Journey Into Motherhood

I found out I was pregnant in my best friend’s bathroom during our lunch break on February 20th 2008, just three days after my 18th birthday. It’s wild to think about that now, how such a life-altering moment happened between classes, with my best friend sitting in her kitchen and me in full panic mode in the bathroom. Then both of us double checking the test trying to convince ourselves maybe it was a false positive.

That positive sign wasn’t the vision I had for the first time I found out I was having a baby. I had always imagined something softer… something planned… something wrapped in excitement. But instead, it was fear. A thousand questions crashing over me all at once….What do I do? How do I tell anyone? What about my grad dress?

It sounds almost funny now, but in that moment, that dress felt like the symbol of a life I had just lost. And I was devastated.

I wasn’t even in a relationship with the father. It was a rebound after a long relationship I shouldn’t have stayed in as long as I did. Looking back, I was already hurting, already trying to fill spaces in myself that other people had carved out. And suddenly, there I was, holding a test that was telling me life wasn’t going to wait for me to be ready.

I made an appointment somewhere, I can’t even remember now and sat through a conversation about all my options. Hearing them laid out so plainly made everything even more real.

But the scariest part came after… telling my mom. We were already struggling. She was working two jobs just to keep us afloat. The thought of adding a baby into that chaos made my stomach twist. With my cousin and best friend holding me up, because that’s what it felt like, like they were literally keeping me upright….I told her. And then I ran to the bathroom and threw up. I don’t know if it was the pregnancy nausea or the fear. My mom came in right after me. She rubbed my back. She didn’t yell. She didn’t look disappointed. She just said, “We’ll get through this together.” And in that moment, I realized love sometimes shows up exactly where you expect it to fall apart.

At my first OB appointment, I told the doctor I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue the pregnancy. Those thoughts weren’t born from my heart…they came from other people’s voices. People telling me I was ruining my life. People whispering. People judging. My doctor sent a referral to a clinic “just in case,” and said they would call me. That if I still felt that way, I could make an appointment.

But then I heard his heartbeat. That tiny, steady rhythm split the world open. In that single second, everything in me settled. This was my baby. And I would figure it out. My pregnancy wasn’t pretty. I was anxious all the time. The father was unpredictable, unsupportive, and honestly, destructive. My friends were out partying and living the teenage life, while I was home counting kicks and forcing myself through days of nausea. I felt alone in a way that’s hard to even explain. On top of that, because I had dropped classes the year before, I wasn’t going to graduate with my class. I had no idea how I was supposed to finish school with a newborn.

But then a few staff members, people I’ll forever be grateful for told me about a school with a teen parent program. They took me to visit. And for the first time in months, I felt less alone. I enrolled and started in September 2008… eight months pregnant, swollen, scared, and showing up anyway.

And then came October 4th. I didn’t even realize I was in labour at first. I had just had a false alarm days earlier, and my due date wasn’t until the 27th. But my mom woke up and heard me groaning in the living room. When I told her my contractions were five minutes apart, she said, “You’re in labour,” and we were out the door. By the time we got to the hospital around 7 a.m., I was already six centimeters dilated.

Hours later…. after pain, an epidural, many rounds of throwing up, two hours of pushing and trying to “quit” at 9:30 p.m. I met the person who would change every part of my life.

Aiden Koby. 7lbs 9oz, a full head of hair and the calmest eyes. The second they placed him on my chest, everything made sense. Every fear. Every tear. Every judgment. Every lonely night. It all folded into this one truth…he was the best decision I ever made. I had never felt love so instant, so overwhelming, so absolute. And not once…not one single day since have I regretted choosing him. I would do it all over again. Every hard moment. Every terrifying step. Every unknown. Because that scared 18-year-old girl in her best friend’s bathroom had no idea she was about to become someone stronger, softer, braver, and more capable than she ever imagined.

She just needed her baby to show her.