Sixteen and pregnant is something I never imagined would describe me. It was something that, I thought, would only happen to ignorant girls that weren’t able to think out their actions properly. Now, being sixteen and being pregnant with my little girl, I have realized that we all make mistakes. Those mistakes shouldn’t make you who you are, especially when you are only a teenager.

In junior high, everyone called me Juno. It never bothered me and it still doesn’t when, in the off chance, it happens now. Though, those times when it does happen now, there is one pretty big difference, my huge beach-ball like stomach under my shirt. Even now, that nickname doesn’t bother me, but somewhat seems as though they were leading up to something to happen in the future.
Throughout the years, I was naive. I was like most of the students here at --- High School. I would gossip about the pregnant girls that were not only in my grade, but in the higher grades as well. Now, I know what teenage mothers have to go through. They don’t JUST have to go through the stress of being pregnant, but they have to deal with the emotional toll people put upon them when they are around. The looks and the whispers get to you and soon you are able to just block it all out.
When I first got pregnant, I remember walking down the hall and having a group of girls look at me, look at my stomach, and then turn around and whisper to each other. It made me feel horrible and I honestly didn’t want to come back to school. By the time school had started up for my Junior year, I had already started getting a baby bump and I knew then the looks and the whispers would just get worse; which they did. Not only was I just getting them from the students, even some teachers would participate in it. Eventually, though, people stopped all of it and went on with their lives.
Honestly, the looks and whispers aren’t even the worst of it. The worst thing I ever had to do was face the two people I never wanted to disappoint, my parents. I knew telling them was going to be hard, but nothing ever prepared me for what actually happened. I told my mom face to face and she told my dad over the phone. My mom took it calmly, like I knew she would, but my dad didn’t take it so well. That night, I talked to him on the phone and he said things that still bring me to tears today.
To this day, I still get the feeling that they are disappointed in me. I have never asked how they felt on the whole ordeal since that night because I am afraid that, in my mind, I am right about their feelings. I am afraid that if I do ask them, they will tell me they are still disappointed, but hopefully things have changed over the last 9 months.
As for being pregnant, it is something I would never give up. My little girl is my world. Even before she is out of the womb she has her father and her mother wrapped around her little finger. Life is full of mistakes for people to make, they just have to find out which mistakes are going to eventually make their life better in the long run. Having my little girl is just the start of an amazing, wonderful life.