I became a mother at a very young age. I was only sixteen and not ready to be a mom yet, but life had other plans for me. Becoming a Teen Mom made me have to grow up pretty quickly, but also left me pretty naive. I was too young to really appreciate the gift that I had been given. I took care of him, fed him, changed him, bathed him, played with him; everything a good mom should but I never really took it all in. I didn’t watch him grow from infant to toddler like I should have because I was so young.
I loved him with all my heart and thought being a mom was neat but nobody at such a young age can really appreciate the full circle of what being a mom is. I was always extremely adamant on the fact that I didn’t want any more children. One was enough for me. I didn’t see having another child as something that I wanted for my future. I myself was an only child so I figured he could be too. I was scared to go thru the whole labor process again because at sixteen I somehow found the strength to have him with just some medicine to calm me. I refused an epidural and ultimately ended up having a full episiotomy done. That’s pretty scary to go thru when you are young. I was in a steady relationship for almost 9 years and succeeded in not getting pregnant the whole time.
Then I met the love of my life. It was perfect: he already had three kids of his own and had been fixed. I told him right off the bat that I myself didn’t want any more children, and that is when he assured me he couldn’t have any.
However, much to our surprise, fate intervened and I found out I was pregnant with my second child nine years after I had given birth to my first one. Now finding out I was pregnant was an experience in itself, considering the father had been fixed. We had some issues over it but ultimately he ended up at the hospital one night over severe testicular pain and after a little investigating by the doctor and an ultrasound later, he found out that one side had come undone thus giving leeway for our son to be conceived. Now I was a wreck when I first found out because I was scared to death to go thru labor again. My first pregnancy had been a breeze, no sickness, swelling, nothing. I was high risk with my first one, but that was standard because of my age. My second pregnancy seemed like it too was going to be a breeze, but I was wrong. In my second trimester I ended up at the hospital only to find out that what I thought was the baby balling himself up inside me was actually contractions, and they had been going on for quite sometime unbeknownst to me. So I was put on medication and told to take it easy for the duration of my pregnancy. The medication didn’t help much my contractions were still fairly frequent, not painful, but extremely annoying. I ended up having high blood pressure and showing signs of preclampsyia which scared me because I knew he was gonna be a little baby anyways because the Doctor had already informed me that he was measuring three weeks behind his gestational age but that it was because I just have small babies.
Three weeks before he was due the Doctor argued with me over being induced. I refused for a week until the Doctor gave me an ultimatum and told me on a Monday I had to pick my day to be induced and it had to be by that Thursday. So I agreed and told him I had to speak with the baby’s father and see what day he wanted to do it on. I left the hospital dreading the fact that I was going to end up in labor for hours because it was going to be a drug-induced labor instead of natural. What I didn’t know was when the Doctor had checked me in, he had ruptured the membranes in my cervix to throw me into labor that day. So I drove unknowingly and hour back home just feeling horrible and crampy from what I assumed was just being checked. So a short time later when I started questioning whether I was just crampy or in labor, I decided I should go back to the hospital and just make sure. My water hadn’t broke but better safe than sorry. I knew something was going on but the contractions weren’t what I remembered or expected. Once at the hospital after being checked I was told I was in fact in labor and was taken directly into the delivery room where they were prepping the room to deliver me, registering me, and trying to get my IV in as quick as possible because time was an issue.
