No. #20

"I was actually two months late. I was like, "Okay, I've had some stress. I was in a car accident a few months ago. So I'll just take the test, and it'll say 'You're not pregnant!' so then my body will reset." Then it was two pink lines."

Everybody's gonna face hardship and have negative things happen to them. Obviously with unplanned pregnancy and having a child as a single person on one income, it's one of the most difficult things you can go through. I've had to put myself through college, start a career, and raise a kid. It's really easy to focus on: "It's so difficult, it's so expensive, and it's so hard." But it should be: "Well, I can do this, I just have to find a way to make it happen. What do I give up for myself in order to make my family?"

I was 21. My family was all at least 500 miles away. I lived in a large metro area, just kinda doing my thing. Whatever happened happened. I was very careless, and very carefree. I was actually two months late. I was like, "Okay, I've had some stress. I was in a car accident a few months ago. So I'll just take the test, and it'll say 'You're not pregnant!' so then my body will reset." Then it was two pink lines. I was like, "Okay. So that's cool. I guess we're doing this." Once I told my mom, she was just very "Whatever you wanna do. You know, if that's the choice you make. You wanna have the kid, adoption, if you choose to have an abortion, it's entirely up to you."

My initial reaction was: "Oh, shit." Literally. It's like 7 o'clock in the morning. I'd just gotten off work, completely unexpected. Never in a million years thought this was gonna be me. Never thought it was gonna be my life. Very emotional probably for the first four weeks or so. I had a couple different people that were like, "You're too young. You're throwing your life away. Why would you wanna do that?" I remember crying to my mom. We were emailing a lot. I remember saying, "What if this is my only baby that I'm ever gonna have? Why would I not wanna have my baby?" So, she said, "If that's what you wanna do, we'll make it happen." I kinda knew very early on it was just gonna be the two of us. That was the decision that I'd made because of everything else going on. I knew I was gonna have to basically hit "reset." Reset job, reset life, reset friends. Now I'm gonna be a mom. So where do we start?

The least empowering thing someone said to me was, "It's okay if you have an abortion. Other people have done it." I know that the intent was to be positive and, again, encourage that support. That's great. I appreciate that other people have gone through that. I appreciate that you wanna be supportive of that. But let me start that conversation. Don't start that one for me.

As she got older and we were struggling financially, there were people that told us to move closer to family. I've always lived pretty far away from them. I'm like, "But that's not that environment that I want to raise my kid in. I don't wanna live in a small town, I wanna live in a big city." Making those sacrifices: we'll give up fun stuff this month so we can pay the bills, pay daycare and have food. Those are decisions that every parent has to make. Unless you're just exorbitantly wealthy or you have two incomes and a low cost of living, that's a situation every parent's gonna face. Not just me.

I am just really glad that she's turned out to be this incredible, amazing person. She's gotten recognition through her peers, at school. she tests very well in standardized testing. She gets citizenship awards at school. She's constantly around adults so she can have conversations with adults. She does with kids too, but you can kinda tell it's not always her thing. She recognizes art and musicians. I have all kinds of fun little stories about her.

My sister was driving her one day, and she was asleep. Florence and the Machine was on the radio, and she pops up and she's like, "That's Florence!" Those little quips of personality that shine through that you wouldn't have expected from a two-year-old or now a ten-year-old. Watching her form her own personality. We've been having conversations about consent. Watching her understand what that is and be able to apply it. I was teasing her and I said, "I'm gonna buy your school clothes while you're gone for the summer," and she goes, "You don't have my consent to do that. You have to have my permission." I was like, "Okay, yes, you're correct. Technically you're correct. But that's not the kind of consent that we use."