My Teenage Dream Ended (17 page)

I didn’t want my mom to get upset and interrupt. I was already so emotional, I didn’t know if I could handle hearing anything negative. I just wanted her to agree to let me end the pregnancy so everything would go back to normal.

My mom stayed silent. I took a deep breath and continued, “Mom, I just got back from Planned Parenthood. I took a pregnancy test and I’m pregnant. The nurse there said I can take a medication that would end the pregnancy. But you have to sign a notification form first since I’m not eighteen yet.”

My mom was silent. She looked like she wanted to cry. She turned away and looked at her computer screen for a moment. Then she said, “God tells us to not kill any living being, and what do you think you’re doing, Farrah? That medication works by cutting off nutrition and starving the egg.”

“No mom, it’s not like that. It’s not even living yet. It’s not a baby yet!”

My mom turned away from me. “No, Farrah. I’m not going to sign for something that kills a living being.”

I was not ready to hear that being pregnant meant there was a living baby inside me. I wasn’t allowing myself to let that sink in. I just wanted it to not be happening. I felt desperate and I couldn’t understand why my mom was saying no.

I was confused. Nothing that was happening to me made sense. I had used birth control responsibly, but I was pregnant. My parents preached against teen pregnancy, but wouldn’t agree to let me take a medication so I wouldn’t be pregnant anymore. I couldn’t even get the boy who got me pregnant to return my calls so I could tell him he was about to become a father. How was this happening? Why was it happening? I didn’t understand my world anymore.

My mom didn’t say anything else. We sat there in silence and I knew my fate was sealed. She wasn’t going to sign. This pregnancy wasn’t just going to go away.

I didn’t say anything. I just walked out of the room and Sadie quietly followed me. I couldn’t begin to imagine what was going through her head. I didn’t know if she felt sad and embarrassed for me, or if she thought I was brave for telling my mom so directly. I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to talk anymore. She could tell I was freaking out, but there was nothing more to say than, “Bye. I’ll talk to you later.”

After Sadie left, I sat on the patio steps feeling sorry for myself. The same thoughts kept running through my mind:
I wish I had never got back together with Derek. I wish we had never had sex again. I wish I had gone to get a pregnancy test sooner. I wish I had just never had sex...

For the first time, I thought about what my future would be like now. My mind was racing
. What am I going to do? I’m going to have to rely on my parents. I’m going to have to live here in their house. I have nowhere else to go. Will my baby have her dad around? Am I going to be able finish high school? What about college? What about my life?
One scary question led to a depressing realization, which led to another terrifying question, and on and on.

I started to cry sitting there on the patio steps, looking at the flowing pond under the tree. I thought,
I’ll never be able to give my baby what my parents have given me, a stable house to live in, the clothes, the life she’ll want to lead.
For the first time in my life, I truly appreciated how blessed I had

been and now I felt like everything I had was about to come to an end.

After a couple of hours of crying, I pulled myself together and walked up to my room. My dad met me there. My mom had told him that I was pregnant and he was sad. He gave me a hug and said, “Farrah I want you to know that I love you and you can talk to me if you need anything.” He wanted to talk more, I could tell, but I was so drained from crying and being confused that I didn’t have the energy for an in-depth talk, so I told him I just wanted to go to sleep.

I was shocked by my father’s reaction. He was so much more supportive than I ever thought he would be. I was relieved he still loved me and wasn’t angry with me for getting pregnant. My parents left me alone for the rest of the night. I didn’t know whether it was a good sign or a bad one, it was just very quiet in our house.

I decided that I would do whatever it took to gain back my parents trust so they would be supportive of me. I would show them that I was going to work hard, save up money, and be healthy during my pregnancy.

I called the nurse from Planned Parenthood and notified her that my mom wouldn’t sign the form for me. From the moment I ended that call, I knew my life was going to be different.

ON MY OWN

A couple of weeks later, I went to my first doctor’s appointment. By then I had told my sister I was pregnant and she had helped me find an OBGYN. I borrowed her car and went to the appointment on my own. I knew couples usually went to these appointments together, but I still hadn’t told Derek that I was pregnant.

After over a week of ignoring my calls, he had finally called me back but he didn’t acknowledge that he had done anything wrong. He was still playing childish games, while I was trying to figure out how to grow up fast. I realized he wasn’t ready to hear that I was pregnant. I felt like if I did tell him, he’d just let me down again. So when he called I acted like everything was okay and didn’t tell him about the baby. I was sad that I was keeping such a huge secret from him, but if I was going to share this experience with him I wanted it to be on the right terms, so I held it in.

I kept the conversation short, and super casual. I didn’t mention I was mad at him, or that I had called him a couple of days earlier. I could tell he was just calling me back to meet up like we usually did, but I wasn’t ready to see him right then so I made up some excuse and got off the phone. Over the next few months, Derek would call me randomly, (and we did meet up a few times) but from that point on I began to distance myself from him.

I always, even when I was furious with him, wanted to see him, though. I always wanted to talk to him, or even just argue or yell at him, or stay on the phone in silence. I was caught in this place of wanting to be with him, but knowing that, if he wasn’t going to change, the right thing to do was end it. So I just took things day-by-day, always hoping to find a way for us to get back on the same page. But as far as telling him that I was pregnant, I decided that I would wait until it seemed like he was ready to take on the responsibility of being a father.

Looking back, I can’t help but question whether or not I made the right choice. Of course, if I had known he was going to die I would have told him about the baby—even if he was still partying and treating me badly. I would have taken whatever I could get. But these are the questions that haunt me: Would he have changed? Would he have still gone on hooking up with other girls, doing drugs, and drinking? Would we have been fighting and arguing all the time because I didn’t agree with the choices he was making.

Would he have died anyway?

I’ll never have the answers to these questions, but what I knew then was that I didn’t want for us to be together just because I was pregnant with his child. I didn’t want him thinking,
Well, I need to do the right thing and stick around because she’s having my kid.
I didn’t want him to resent me, or pretend he was changing and go on lying to me about what he was really up to. I wanted him to decide to be with me on his own. I wanted him to call me because he wanted to. I wanted him to choose to hang out with me because he would rather be with me than hang out with losers and do drugs and drink.

So I went to the appointment for the sonogram all by myself. I was sad that I was going alone, but in a way I was also proud of myself for taking responsibility and doing it on my own in a positive way. Walking in, I felt independent, like I was taking steps towards starting a new life, but I was also nervous because I knew this wasn’t going to be like any check-up I’d had in the past. This appointment was really for my baby.

I changed into a gown and lay down on the table in the exam room. The nurse put the jelly on my tummy and I looked over at the ultrasound screen. My eyes were trying to focus and make sense of what I was seeing on the screen. It was crazy to be looking inside my stomach, knowing there was supposed to be a baby in there. I was trying to piece it all together and then suddenly it all came into focus. I could see this tiny peanut shape moving around the screen and my first thought was,
My mom was right. There is a little life growing inside me.
The ultrasound made me finally get it. I finally understood that I was carrying a living being inside my body.

The nurse printed off some photos of the ultrasound for me. She said that I would probably start feeling the baby move soon and that in a few more weeks I could come back and find out if I was having a boy or a girl. Then she gave me some prenatal vitamins and some helpful advice.

I felt so different leaving the doctor’s than I had when I arrived. My first instinct was to call Derek and share with him the amazing experience I had just had, but then I remembered my decision not to tell him about the baby. I thought about calling my parents, but I felt like they were still in shock and wouldn’t really be able to understand my surprising happiness about what I had just seen. I was bursting with emotion but had no one to share it with. I was sad, but I shook it off and told myself, “I have a baby in me and I’m going to be healthy and take care of myself and do this right.”

I did tell my sister about how the baby was developing and showed her the ultrasound photos. After that I put them in a drawer and saved them. I didn’t have a baby book yet, but I knew I wanted to save them for my baby to see one day.

CALLING ALL PREGNANT TEENS