My Journey into Motherhood

About ten years ago, I was two weeks shy of turning sixteen when I found out the news. I was pregnant. And not just only that I was living with my Aunt and Uncle, going to high school, and now I was going to be a teenage mother. Becoming a mother at such a young age has been an unforgettable experience in my life and I will never forget how much of an impact it has made on me. Through my journey I realized I needed to appreciate life, be responsible, and get a higher education.

My journey into motherhood was very hard and frightful and to make matters worse I had complications during labor which lead the abilicord to slightly detach from the baby leaving him with less oxygen. When I thought everything was going better, it became quite in the room. I then realized that his heart beat stopped beating and without any questions the Doctor ran in the room in his white scrubs explaining, that they were taking me right then and there to the surgery room so they could do an emergency c-section to get the baby out and breathing. I became scared and worried, so many thoughts came to my head then the Doctor put something over my face and told me to count to fifty, if I recall right I made it to eight. When I woke up I was told that the baby was blue and not breathing at the time they got him out, but with all the help from the Doctors and staff they were able to revive the baby twice and get him breathing. After what seemed to feel like a life time, January 29, 2003 at 2:19 a.m I got to hold my blue eye, blonde hair, bundle of joy, baby boy that I named Jaiden Lee, he was eight pounds and twenty one inches long. Knowing he was healthy and that I did not have to worry anymore, made me appreciate life itself more than I ever had before.

Becoming a mother to a little boy scared me. I was only sixteen years old and now I had to become a responsible adult. So I spent all the time I could with my baby boy until his six week check up and I had to head back to the real world and go to work. It was hard for me to get a job at sixteen with no work experience, I had to go to the high school and get working papers to say I was legally emancipated and I could work forty hours a week and I had to, to support my son and me. It was very hard due to my relationship with my son's father which he is three and a half years older than me because I was the only one supporting and taking care of Jaiden. So I had to make a reasonable decision, I saved up all the money I could from working and decided to get my own place. Soon after moving in I saved up more money so I could get a car to get me back and forth to work and where ever I needed to bring Jaiden. I had to grow up fast and all I wanted in life is to make sure I gave Jaiden everything he needed. And I learned that I needed to be responsible for me to be able to provide and care for my son.

When I was pregnant I dropped out of High School because I was young and