Welcome to my homepage. On this page is my personal story, which also includes my son's birth story. Enjoy. I wrote most of this on August 2000, but some of it is just bits and pieces I took from message boards and things like that, which I participate in pretty regularly. Besides, what happened before, during, and immediately after my son's birth is not likely to change! If you want to know what we are doing now, scroll down to the very bottom of the page and look at the Updates section.
~ Jared
[NOTE: Since this story was written a while ago, it helps to know that my son was born on July 7, 1999]
Two years ago my girlfriend "Jane"
and were both in our senior year of high school and looking forward to things
like the senior dance, moving to a dorm, enjoying the summer before college.
Then we found out that we were expecting a baby.
I've read so many stories of teen parents, and they all seem to have the
same scenario: teens find out about pregnancy, go in denial, consider abortion,
fight with their parents, fight with each other, break up, young mom ends
up on her own. That's not how this story goes.
I remember the morning we found out, we sat on the counter in the bathroom
for over an hour staring at the home pregnancy test with the clear pink
line on it. We went through our options and knocked off all of them without
ever arguing with each other. Jane wanted to keep the pregnancy a secret
from her very traditional parents until we had both graduated and moved
out of our parents' homes. Graduation was only two months away at that point.
We figured we had plenty of time, since after all a pregnancy is nine long
months. To us that seemed like enough time to move the world. I hardly knew
Jane's family so I was in the dark about what was really going on. She tried
to keep her pregnancy from them at all cost. But when she was twelve weeks
pregnant she made a mistake and had the clinic that she was going to for
her prenatal care send some records to her home address. Her parents intercepted
the envelope and our secret was out. In fact though, I had not kept my part
of the deal and I had told my family about the baby the day that I found
out myself. Jane had it very hard at home for the next week. If it had not
been too late I believe that her parents would have succeeded in talking
her into having an abortion. They also kept her at home and would not allow
us to communicate. They pulled her out of school, crushing her chance of
graduating from high school before the baby was born. The climax of this
came when Jane showed up at my house with a bloody lip where her mother
had slapped her before she refused to go to an unwed mother's home that
her parents thought would solve their problems.
In the next few weeks my parents were appointed legal guardians to Jane,
and we hired a lawyer so that her parents could not attempt to claim the
baby once he was born. That was Jane's biggest fear and it went double for
me because I knew that if those people got my baby they would make sure
that I could not see him.
Once Jane was living with us things went much more smoothly. Unfortunately
Jane could not reenter school, but she began to study for her GED, and we
began to prepare for the baby. We cleared out a guest room in my house,
painted it, decorated it, bought used baby furniture or got what we could
second-hand from parents we knew, and started a pregnancy journal together.
We went to all of Jane's doctor's appointments together, found out on the
third ultrasound that we were having a baby boy, read all kids of parenting
books. Everything was not perfect, Jane was very upset with the fact that
her parents had disowned her, but things were near perfect in our relationship
at that time. We had plans. We thought we could do anything because we felt
so strong in our relationship. We still planned to go to college, still
planned to move out, still wanted the same careers that we had planned on
before the baby news came, we just knew we would have a lot more to juggle
if we were to pull it off. At that time I had been employed for over a year
by a historical archive in my city. It was a really good job, I worked only
four hours a day but got paid for a full day's work because I was being
paid not by hour but by how much I got done, and a certain amount of work
was considered a full day. Jane and I felt that we could easily both attend
college, she would also get a part time job to help, and we would still
never put our baby in day care. Of course everyone was telling us that things
would not be that easy, but to this day I think that had things gone the
way we thought they would we would have done everything like we planned,
and been alright. Out of all the young parents, we were probably the best
off. We had each other, a healthy pregnancy, an income that could make us
independent, one set of parents who supported us in our decisions and plans.
We had more than many parents have, no matter their age. And we felt lucky
for it.
The pregnancy went really uneventfully until the 37th week when Jane woke
up with mild contractions. We got up, all excited, called up her doctor
and asked what we should do. She asked a bunch of questions about the contractions,
many of which I did not understand but I figured Jane knew what the doctor
was talking about because Jane was the one having the contractions and Jane
was the one that read about pregnancy and had the doctor explain everything
to her. It turned out though that Jane did not give the right answers to
the doctor, probably because she was excited and scared and nervous and
her judgment was off. She was not having painful contractions and she did
not time them correctly. I guess she did not know what a contraction was
supposed to feel like, so she was counting the wrong things. She later told
me that what she was feeling was waves of pain, and she was counting the
crest of each wave. In fact though what was happening is she would have
two contractions close together. The doctor told us to wait a few hours,
until the contractions got to be a certain time apart, then call again and
head over to the hospital. So Jane and I began to get things ready, woke
up my parents, got the car ready, phoned some friends to tell them the news,
and just relaxed waiting for the right time.
Well! The baby ended up being born on the living room couch.
All of a sudden Jane cried out that the baby was coming. Her contractions
suddenly came on strong and painful, so she was screaming and cursing and
yelling for me to call the doctor and yelling "Is this normal!?"
at my mother. My mother I think realized at that point what was happening.
She's had six kids so she should know how labor goes. She told my dad to
call an ambulance, then we both tried to calm Jane down because she was
getting hysterical at that point, and also she was trying to push but it
was too soon for that. I was waiting and waiting for the ambulance siren
to be heard, but you know how it is, when you need them they just aren't
there! My mother delivered my son about fifteen minutes after Jane first
collapsed. He came out crying and wriggling. To top it off the fire department
were the first to arrive on scene, and I got to cut my son's cord while
firemen prepared Jane for the ambulance.
Finally the ambulance got there and Jane was taken away along with our baby
boy. My parents and I followed. I had to wait for over three hours to see
either Jane or my baby. Jane had some sort of hysterical fit and they sent
all sorts of social workers and psychiatrists in to see her, and also sedated
her so that when I did see her she was very groggy and disoriented. I was
still in shock from what had just happened so I was not in the position
to think about what was going on with Jane.
I went to see my baby who was asleep in the nursery. I got to hold him for
a while. Every baby in the nursery got a letter and number, and my son's
letter was "C" which is why we chose to give him a name that started
with that letter. Conner. We had actually never talked about baby named
through the entire pregnancy! Conner was born weighing just 6 pounds 2 ounces,
but he was a healthy baby. He got to go home after two days.
Jane was kept in the hospital for two more days after Conner was released.
I didn't know it but her parents spent a lot of time with her and when she
finally did come home she was very depressed. She never shook it off. We
were very busy parents of a very energetic infant and we had very little
time for each other or even to deal with our own problems. Jane's depression
went untreated for a while because of that.
When Conner was two months old Jane and I moved out of my parents' home
and we rented an apartment near the college we wanted to attend. It was
very small but we were glad to be independent and to have our own place.
My parents had began to have problems and in fact they would divorce in
the next month. Jane began to go to therapy for her depression but somehow
it worsened.
We lived together for five months before Jane's parents came to pick her
up. She meekly went with them, leaving me, our baby, and our home. I thought
surely she would come back when her parents upset her once again, but days
went by and my calls were unanswered and one time when I called from a phone
booth I was hung up on so they were probably using caller ID to ignore my
calls.
I called home, my dad was the one there now, and he told me to come home
immediately. We got a lawyer and made Jane and her parents come down to
talk about what was going on. Jane was almost a completely different person.
I could not understand how any parent could decide to abandon her child
but she seemed completely indifferent to the fact that she even had a baby.
Her parents talked, she just sat there. At the end of the meeting her parents
threatened to take my child and make sure I never saw him again if I came
near their daughter again. I told Jane that if she wanted to see her baby
she could do it any time, but she didn't even answer me. My lawyer did all
he could to make sure that my child would never be claimed by Jane's parents
or by Jane while she lived with them, but we were all unprepared for Jane
willingly giving up her parental rights to our child. I told her again that
she could still see him when she wanted, but her parents again told me to
stay away from her. Since then she has not seen Conner, or me, and still
lives with her parents. Her life is unlike anything she wanted for herself.
I understand loyalty to parents but as a parent myself I don't understand
how that loyalty got to be stronger than loyalty to her child for Jane.
It could never be that way for me. I still live at home, as a single parent
I can't do any of the things that I had planned on doing, not without putting
my son in day care and I am not willing to do that. I finished one semester
of college (full time, 6 classes). I plan to continue but it certainly is
a complicated thing to be a parent in college! I no longer work. I know
that I no longer care for Jane, mostly I'm angry with her for abandoning
our child. I don't know if I will keep my promise to her if she someday
decides to reenter our life. My son doesn't know her and will never know
her as a mother. She will never have him live with her, never parent him
or make decisions about his life. There are so many things that make a parent
and biology is only a tiny part. Jane has chosen to stop at biology and
not do the things for our child that makes someone a parent to a child.
That is sad but that is her choice and I have learned to accept and move
on. She will always be the one that gave me my son, but I can't accept her
as his mother.
UPDATE: June 2000...
Middle of summer. Taking two college computer classes so that next semester
I can take most of my classes online. Getting ready to visit uncle's farm.
Conner is finally old enough to be taken places. I think he will love it
at the farm. I'm having trouble remembering what exactly's there, but Conner
loves animals to death so anything will suit him. Getting out of the city
will certainly suit me. Conner's first birthday is comming up. Hard to believe!
He is pulling himself up on things, trying to walk around furniture. Still
needs to hold on to something in order to stand. Will probably start walking
any day. My dad says I started at 11 months. He also says it's nothing to
look forward to. Conner is already a little house-wrecking machine.
UPDATE: October 2000...
Halloween coming up. Conner is old enough to be dressed up and will be a
cute little pumpkin. He's walking excellently now, but the stairs are another
story. He hasn't exactly tumbled down yet, but I swear he wants to.
I started the fall term at college. Four classes online, and two lecture
classes. I'm only in class one day a week! One of my lectures is from 4
to 7 and the other from 7 to 10, both on Tuesday. Online classes are just
super. I have more time with Conner than I've had since I started college.
In other news, my dad wants to move the family out of the city. No argument
from me, except that I don't see how we could move all this stuff we've
collected...
UPDATE: May 2001...
After a semester of college that included three English classes, two Biology
classes, and a Psychology class, I am sooooo ready for summer! I'm taking
the summer semester off since we are planning to move (finally). Can't believe
Conner will be two years old in a less than two months.
UPDATE: September 2001...
Settling into our new place. Bigger house, smaller town. Works for me. Still
reeling from September 11 terrorist attack, a week later. But I've been
too busy to watch the news all day like some people are doing, my life just
doesn't allow for that, so things have been pretty much as usual around
here. Maybe out in California we are a little removed from what happened.
UPDATE: October 2001...
Fall term well under way. Having major trouble in speech class. Never realized
how hard it is to get up there and talk for 15 minutes. Conner getting over
flu which has been going around. No one else got sick though. Looking forward
to Halloween. This year he actually knows what it's all about and wants
a Blue's Clues costume. I haven't been able to find one yet.
UPDATE: January 2002...
Started another semester of college. Five classes this time. Two of them are online, and the rest are Monday 4-7pm and 7-10pm and Tuesday 7-10pm. They only meet once a week so it's great! They've only just started so I can't tell yet how I'm going to do in them.
UPDATE: March 2002...
Exams! My classes are nearing the end so I'm really busy. My son is getting so big! I cannot believe that he will be 3 years old this summer! I'm already thinking about what I might do this year. He loves Blue's Clues (it's his favorite thing on the planet) so I'll probably do a Blue's Clues theme. What really amazes me is that he is so young but has such a big personality of his own. He knows what he likes and doesn't like, he knows what he wants and doesn't want... isn't it amazing how a human goes from 100% helpless and not even aware of the world around him, to knowing all of this, in less than three years?
UPDATE: August 2002...
I know I haven't been updating this page much. Just busy with school and all that. I'm starting the Fall semester later this month. I'm registered for five classes. Only one is online, so I'll be over there four nights a week. I still find it a little bit hard to sit through my 7-10pm classes, it's so late it doesn't feel natural to be in class. And after a long day I'm naturally tired! Conner's birthday passed. He's 3 years old now. That still amazes me. I've been a parent for three years, but it doesn't feel like that much time has passed. When I first became a parent I just took things one day a time. And they've added up, I guess. It just shows you, no matter what, life goes on. You might find something hard, but you get through it, and suddenly it's years later and you look back on it and wonder what it was that was so hard. It's nice to look back and see that I've got a hang of this whole parenthood thing. I did alright.
UPDATE: October 2002...
Halloween! Conner went as Anakin (Star Wars), he got his costume as a bithday present from one of his many relatives. This is the first year that we actually did a lot of trick-or-treating. We went all the way around the block. We had a lot of fun.
UPDATE: November 2002...
The year is coming to an end, can you believe that? We are already getting ready for Thanksgiving and for New Years (we don't celebrate Christmas). We're getting all our tree ornaments down out of storage already, although we won't be decorating anything until probably the end of the month or even early December. We're going to be seeing a lot of our relatives this year at Thanksgiving. Some of them I haven't seen in years. It'll be like a big family reunion. Conner will be meeting many of them for the first time ever. Conner is in a playgroup right now. It seems to be working out really well, all the other kids are around his age. It's winter, that's why a playgroup is so good, because there aren't very many places to go now, but they can have a lot of fun playing indoors.
UPDATE: March 26, 2008...
I can't believe this old site is still up. I haven't even thought of it in years. Well, time for a last update.
It's 2008. I'm 26 years old... Conner is nearly 9 and a 3rd grader in private school. All these years later, I'm still in college, now on my way to getting a Masters in Biology. I've been working since mid-2003 as a lab technician.
We've done pretty well, in all. A real teen parenting success story, I guess. Although, reading my own story over, I can't help but recall just how hard it was, which definitely doesn't come through in my writing. It was hard. The first year raising Conner was truly the hardest time of my life. At times it's hard to believe just how young I was when I was faced with single parenthood and was still convinced that I could live my life exactly the way I planned it out before having my son. Of course, I'm not sure that living my life the way I planned it out at age 16 or 17 was really a good plan, anyway.
Becoming a dad at such a young age made me grow up in so many ways... in some ways before my time, I think. At 26 I'm living the life on a much older adult, with a house, a mortgage, car payments, and already saving for my kid's education.
For those who are wondering, no, Jane never re-entered our lives. Conner has never met her, and has so far not asked any questions about her beyond why he doesn't have a mother. I have never married, nor been in any serious relationships since Conner's birth.
It's been an interesting road from teen dad to... now. In the back of my head, the label "teen dad" still describes me. I feel like it was such a defining thing that I will continue to feel like a "teen dad" for the rest of my life.
Email me directly to get in touch! I love hearing from people.
The url of this page is http://www.geocities.com/jarednbaby/