Dealing with Teenage Pregnancy As told to Queenie Sue M. Bajenting

“No silly,” I said to my friends, as they presented the possibility that I could be pregnant after I told them that I haven’t had my monthly period for two months. The remark seemed to be addressed more to myself than to them. It’s not like the thought never crossed my mind before. As often as it crossed was as often as I shook it away. “This could just be caused by stress,” I assured myself over and over. After all I was already at the first semester of my senior year, working on my thesis, my internship and a couple of major projects. It could all be so stressing.

Another month went by, and another, and still it did not come. I decided it was about time I face a possible reality.

I told my close friends that I was taking a pregnancy test. Since we were all girls, my friends agreed that we purchase a pregnancy test kit together so as not to give anybody around the idea of who will be using it. We bought three sets just to be sure. I remember staring blankly at a distant from the pharmacy, where I could see the lights from the bar that me and my friends usually go to during weekends. “God, my life will really change.” I sighed.

I braced myself for what was about to come. And there it was right in front of me: two vertical pink lines on the small kit in my hand. I shook my head and abruptly looked at the other two kits which I prepared together. I checked the instructions again. It all said the same thing. I was in fact pregnant. Everything went blurry. My eyes were clouded with tears. I can’t be pregnant.

I can’t because I’m too young to be a mom. I can’t because I will be earning my college degree in a few months. I can’t because just a year ago, I was so hostile to my older sister for being so irresponsible by getting herself pregnant and making my mom cry. I was just so not ready.

The first thing I did was tell my boyfriend. We talked about it and decided that we keep it from our parents for a while. We went to see a doctor and discovered that I was already two months pregnant. We took necessary precautions for my situation. I felt lucky that I had a partner who was willing to take responsibilities. Or at least I thought so. After a month, I discovered something very, very terrible that even a non-pregnant girl would fume about. He was cheating on me, in the midst of my crisis! Great, I’m a nineteen-year old pregnant girl in a Catholic school, with a cheating boyfriend! We broke up but he promised to carry on with his monetary support.

I never felt so alone.

The days went even harder to carry on. I spent another three months with having only my friends to help me through. I was already six months pregnant then, and it was only a month before sem break. Although I adjusted my school uniform, my tummy was still amazingly concealable. I guess it’s true that babies don’t grow too big inside whenever they feel that they are not supposed to be revealed.

With all the physical and emotional pain, plus the stress of having to show up in school looking normal, I realized something. I badly needed my mother. Who else could help me?

I gathered what was left of my courage and finally faced my family. It was a confrontation filled with tears and apologies. I asked forgiveness from my sister for being so insensitive and rude to her when she was pregnant, when I myself couldn’t handle it. But most of all I asked my mother’s forgiveness for being such a failure. “You’re not,” she told me. She added that she knew it all along. She was just waiting for me to speak. My family assured me that although they are disappointed, they will still help and make sure that everything will be okay.

Soon, I finished the first semester and having no other option, I sacrificed my supposedly last semester in college. However things were way easier because I knew that my family was behind me. Still it didn’t stop me from crying myself to sleep. I knew deep inside that I just officially screwed my teenage life.

Young as I was, I dealt with the troubles of being pregnant. Yet I tried not to get affected by my emotional volatility. Self-pity was never unavoidable. Still I had to be strong for the life growing inside me. “This is a blessing,” I kept reminding myself, “and she has to be healthy.”

The month for me to give birth finally came. It was unmistakably painful, but it was magical. All the heartaches and pains that I went through for the last months seemed to just fade away. Looking at my very own child, I realized that they were right after all: it was all worth it.

Today, with my little daughter just turning a year, I’m trying to live my life again. I am taking one day at a time. I will enroll myself back to college, and face nosy schoolmates and teachers for my sudden disappearance. To say that I have completely moved on would be a lie. The hurts and the betrayals I had weren’t that easy to leave behind. My baby’s father and I are keeping in touch, but only for the child. I make it a point never to deprive my daughter of her right to grow up with a father. She deserves it, because after all, she is the one who is keeping me strong. I could proudly add that aborting such masterpiece was never an option.

Often I envy my friends who are already working and don’t spend their earnings on milk and diapers. I also missed the times when I used to come home late after a night out with them. Things have indeed changed for me. I am now facing a very serious responsibility. As challenging as it is, I am actually loving it.