Chapter 1
At 14 I fell in love with a boy I thought was going to be my everything, Little did I know he was going to ruin my life. He was a senior I was a freshman, we were in the high school band together. I played the trumpet and he played the drums. I loved this boy the minute I laid eyes on him. When we got together he had me thinking he loved me when really he was controlling . He got me in to smoking weed and cigarettes, drinking, and stealing. I thought it was cool. We smoked at school and I got to where I was drinking at band practice in the back room, I was even sneaking off to the lake to drink as well. This was not me I was such a good kid. I grow up in church, Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday. My step - dad drove the church bus and I had many friends, life I knew was wonderful, until I got with Dustin. When me and Dustin got together he come off as this sweet loving boy everyone loved. We would go out and I’d be home on time and do everything right, but one night I showed up at home way past time and I was just going through all the food, opening cabinets slaming them shut, digging in the refrigerator, I was starving. My mom cought me asked me if I was ok, I pulled it off as if I was just hungry looking for a midnight snack. Things got deaper. I would tell my parents I was going to his house to study, When I was really going to the lake to drink and smoke, or going to friends house to get high and watch movies, maybe even going to steal something. It was never my idea to steal I felt very bad for doing it, But I was always with the people who did it. One night we got caught stealing road signs, We had three or four street signs and a few traffic cones. I thought for sure we was going to jail. That night was a little wake up call on the stealing. The officer told us if we put them just as we found them where we found them he would let us go.
Eight months go by and my parents start to see that the relationship I was in was not what it seemed. I had a crazy additude, I was not acting right, I was lieing, I didn’t want to do anything most normal 14 year olds would want to do. It came time to get my drivers permit and I didn't want it. “Why did I need one?” My boyfriend said he would drive me around. I would fail the test over and over and one day I passed the test and was mad, I didn’t want to get my permit. After a while my mom and dad would not let me see him. I would sneak out and skip school just to see him. My mom and dad made me go to this counseling place for troubled kids and their parents, It was the worst thing ever. Looking back now I know why they did what they did, but then I was not very happy about it. Me and one of the girls that went there too would sneek out back smoke a cigarette that we stole from our parents and talk about how terrible they were for making us do this. We done the classes for 6 month and they didn't work for me, I was going to do what I wanted no matter what. Me and my mom got to where we would fist fight and push each other around. It got so bad my little sister ended up moving out and moving in with her friend. Dustin comimg around me got harder and harder to make happen but we always seem to find a way. Him being graduated, My parents taking my phone, I couldn’t go out with friend, It was just so hard to find ways to see him. My dad tried everything to get that boy to go away, he threatened him, would come to the school and watch me, He would tell Dustin’s parents to keep him away from me, he even chaised him off with a baseball bat once. We thought we loved each other and we was going to fight to stay together. A few months go by and he goes to jail and I desided maybe I don't need to get in to this anymore. I stayed away from him and tried to work with my parents again.
My sophmore year was better I had made better friends, so I thought. I decided I no longer wanted to do band I wanted to try out for cheerleading. I made the team, that means im a cool kid right? Wrong. The girls on the team made fun of me the football players thought they could use me and thing got hard again. A old friend of mine (Chad) from middle school was a football player. We was no longer friends like we was but I still liked him. I would see him and his girlfriend and think that should still be me. Why is that not me? I wonder if he still remembered me or still liked me, but I would never ask him. I gave up on Chad, “For now”.
I started hanging out with the gothic kids or the " no bodies ", But they was really good friends to me. I started to hang out with the group out side of school, they played music in their basements and just chilled out, It was nice to have a few girl friends and guy friends to just chill out with. There was one boy in the group that I was really good friends with, His name was Steven. He played guitar really well and I loved to just sit there and listen to him. We got to were we was always together. We were nothing more than friends. We smoked together but that was all we did. Me him and our friends would go on long night walks just blowing smoke, laughing, and play music. We had a wonderful friendship, all of us did. As the days went on we started hanging out alone. We would study, watch tv, draw, and just make each other laugh, we was inseparable. We ended up getting so close that I got pregnant, we still was only friends though.
I had went to the healthdepartment to pick up my birthcontrol and like always they did a urin test just to make sure I wasn’t pregnant. The lady come back in the room asked me a few questions and then handed me a paper. I looked at her and said, “what is this?” She said “hunny you are going to have a baby.” I looked at the paper and I looked at the lady and said " I'm only 16 just a few weeks from 17 there is no way im having a baby this must be a mistake.” The lady looked at me and held my hand and said, “You don't have to keep the baby.” I jerked my hand out of hers and said, “I'm keeping the baby because there is only one option not two and I will figuer things out.” I left the room. Steven was in the waiting room because he took me to the appointment, when he seen me come out and head for the door he chased me asking me what seemed like 100 questions and all I could do was cry. “Everything was going to be ok,” I thought to my self. He was 17 I was 16, a few weeks away from my 17th birthday and we are about to start out junior year. I was a little panicked. Me and Steven met up with two of our good friends and told them the news, They were happy for us. We wondered how we was going to tell our parents and come up with so many ideas but was still scared.
We told our parents and they were not happy about it at all. After a little while my mother seemed to be ok with it, she was getting her first grand-baby. My mom was not doing so good at the time when I found out I was pregnant, she was going through some weight loss treatments and bipolar depression it was all making her very sick. She looked at the fact that I was having a baby as a way to help her get better and up on her feet, get out of the bed she had been laying in for months because she was so sick.
Our junior year was pretty good at the begining. My friends loved that they were going to have a baby to love and spoil, but there was also people and teachers that looked at me and talked about me like I was some horrible person. One imperticuler teacher loved to talk about me even to my face. I remember the day my sister come home crying because the teacher had told her,“ I don’t see how your sister is going to be able to take care of a real baby when she can’t even keep a pretend baby alive in parenting class.” Now the baby I had in parenting class at school was a battery baby and the batteries died because the teacher did not charge the baby before I got it. I also went in to labor while I had the pretend baby and my mom was the last one to hold it when it died. One of my friends met my mom to take the baby back to school and that’s when the teacher gave her opinion.
Kids in school would laugh at me and tell me how fat I was getting and tell me I needed bigger clothes because my ass was popping out of my pants and I looked like I was going to expload. I had my good friends that would take up for me but that didn't mean my felling wasn't already hurt. I would cry in the bathroom and scream at god asking “why me, what did I do to deserve being pregnent at 16?”
The whole time I was pregnant with my baby I craved junk, I don’t know if it was the baby or the fact I was trying to eat my feelings. Cake I cing was my favorite thing to eat, I would carry big tubs of icing in my bag at school and sneak it in to my classes and snack on it all day. One day some girl at school said something about me being pregnant, one of my friends had enough. She grabbed the tub of icing from me and slapped icing in her face. This then started a big icing war and everyone was covered in icing. After that the principle did not allow me to bring cake icing back to school. I knew this was going to be a long school year my baby wasn't due till may 6th, the end of the school year and this is just the beginning.
Our parents decided me an Steven needed to get married. Everyone at the church was talking about how it was a sin to have a baby out side of marriage. Every Sunday and Wednesday it seemed like there was always a message about sex before marriage and I felt attact. I couldn't join teen activities, I wasn't involved in church functions, I quit going to church. Still to this day I will not go. On December 31, 2009 at 11:58 AM we was the last to get married in Cullman Alabama that year. Our parents took us to the court house and signed our papers said we needed to raise this baby together. We got married and we wasn't very happy, I can still see the misery in all the pictures we was made to take when I just wanted to go hame and lay down.
We started to move in together that same day, we moved in the back room of my parents house. His parents was not very happy about it, they did not want him to move in with me and my parents, but they didn't undertand why I didn't want to move in their home. A few weeks went by and we was ok, our friends came and went and we was adjusting just fine. About a month and a half goes by and everything is going good but im not feeling very well. I have a visit to the doctor today, ( Its Febuary 15, 2010 ) I go back and I let the doctor know I'm not feeling to good and I feel like something is wrong. She looked me over then told me I was fine that I was being a baby about the pain and I needed to just go home take some Tylenol and lay down. Well, I knew something was wrong but no one would listen to me and I didn't know what to do. After the appointment I wanted to go home but my husband had other plans, He wanted to go to Taco Bell. We walked in and I was holding back my tears telling him something is wrong I need to go to the bathroom somthing is not right. I went to the bathroom thinking maybe if I try to pee I’ll feel better. Nope, I lost my mucuse plug. I come out of the bathroom and told him we needed to go that something was going on and I’d rather talk about it in the car. He got our food and we left, but we didn't go home we went to Walmart. I don’t even know what we needed at Walmart I just know I was hurting and wanted to go home. We walked in the doors and we didn’t even make it to the middle of the store and I just sit down in the floor crying I needed to go back to the doctor. PLEASE, take me back something is not right. Two of my friends come walking through Walmart and stopped to ask if I was ok, I told them I didn't feel so good and wanted to go home but someone wouldn’t take me. They helped me out of the floor one on each side of me helping me walk to the car as they was telling my husband to take me home. We get home and I'm screaming in pain, At this time its Seven o’clock at night. My mom tells me “stop acting like a baby take this Tylenol and go to bed the doctor said you was ok.” A few minutes go by and I'm to the point I feel like I need to push this child out of me. Let me remind you I'm only Six months pregnant. Still, no one cares. Finally, After threatening to still a car, yelling like a mad woman, and just about ripping the skin of my husbands arms dragging him and yelling lets go I am finally on my way to the hospital. My mom kinda chuckles and said, “call me if something happens.” It seemed like she really thought I was just being a baby.
We get to the hospital I tell the lady at the desk that I think I'm in labor. I sat in the waiting room for over a hour. A man finally comes and takes me up to a room and they start hooking me up to everything. By now I'm so over this pain, It’s only ten o’clock at night someone help me. The doctor comes in (not my regular doctor a different one) I ask, “where is my doctor,” He replies with, “oh she has a golf tournament in the morning and couldn’t make it in tonight.” So he checkes me and asks if my family was here and I said,“no they think I’m ok and just need to take Tylenol so they didn’t come.” He then lookes at me and says, “if there is anyone you want here you need to call them now tell them to get here we have to take this baby now.” I’m so lost I don't know what is going on I just know I'm hurting and want my mom. I called my mom and tell her she had fifteen minutes to get to the hospital then they are taking me back to do a C-secton. I don't remember what all happened thoes next few minutes but I do remember my mother coming in the room yelling at the doctor, “you can not do a C-secton on my daughter it will ruin her body.” I didn't care when or how this baby got out f me I just knew I was about to die in pain begging for people to just shut up and help me. The doctor then looked at my mother and said, “if you don't let me do my job you could lose your grandchild and maybe even your daughter.” I started to panick screaming I don't want to die please shut up. They took me back to gave me my epidural and began to take my baby out of me. I dont have much memory of it but I do remember seeing seeing clear buckets of my own blood and not hearing my baby crying. I asked the doctor if my baby was ok, he would never answer me. I beg, “Please tell me my baby is ok,” and still, no answer. All I hear is a lot of talking about get the baby this do that hand me this and I'm wanting to jump off the table all opened up just to see if my baby is ok. When the nurse was carring my baby out of the room I heard this quiet but high pitch little sound come from my baby. It was like god heard me begging and sent that little sound so I would know she was alive. I looked at My mother crying saying the baby is ok, my baby she is ok, did anyone else hear that my baby is ok, but no one else did. I screamed she is going to be ok. A few minutes go by and I hear, she is loseing alot of blood. I am trying to stay calm but I'm afraid I'm going to die. My mother told me just to relax and close my eyes I’d be in my room with my baby soon. (In my mind I’m afraid if I fall asleep I won’t wake up, what if I don’t wake up? That means my baby won’t have a mom, I can’t fall asleep.) I did how ever fall asleep and when I woke up I was back in my room just like my mom said I would be. There was a room full of people asking if the baby is ok. I tell them yes I know she will be ok she made a tinny little sound and it was like she wanted mommy to hear it. About a hour or two a nurse and the doctor comes in to update me on how me and the baby are doing. They tell me they are going to have to fly my baby to Birmingham, Trinity Hospital to go to the NICU. The doctor asked me if I wanted to see her before they left, Of course I did. They rolled her in the room in a big plastic box with a hole just big enough for me to stick my hand in and touch her . I cryed at how small she was. I couldn’t see much they had her all wrapped up but I could see her little face. It was red and didn’t look like a normal baby’s face would look, her lips was so small and blue, her nose was flat, and she never opened her eyes. I asked the doctor what her weight was and he replied, “two pounds and eleven ounces and fifteen inches long,” I started to cry, then wondering what I did wrong, why did I have my baby so early she was so tinny, I must have done something wrong. I have never seen a baby so small. Everyone said their goodbyes to her and off they went. I told my husband she needs one of use to be there and I can’t go so that means you have to, I’ll be ok go. I spent what seemed like forever in that hospital just waiting to go see my baby, I needed to be there with her. My favorite question was, “when do I get to leave so I can see and hold my baby.” Finally that day came.
