23 and Pregnant

“Your test results came back, and they were positive.”

“Positive I’m pregnant or positive I’m not?”

“Positive you are pregnant. Congratulations.”

…phone hits the floor…

“Natesha…? We will see you on Monday correct for your ultrasound?”

“Yee…eee…sss”

“Okay, well… congratulations again.”

I would have thought that a nurse would be halfway expecting a woman to freak out when she is told that she is pregnant. I don’t know if this nurse has never had a woman start crying before on her, or if she was just still in her food coma from lunch. Either way I gave her an eventful afternoon. I was pretty positive that I was pregnant, but actually hearing someone confirm it over the phone through blood work was shocking. I knew instantly that abortion was just not going to be an option. So now I had to decide if I wanted to do adoption, or actually keep the baby. I feel like so many people go through situations very similar to mine, but since we are ‘adults’ people don’t give us too much attention, or help really because we should ‘know’ what to do. I really don’t think age matters too much when it comes to being pregnant for your first time. If I was 18, 23, 27, or 32, married or not, I would still like to hear from other people, and would like to know that others are going through the same things, or whatever they are going through. I am now 9 weeks along, and have had some rough times, experiences, and discussions with people, so I feel like people need to know that just because someone isn’t 16 & pregnant doesn’t mean that they can’t have a story worth telling, to help others become stronger.

Lets rewind a few… I am 23 years old, I live with three of my good girlfriends, and we have three dogs, yes three dogs. We have a four-year-old pocket beagle named Scooby, a pit bull named Hercules and Boston terrier named Riley who will be two on June 28, and July 4. Needless to say our house is already a circus, and now we are about to add a baby to the chaos. I was born in Utah, moved to California when I was six, and I moved to Orlando Florida almost two years ago, after graduating from college from Arizona State University. Another wrench in the mix, all of my blood family is thousands of miles away.

Once I finally calmed down from hearing the news, I was positive that I was keeping the baby. I just felt this connection, bond, and knew that I couldn’t carry a baby for nine months and then just give it away. So once that decision was made it was time to start telling the world, aka my family and friends, oh and of coarse the father, about the news. My one roommate SVD was with me when I got my blood work done, and when I found out the news, so she was my rock, and support from the very start. It was now time to move on to the rest of crew. Thank sweet baby Jesus for technology because all I had to do was send out one huge mass text message, and the word was out. From the very beginning I had all of the support, and love I could have ever asked for from all of my friends, who have become my extended family and I see many of them as my sister. But friends are one thing, family, like Moms, Dads, and Grandparents… well that’s a whole different ball game…