you should spend a month with me. i'm 21-yr's old & currently [almost] 22-wk's pregnant. i have a 19-yr old sister, who is sexually active with her long-term boyfriend. before my pregnancy happened [which was an accident, not at all planned] my sister & her boyfriend rarely used condoms. now, after spending so much time with me, they're afraid to have sex without protection.
i share a room with my sister. she has watched my body change & my belly grow day-to-day, week-to-week. and every night, when we talk before turning out the lights, she never fails to say, "i never want to have children." i'm pretty sure watching the whole process take place on me & with me has scared her into waiting until she's ready. she has seen me throw some terrible mood swings, go from happy to hysterical in less than a minute, has seen my flat stomach turn into a beach ball, & she's seen my dreams change. neither one of us has ever had an easy path to travel. that's another story, but i've been living "on my own" since the age of 19. i've worked two full-time jobs & attended college full-time, but after a year, it became too much for me to handle. i know what it's like to work hard & have nothing. right now, i'm jobless & pregnant. money is tight & paperwork for financial aid is never-ending.
i have always wanted a baby, too. trust me on that. all i could see myself doing in life was being a full-time mother. i pictured the perfect little life for myself, raising a happy little family, & living happily ever after. it rarely ever works out that way for a person. especially for a teen mother. [no offense to anybody]. i'm not a teen, but i am still a very young mother. i have three younger siblings & i've helped to raise them. so, like you, i know what it's like to take care of babies. but when it comes to those babies being your own, it's completely different. they are 100% your responsibility. if things get out of hand, you can't hand them back to somebody else.
i look at my 19-yr old sister now & envy her. she's going off to college in a couple of months. something i have always dreamed of doing, but wasn't determined enough because of my desire to settle down & have children. i felt like schooling & a good, solid education was a waste of time, because in the end i'd work as a full-time mother. well, i was completely wrong & blinded by my maternal desire. i wish i had an education, and i wish i was working a job that provided me with financial stability & medical benefits. i wish i could enjoy this pregnancy to the fullest & look forward to the arrival of my daughter. i love her, very much. she's my entire world, of course. but i'm afraid for her. i'm scared i won't be able to give her everything she wants. or she'll grow up without a father if something happens between my boyfriend & myself. as much as we love each other & as great as our relationship has been for the past year, plus a couple of months, i know we're still young & anything can happen.
do yourself a favor, please. look at the negative sides of pregnancy, because there are a lot of them. if you love your body, embrace it. once you're pregnant, everything changes! my breasts have changed the most so far. i went from a full-A to a full-C in less than 6-months. they're no longer perky & they're covered in purple stretch marks. they also leak during the day & late at night. i was talking to my younger brother the other morning & he started to give me a funny look. when i looked down, i was so embarrassed. my shirt was soaking wet around my breast area. it's just one of the many lovely experiences of pregnancy, i guess. i went to the beach for the first time this summer yesterday, with my sister & a couple of other family members & friends. i felt confident driving to the beach, but as soon as we were sitting amongst the young, skinny girls in their skimpy, cute bikinis - all confidence disappeared. i felt embarrassed by my expanding belly. it was so hard for me to take my shirt off. everybody stared. you'd think they'd never seen a pregnant woman before.
just, don't rush it. it is selfish. it is life changing & body changing. you're 17, you have your whole life ahead of you still. you can have children later on in life. it's not like this is your last chance. set goals for yourself & reach for them, achieve them, & be proud of yourself. become someone you'd want your own daughter to aspire to be. would you really want for your own daughter to become a teen mother herself? [think about it]. would you want her to have a baby at the age of 17, when she's still in high school? your children are going to look up to you as they grow older. make sure you have stories to make them proud. when they ask you "when you were my age, what was your life like?" don't answer them back with, "i was working some dead end job to provide for you." make sure you can tell them stories about how you worked your butt off through college, while partying hard of course.
you'll do what's best for you, regardless of what people tell you. you are the one responsible for the decisions you make in life, not us. i wish you lots of luck, sweetie.