We planned my teenage pregnancy while still in high school …

We planned my teenage pregnancy while still in high school
Everyone assumes teenage pregnancies are accidents, but mine wasn’t. I was 16, and I actually wanted to get pregnant. It sounds ridiculous now, but back then it felt like the right thing to do. I thought I was mature, in love, and ready to prove everyone wrong.

My boyfriend and I talked about it seriously. We thought a baby would make us “grown up” and keep us together forever. I stopped taking my birth control on purpose, and a few months later, I was pregnant. I remember crying tears of happiness when I saw that positive test, I was so sure I was doing something brave and meaningful.

But the pregnancy was rough. I had complication after complication: bleeding heavily, infections, constant sickness. I was in and out of the hospital for weeks at a time, so many times that I lost count. There were moments I thought I might lose him, and I remember being terrified but also too young to fully grasp what was happening. I’d sit there hooked up to IVs, pretending to be strong, when inside I was just a scared kid wishing I could call my mom and ask her how to be one.

When my son was finally born, I was overwhelmed with love, and then instantly terrified. It hit me how young I really was. I remember holding him in the hospital, realizing that this tiny person completely depended on me, and thinking, What have I done? I wanted to be everything for him, but I felt like a child trying to raise another child.

My boyfriend tried to stay, but the stress and exhaustion were too much. He left when our son was still an infant. He didn’t disappear, though: he still helped, and we co-parented for a while. A few months later, we started talking again, and somehow we found our way back to each other. He apologized, and this time he meant it. We were both different people by then: a little older, a lot more humble. We eventually got married, and now he’s an incredible dad and partner.

Our son is 5 now. He’s the light of our lives: funny, kind, and full of personality. But even with everything we’ve built, the guilt never fully goes away. I love him more than anything, but sometimes I look at him and feel this ache, knowing that I made a life-changing decision for him when I barely understood what life even was.

He didn’t ask to be born into struggle or chaos. He didn’t ask for two scared teenagers trying to figure it out as they went. He didn’t deserve the instability or judgment that came with those early years. I made that choice for him.

I don’t regret having him, not for a second, but I regret how unprepared I was. I regret being naive enough to think that love would be enough to make everything okay. I wanted to feel loved and needed so badly that I brought someone into the world before I was truly ready.

I’ve worked so hard to give him a good life, and I think I’ve done that. He’s happy and healthy and loved beyond measure. But deep down, I’ll always carry that guilt: that my biggest blessing came from one of the most selfish choices I ever made. I just hope that one day, when he’s older, he can see how much I’ve loved him from the very start, even when I had no idea what I was doing.

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