…and NOT believing

So, now that I am finally believing in myself again, maybe we should spend some time talking about why I stopped believing in myself.  One might think that it was before I became pregnant with my oldest at 16. But that’s not the case. Strangely enough, it was a while after her birth. But finding out I was pregnant was what actually inspired me to be a better person. Not that I wasn’t a good person before that, but I just wanted to be the best I could be for my child. I was only a sophomore in high school the night I took the home test. It was prom night. On the way home we stopped at a park so I could take the test, and waited in silence and darkness for an agonizing 3 minutes. When we flipped the light on to check the test, I think I stopped breathing for a minute. I couldn’t be pregnant. My parents would be so disappointed. And I was only 16. Barely 16. And I had a life planned for myself. But deep down I already loved that little baby growing inside of me. And I already knew that it had changed my life forever. But not for one second did I think that my life was screwed up, or that I would never amount to anything because of this bump in the road I had created. No, I just knew I would have to work harder than I was. Finishing school was a no-brainer. I had  a baby to provide for now and I needed to give that child the best I could. I could’ve gone to the special classes for pregnant teens and teen moms, but when I went to look into that, I was surprised to see that curriculum would’ve been nearly the equivalent of what I had taken in 7th and 8th grade. Not really what a girl in Advanced Placement and Honors classes wants to go back to. So I opted to stay in my high school, and deal with the looks, comments and judgements of others. I believed I could finish high school with a respectable GPA regardless of my situation. My parents and I met with my guidance counselor and my teachers for my junior year and discussed that I would be missing some classes but that I didn’t want any special treatment or sympathy. I wanted my grades to reflect my work, not my “situation.”  I had my daughter in December and missed 4 weeks of school surrounding her birth. But I picked work up from my teachers and stayed as caught up as I could, still believing in myself. Even when my daughter was born with a birth defect, and the doctors swooped her away immediately after she was born without telling me what was happening, I knew I could handle whatever it was. When the nurse finally explained the situation to me, my only question was “Is it correctable?’ When she said yes,I knew it would all be ok. When her father and I parted ways when she was 3 months old, I believed I was making the best choice. It was. I graduated high school in the top 10% of my class of nearly 900, all while raising a baby who was now 18 months old. All because I believed in myself. But that was all about to change. I got caught up with the wrong guy and found myself in a very bad predicament. Details of that aren’t necessary, but as a result of my poor choices, I found myself pregnant again, single again, and raising a toddler at 18. Now here is where I really started to question what I was doing with my life. Who had I become? When did I stop loving myself? And what kind of a role model was I to my daughter and the little one on the way? It was hard enough with one baby, how could I handle two and still go to college and make a life for myself and my babies?  Should I keep this second baby? And then the hardest of all….should I even have this baby? Of course I should! I don’t believe in abortion. But no matter what I tried to tell myself, I didn’t believe that I could tell my parents and the rest of my family. I didn’t believe I could raise two babies. I didn’t believe that my family would support me again like they had when I had my daughter. I felt so lost and confused and detached from everything. I was dying inside because of my own stupid, selfish choices, and now I was faced with one of the biggest decisions in my life. Although I didn’t want to do it, I felt there was no other option at that time. I told my parents, and got completely different reactions for both of them. Regardless, an appointment was made at a clinic to terminate my pregnancy. I felt empty. I couldn’t believe that I was actually going through with it. But I went to my appointment. Sat in the dingy, musty waiting area for what seemed like an eternity. I debated leaving, as I sat there silently crying, in complete denial. I kept asking myself, “What are you doing? You don’t even believe in this?!” But I would tell myself over and over, “This is the best thing for this baby. I can’t give it what it needs. I can’t give my daughter what she needs and deserves if I have this baby. No matter how much I love this baby, this is the right thing to do. ” But I didn’t believe that. It was a cop-out. And I knew it. My baby deserved better than what I was about to do to it. And I just sat there crying. Finally, my name was called and they took me to an exam room where they would do an ultrasound to check how far along I was. I turned my head so I wouldn’t be able to see the screen, knowing that I would lose it emotionally if I saw the baby inside of me. But when the tech and the nurse started talking about it, I couldn’t help myself and I peeked at the screen. I saw my baby, kicking it’s little legs , but what got me was seeing it’s tiny heart beating. I took that emotional punch right in the gut. I shed a few silent tears barely managing to keep the wails of emotion inside. The nurse then took me to speak to the psychologist, which was required to have an abortion. Her first question to me was, “Why are you here?” and all I could manage was ” I don’t know!” through an awful lot of sobbing. When I managed to pull myself together, I explained to her about my faith and that I feel abortion is wrong. So I wasn’t quite sure why I was there other than that I felt like I had so massively screwed up that I had no other option. And the words I had been holding inside so I wouldn’t have to deal with them came spilling out and I told her how much I loved my baby already and that I wanted to keep it. I was just so scared and lost. And then I went home, with my baby still growing inside and completely unaware of what had almost happened that day. I went home knowing that I had made the right decision, knowing my baby would have a good life with its mommy, who was already completely in love with it. Home, where I was safe, where my daughter was safe, where my baby was safe.

February 1998