14 and Pregnant
14 and Pregnant
Babies break relationships built on lust.
The honeymoon phase, basically a label for the lust-filled part of every relationship, the very start. All you want to do is have sex with the other person. Touch them, feel them, make them feel good. You're kissing every other minute, hardly let go of each other, and seem so disgustingly in love people throw up inside of their mouths. But little do they know what they're witnessing isn't love, merely lust.
So what happens when the one time you don't use protection, you get pregnant?
I stand in front of this community class of pregnant teenagers, staring at me with wide eyes as I look at them sadly. In one arm I'm clutching my three year old, Michael, and in the other, a pregnancy test.
"So who knows what this is?" I ask.
Hesitantly, hands are raised.
"Of course y'all know what this is. It's a pregnancy test. The thing you waited two weeks to pee on, so it could decide your fate, the rest of your life. Those little blue lines. Everyone in this room has stared in horror at a positive pregnancy test, faced with the inevitability of telling your parents, your friends, your boyfriend. Your denial and your hope shatters, and you're left with a growing fetus and a lot of tears.
"My name is Ashley, but feel free to call me Ashley. And I'm here today to tell you my story."
"I have a secret to tell you."
I lean next to my best friend, a smirk playing around my lips. She leans forward, intrigued, her dark fringe sweeping across her eyes. "I had sex with Gabe."
Her mouth falls open, and I guess that's to be expected. So I fill the stunned silence by reassuring her we used a condom, yes I was sure, no I don't regret it, because I really believe that I'm in love with this guy. And it's not like we haven't done other stuff anyway, what difference does it make?
"We did it twice." I giggle.
It's later that day, and I'm typing to one of my other friends on the computer. She lives in Australia, she had to transfer out when she was eleven but we stayed in contact, surprisingly, and I inform her of the news.
I confess to her that we didn't use a condom the second time, but he pulled out before he finished inside of me and jerked himself off until he came. And then she immediately types back and tells me that you can get pregnant from pre-cum?
I'm in a horrified denial at first, so I go onto Google and I do some research.
"How many of you knew that you could get pregnant from pre-cum?"
I face a room full of confused looking pregnant teenagers, and I shake my head.
"See, this is the problem with sex ed these days. They don't tell you this stuff, that you really need to know! I'm willing to bet at least three quarters, if not all of you, thought that as long as he didn't cum inside of you, you wouldn't get pregnant. That's the problem. Teachers put us under this illusion. Semen meets egg, egg get fertilised, girl gets pregnant. But they neglect to mention that pre-cum, does, in fact contain sperm!
"Pre-cum is used to clean out the sperm duct prior to an ejaculation, as well as lubriciate the head of the penis. To make sure there are no blockages, and/or no sperm remaining. So, especially if you and your guy are going for round two unprotected, and he hasn't even gone to pee, which would also clear the tract, then it's extremely likely that the pre-cum will contain sperm. And it only takes one to get you pregnant."
The next two weeks were the worst I've ever had.
Every time my stomach twinged, I was filled with this huge amount of hope that they were period cramps, but they never were, and the shattering of that hope was the most painful thing I'd experienced at that point. The worst part was, my periods were, and still are, extremely irregular. I'd hit puberty when I was nine years old, so five years later, at fourteen, they really should have evened out. But that wasn't the case. Some months they'd occur on the ninth, others on the twenty-fourth. So after I passed the two week mark, when my period really should have come, the hope still didn't fade away because it was possible I'd still get my period.
My breasts became extremely tender, and I hoped to a God I lost faith in that it was a sign of PMS, even though that was never a symptom I'd never experienced before in my pre-menstrual syndrome. I felt sick a lot, even though it was only the first two weeks, and I developed aversions to certain types of foods, such as pancakes.
I went of Google and looked up methods for natural miscarriage, too.
If anyone understands that, then it's all of you guys sat in front of me right now. I didn't want the baby. I didn't want to have to tell my mom, who'd tell my brothers, and deal with their rage, or the fact I knew they'd take all my valuables away and make me break up with my boyfriend. I didn't want to get fat, have stretch marks, be alienated at school when they all found out, or miss school because of morning sickness or being too pregnant to fit behind a desk. And I especially didn't want to endure labour and delivery, destroying my vagina for a child I never wanted. It sounds cruel, it sounds heartless. There was some little part of me that longed to have that baby, hold it in my arms and keep it safe forever, carry it around for nine months. But I didn't think it was practical, I knew I couldn't. I was a shallow fourteen year old girl, and I did not want a child.
I took a lot of Vitamin C, hearing that they induced menstruation. I continued to smoke, yes, I was smoking at fourteen, ridiculous, I know. I even went so far as to hit myself in the stomach, and when that failed, made plans to antagonise the school bully and dare him to hit me in the tummy.
On the Saturday, a little over two weeks after I'd had unprotected sex, I went with my best friend to go and buy a pregnancy test.
I peed on it in a public bathroom whilst she waited outside, timed the two minutes to the second, and then opened my eyes.
It was positive.
All my walls of denial shattered around me. I was pregnant. I had a child inside of me. I got pregnant from pre-cum because I wasn't even old enough to realise there was sperm inside of pre-cum.
There's a reason there's a legal age on having sex, and a reason why underage sex is referred to as statuary rape. Because fourteen year old children are not old enough to know what they want, and certainly not old enough to deal with the potential consequence of being pregnant.
What if that test had been negative? If I knew me back then, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have stopped having sex. I would never have not used a condom again, sure, but condoms are only 99% effective.
"When you raise your babies, they won't listen to half of what you say. But one message needs to sink in, so you tell them constantly. When they ask you why mommy is so much younger than all the other mommies, you tell them that underage sex is stupid, and they will regret it. Educate your children on the risks of underage sex. Don't let them make the same mistakes as us."
The honeymoon phase, basically a label for the lust-filled part of every relationship, the very start. All you want to do is have sex with the other person. Touch them, feel them, make them feel good. You're kissing every other minute, hardly let go of each other, and seem so disgustingly in love people throw up inside of their mouths. But little do they know what they're witnessing isn't love, merely lust.
So what happens when the one time you don't use protection, you get pregnant?
I stand in front of this community class of pregnant teenagers, staring at me with wide eyes as I look at them sadly. In one arm I'm clutching my three year old, Michael, and in the other, a pregnancy test.
"So who knows what this is?" I ask.
Hesitantly, hands are raised.
"Of course y'all know what this is. It's a pregnancy test. The thing you waited two weeks to pee on, so it could decide your fate, the rest of your life. Those little blue lines. Everyone in this room has stared in horror at a positive pregnancy test, faced with the inevitability of telling your parents, your friends, your boyfriend. Your denial and your hope shatters, and you're left with a growing fetus and a lot of tears.
"My name is Ashley, but feel free to call me Ashley. And I'm here today to tell you my story."
"I have a secret to tell you."
I lean next to my best friend, a smirk playing around my lips. She leans forward, intrigued, her dark fringe sweeping across her eyes. "I had sex with Gabe."
Her mouth falls open, and I guess that's to be expected. So I fill the stunned silence by reassuring her we used a condom, yes I was sure, no I don't regret it, because I really believe that I'm in love with this guy. And it's not like we haven't done other stuff anyway, what difference does it make?
"We did it twice." I giggle.
It's later that day, and I'm typing to one of my other friends on the computer. She lives in Australia, she had to transfer out when she was eleven but we stayed in contact, surprisingly, and I inform her of the news.
I confess to her that we didn't use a condom the second time, but he pulled out before he finished inside of me and jerked himself off until he came. And then she immediately types back and tells me that you can get pregnant from pre-cum?
I'm in a horrified denial at first, so I go onto Google and I do some research.
"How many of you knew that you could get pregnant from pre-cum?"
I face a room full of confused looking pregnant teenagers, and I shake my head.
"See, this is the problem with sex ed these days. They don't tell you this stuff, that you really need to know! I'm willing to bet at least three quarters, if not all of you, thought that as long as he didn't cum inside of you, you wouldn't get pregnant. That's the problem. Teachers put us under this illusion. Semen meets egg, egg get fertilised, girl gets pregnant. But they neglect to mention that pre-cum, does, in fact contain sperm!
"Pre-cum is used to clean out the sperm duct prior to an ejaculation, as well as lubriciate the head of the penis. To make sure there are no blockages, and/or no sperm remaining. So, especially if you and your guy are going for round two unprotected, and he hasn't even gone to pee, which would also clear the tract, then it's extremely likely that the pre-cum will contain sperm. And it only takes one to get you pregnant."
The next two weeks were the worst I've ever had.
Every time my stomach twinged, I was filled with this huge amount of hope that they were period cramps, but they never were, and the shattering of that hope was the most painful thing I'd experienced at that point. The worst part was, my periods were, and still are, extremely irregular. I'd hit puberty when I was nine years old, so five years later, at fourteen, they really should have evened out. But that wasn't the case. Some months they'd occur on the ninth, others on the twenty-fourth. So after I passed the two week mark, when my period really should have come, the hope still didn't fade away because it was possible I'd still get my period.
My breasts became extremely tender, and I hoped to a God I lost faith in that it was a sign of PMS, even though that was never a symptom I'd never experienced before in my pre-menstrual syndrome. I felt sick a lot, even though it was only the first two weeks, and I developed aversions to certain types of foods, such as pancakes.
I went of Google and looked up methods for natural miscarriage, too.
If anyone understands that, then it's all of you guys sat in front of me right now. I didn't want the baby. I didn't want to have to tell my mom, who'd tell my brothers, and deal with their rage, or the fact I knew they'd take all my valuables away and make me break up with my boyfriend. I didn't want to get fat, have stretch marks, be alienated at school when they all found out, or miss school because of morning sickness or being too pregnant to fit behind a desk. And I especially didn't want to endure labour and delivery, destroying my vagina for a child I never wanted. It sounds cruel, it sounds heartless. There was some little part of me that longed to have that baby, hold it in my arms and keep it safe forever, carry it around for nine months. But I didn't think it was practical, I knew I couldn't. I was a shallow fourteen year old girl, and I did not want a child.
I took a lot of Vitamin C, hearing that they induced menstruation. I continued to smoke, yes, I was smoking at fourteen, ridiculous, I know. I even went so far as to hit myself in the stomach, and when that failed, made plans to antagonise the school bully and dare him to hit me in the tummy.
On the Saturday, a little over two weeks after I'd had unprotected sex, I went with my best friend to go and buy a pregnancy test.
I peed on it in a public bathroom whilst she waited outside, timed the two minutes to the second, and then opened my eyes.
It was positive.
All my walls of denial shattered around me. I was pregnant. I had a child inside of me. I got pregnant from pre-cum because I wasn't even old enough to realise there was sperm inside of pre-cum.
There's a reason there's a legal age on having sex, and a reason why underage sex is referred to as statuary rape. Because fourteen year old children are not old enough to know what they want, and certainly not old enough to deal with the potential consequence of being pregnant.
What if that test had been negative? If I knew me back then, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have stopped having sex. I would never have not used a condom again, sure, but condoms are only 99% effective.
"When you raise your babies, they won't listen to half of what you say. But one message needs to sink in, so you tell them constantly. When they ask you why mommy is so much younger than all the other mommies, you tell them that underage sex is stupid, and they will regret it. Educate your children on the risks of underage sex. Don't let them make the same mistakes as us."