“You’re Pregnant. It’s a boy, congratulations!”
When those words were announced my mind exploded. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I questioned myself calmly at the corner chair in the doctor’s office, “Is this real, or am I still sleeping?” Then I realized that the result had proved, I was really now a father. I remember sitting in that silent corner thinking nervously about what I was going to have within a couple months. My conscience thought right away this event was going to draw me back from my goals in life. I had everything going good. I was currently holding down a decent job, attending college, and even life was heading in the right direction. I wasn’t angry or disappointed at what I had heard in the doctor’s office, but more scared and nervous then ever of what to do from here on.
Within a month, my family found out the skeleton that I had been hiding in my closet. At first I was afraid that they wouldn’t accept what I’ve done, because I knew I was just a teenager and already trying to bear a child of my own.
But instead, one day my mom confronted me and said “Son everything is going to be alright.”
I replied, “Yeah right”
Then my brothers and sisters told me, “We’re here for ya.”
I answered in return, “Yea I know.”
That was when I thought to myself that it was easy for everybody to say, everything was going to be alright, but in the back of my mind, it wasn’t true.
I just kept thinking, “Let me see you guys have a child as a teenager.”
For months I was terrified. My lady and I went through the whole pregnancy by faith. We didn’t have any experience of taking care of a child and worse of all we didn’t know how to be parents. Abortion came to mind, but my heart wouldn’t let me go through with it because I couldn’t kill what I’ve created; that would have been murder in my eyes.
Then my son, Jaden was born. We were struggling on getting things together, such as buying baby needs: diapers, wipes and formula. But we made it through. It was then when it finally hit me that having a child wasn’t as bad as I had imagined. Jaden had changed my opinion on the perspective of being a teenage parent. I now know that teenagers could be as good of parents as mature adults; it just takes time, patience and sacrifices. Jaden is now two months old. He is active and healthy just like as if he was born into the hands of mature parents who knew exactly what they were going to expect.
People often criticize, “It’s impossible to be successful and bear a child at the same time.” I now know that it isn’t impossible. I believe that being a teenage parent doesn’t mean you can’t be successful.