through this pregnancy has been support from friends. I mean, that's just, I mean, losing all my friends and everything, it's been hard. I went to counseling to find out what options I had available for me. I knew I could do abortion, but that wasn't what I did at all. I thought about the options, and the only option that I wanted was to keep my baby. I knew I could do adoption, and or I could keep him and I kind of went back and forth between the two, adoption or keeping him. My OBGYN actually talked to me and said, "you know what, here's the number of a social worker. Call her. She'll hook you up with an adoption agency and they'll talk to you." my dad really showed me that this was not a good situation for my baby, and that I needed to think of the baby, rather than myself. And when I realized that I could give my child to somebody that would love him and care for him and support him and always be there for him through everything, whereas it was going to be hard for me to do that, it seemed so right and it felt so perfect. I finally decided I wanted to keep him. I had a good enough job with insurance and everything that I felt I could take care of him myself. I found the strength in my family and in god and in myself. I just knew what I had to do, and I did it.