Paula’s Birth Story

Hello, my name is Paula, and twenty two years ago, I became pregnant with my first baby.
During pregnancy I did not felt very good, and as a result, the intimacy with my husband was very little. With the passing time, the distance between us grew, and I learned he started seeing a teenage girl who lived near to our house. She was about 16 years old, and eager to indulge all his wishes... I became very sad, but thought that when the baby was born he would come to his senses...

When I got in labour, he wasn't home. A friend drove me to the hospital and then tried to get in touch with him, so he would join me. He told her he wouldn't. He told her to tell me it was over and that he was leaving our house, to live in another city with the teenage girl.

I had the baby, all the nurses knew what had happened and were very nice... time passed and two years later I met my husband. We have another daughter, and the father of my son married the 16 year old, and also had two daughters.

Tags: husband leaves during labor, partner problems, laboring alone, childbirth alone, single mom birth story, birth, birth story, awful partner stories

Tabitha’s Birth Jayden Joseph

When I met my son's father at 16 yrs old, I thought I had met the love of my life. He was 22 and I was young, naive, and full of love to give. I wanted to have the family with him that I'd never really had growing up. He spoke of this child that he had with an ex-girlfriend a few years prior, how he wasn't able to see the child and how it broke his heart; my heart ached along with his. I thought, this is the man I was to spend the rest of my life with, he loves me and wants the same, what better to do than to start our lives together now.

For 3 months we tried and tried to get pregnant. I told all of my friends and they thought I was crazy, but in my mind, I knew we would be together forever. I grew up with a lot of experiences that young girls should never have to personally experience, molestation, rape, abuse; I just wanted REAL love, to feel whole inside. I told my mother about my plan to have a child with my boyfriend and of COURSE, she was not very impressed; however, at the time I didn't really care what she had to say, in my mind, "What does she know..."

Finally after months of tears and failed attempts, we stopped "trying," only for me to become pregnant that month. I was ecstatic, FINALLY after months of trying and trying I was pregnant! I ran into the bedroom to tell my boyfriend, woke him up, and we both immediately started sharing the news. He seemed genuinely as excited as me at the time.

As months went on, he missed doctor appointments due to work. We were both working full-time at a coffee shop on the South end of town and felt that we were making pretty decent money, combined, so we went ahead and signed the lease on a nice 2 bedroom apt on a beautiful little street just outside the downtown area.

Soon after we moved in, things went downhill. The coffee shop we worked for went bankrupt and shut their doors without notice. I remember walking all the way there in the cold fall wind, only to see the large "CLOSED FOR BUSINESS" sign on the window when I was supposed to work that evening.

I had to continue working, so the next day I put on a big sweater and went out to find a job. I walked into the local convenience store and handed in a resume, speaking with the owner at the time, she had no idea I was pregnant and I was not about to mention it and lose the work. A few days later, I was hired on and learning the ropes. My son's father wasn't so lucky, however. He found a laboring job, but because he didn't have his own transportation he had to rely on the other workers to give him a lift, that didn't last long and eventually they just stopped picking him up.

I kept working to support the both of us. I was not going to lose our new apartment and the beautiful room I was preparing for my unborn child. He, on the other hand, fell into some sort of depression and stopped looking for work. Instead he started to have teenagers over while I was working (teens younger than me at the time ) and they would smoke weed, drink, and play video games all night/day.

After a 9 hour shift (3pm - 12am) and a cold walk home in the middle of the icy winter alone, I stumbled in my front door and was greeted with a gigantic cloud of marijuana smoke. I was FURIOUS. This was not good for me and the baby and this was not what I had envisioned as the "perfect life" that we were going to have together. I yelled and yelled, but nothing seemed to make a difference. As time went on, money went missing out of my bank account. My boyfriend was using my bankcard while I was having my pre-work nap and stealing large amounts of money to feed his new weed addiction.

He had never once shown up to my doctor appointments or ultrasounds, didn't even care to hear his unborn child's heartbeat. Slowly, I became more and more depressed and hurt.

One night in the middle of a cold January, I went to work and he called me up shortly after and said, "Don't bother coming home tonight, I'm having a party!" and hung up the phone. That was it for me, I couldn't take it anymore. I was 17 and 6 months pregnant with a child whose father would rather smoke weed and drink than attend an ultrasound session to see his unborn child. I had a breakdown and another girl had to be called in to cover my shift, which ultimately ended up being my LAST shift as I was far enough along in my pregnancy to start my Maternity Leave.

I stayed the night at my mother’s, then the next morning, proceeded back to my apartment to see how things were. I walked in the door and a young girl comes walking down the stairs from my bedroom (she was only 15), I asked her where my boyfriend was and she replied, "he went to get some weed." (Of course, I should have known.) Furiously, I told her to sit on the couch and I stormed upstairs to check on my bedroom and my nursery. My room was a complete write-off, sheets a mess on my bed and condom wrappers on the floor; clearly he had fornicated with that young girl. I proceeded to the nursery only to find that ALL of my son's things had been pushed to one side of the room to make room for a make-shift bed on the floor; I was heartbroken.

I left the house and a few days later returned with family members to get my things, which unfortunately for him, consisted of 95% of the furniture, electronics and appliances. I called up the landlord and informed him that because he never checked for ID when I signed the lease, he failed to realize I was only 16, meaning that the lease was really only applicable to the then 23 year old father of my baby.

I never forgave my son's father for that, I had always told him, "you cheat on me, you are cheating on your baby and our family." I wasn't going to let anyone hurt my baby, including him.

Months went on and I got bigger, I was living with my mother at the time temporarily, and we transformed her office into a beautiful little nursery for my son-to-be.

The boy name his father and I had decided on was Joshua James (James being his father’s middle name) but I decided to change it; new life, new name... he was to be Jayden Joseph.

My best friend, Amanda, became my savior during the last few months since leaving his father. She came to appointments with me if she could, to prenatal group meetings, and most of all, she made me feel secure, loved, and supported. One day, she asked me, "When do YOU think you are going to have him? Not when you're DUE, but in your heart, what day do you think you will have him?" Instinctively I replied, "March 29^th," even though my due date was April 3rd.

The days became shorter and closer to my due date. One night around 11:30pm, on March 28th 2004, I went into labor. I decided to have a bath at home, hoping it was just pre-labor contractions and not actual labor. I must have had a total of 3 baths that night, off and on, crawling back into bed in the fetal position between them until my mother walked into the washroom on my last bath and asked me what was going on. "I think I’m in labor," I told her and she responded, "Probably not, we will likely just get to the hospital and they will send you home, first pregnancies usually have lengthy labors!"

I wasn't going to take no for an answer, so she drove me to Emerge and they sent us straight to admissions; I was in ACTIVE labor on arrival. I begged my mother to call Amanda, she had asked me to call her at any time of the night no matter what as soon as I went into labor, but my mother wouldn't call until I was further dilated.

The back pain I was feeling was SO intense that I spent the next few hours walking up and down the maternity ward corridor, having steaming hot shower after steaming hot shower until they finally cut me off. Eventually my mother called Amanda and things started to go crazy from her arrival on. I remember being strapped up to so many machines and then suddenly unstrapped, the cord had wrapped around my baby’s neck and the doctors needed to perform an emergency cesarean section.

EVERYONE was kicked out of the room as they wheeled me down the hall and into the operating room. I lay there on the table begging the doctor to let me push. While prepping the tools needed for the c-section, he said, "Okay," not expecting anything to come of it. So with one GIANT push, out came my son, the doctor scrambled over to the table to retrieve him as he exited my body with extreme force. My mom comes in the room a few minutes later after getting her scrubs on. The floors, she described, were covered in blood, the doctor was covered in blood, she'd never seen so much blood in her life.

It was MARCH 29th, 2004 and for the first time ever, I got to see my beautiful baby son. I cried and cried and cried, even though I had not cried through the entire labor process. He was absolutely perfect.

Soon after, they took him away and the doctor began stitching me up, 3 layers of stitches deep as I had ripped from one hole to the other, explaining the great loss of blood.

My son's father was notified of the birth and everyone else BUT him came in to the hospital to visit and meet the baby. Finally, 4 days into my week stay (due to anemia as a result of extreme blood loss ), he showed up, with that 15 year old girl that he had at my home.

They stayed for a grand total of 15 minutes, enough time to hold the baby for a picture and say hello, then they left; never heard from him for months following my release with the baby.

A few days later, I got out of the hospital. I remember it as if it were yesterday. Seventeen, with a baby to raise all alone, but in my heart I knew I had made the right decisions for him and I, I knew we would be okay.

Now my son is turning 7 in 2 weeks. The days, months and years flew by without pause. He looks up at me with his beautiful, big, blue eyes every day and tells me how much he loves me.

I went on to graduate high school and go to college. I am now in my LAST semester of Police Foundations and I owe all of it to my son. Without him, I probably would have never had the motivation or strength to get to where I am in life now. I have devoted my entire teen age life to raising this boy alone, and continue to give him hope and inspiration for the future by being the best influence I can possibly be.

That child my ex spoke about having does exist, but his love and concern for not being able to see it has proven to be a lie. Unfortunately, it took me getting pregnant and having a child with him to find out that some men just aren't meant to be fathers, they do not have what it takes. He is now going on 30 and has no real part in my son's life, or the life of that other little boy. He would rather smoke his weed and play video games than be a father and work to support his children.

If I could give one word of advice to any young girl, it would be to WAIT to have a baby. It is not easy for ANY woman of any age, but certainly harder for a child herself. Rarely ever does it work out that the young boy sticks around to help you raise this child, and the struggles of a single mom are amplified for a teen.

If you are a teen and pregnant, STAY IN SCHOOL. Give your unborn child someone to look up to, a role-model in life that he/she can be proud to call "mom."  Don't be a statistic, don't allow others to tell you that you cannot finish your education because you had a child. There are programs out there aimed at helping young teen moms get their education and make something of themselves while raising their child. Take full advantage of them.

(I'd like to end this with a special thanks to my best friend, Amanda, who has never stopped being there for me, through thick and thin and who I couldn't have made it through everything without. I love you, girl. xo)

 

tagged:  Young mom, partner problems, teen birth, teen child birth stories, teen childbirth stories, teen mom, teen mom birth stories, teen pregnancy, teen pregnancy stories, teenage parents, young mother, young mother birth stories

A Woman's Birth of a Daughter

           I was in the bathroom, with a home pregnancy test, bawling.  I was planning on leaving my husband when I had gotten pregnant with our second child.  I knew leaving with two kids would be impossible.  I showed my husband the test, and he was trying to talk me into not having the baby.  I almost gave in but my mother talked me out of it.  She knew I was pregnant and that this wasn't a good thing.  I told her that my husband wanted me to have an abortion.  She told me if I do that, she'd support me but that to remember that he isn't the one who has to live with that decision for the rest of his life.  "You're the one who has to live through it, deal with it, and you just don't forget about it."  She had told me that she had been pregnant and she lost the baby late in the pregnancy.  I'd never known that.  So with that, I decided to have my baby.

          I left him once while I was pregnant.  I stayed in a vacant house where I paid only utilities.  Shortly after I left him, I found out my great grandmother was dying.  We all lost it - my mom and I.  My husband wormed his way back in.  He asked if we could start "dating" when I was five months pregnant.  So we "dated."  He told me he loved me and when I didn't say it back, he yelled at me.  I moved back home (big mistake.)  My husband had hit me before I was pregnant, but he didn't hit me again until I was seven months pregnant.  My doctor noticed and told me to leave him.  I said, "It'll get better," making excuses.  After that, things calmed down.

          I worked up until the day before I went into labor.  The baby was two weeks late.  I had done a lot of shopping and walking.  After shopping I called the office to tell them that I was going to start my maternity leave.  I woke up the next morning in labor.  I had a doctor’s appointment that afternoon so I wanted to wait until then to go in.  The contractions started to hurt.  I laid on the couch and put my feet on the back of it when a (male) cousin looked at me and said, "It can't hurt that much."  At my doctor’s appointment, they hooked me to a monitor and said, 'I think we're going to send you home but let me check you first."  When she checked me, she asked "Are you ready to have this baby?”  I told her yes and walked next door to the hospital.

          The labor went very fast.  Very fast.  I was only at the hospital a few minutes when I started to feel a horrible burning as the baby started to crown.  The doctor said to just keep pushing.  Forty-five minutes after arriving at the hospital, I had my new baby daughter in my arms.

Young Mother's Birth of a Baby Girl

          I suspected that I might be pregnant so I went down to the crisis pregnancy center.  I thought the test would only take a few minutes but it ended up taking close to an hour, and it was positive.  When I got home my husband started screaming at me for being late.  He was so mad he was at the point of telling me to pack up and leave.  I just stood there and said, "I'm pregnant."  He didn't have much to say after that.  This baby wasn't exactly planned but not unwanted either.

          It was good and bad through the nine months, but we managed to stay together.  I was two weeks overdue and went into labor on the day of my induction.  I woke up at 4:00 in the morning and I knew I was in labor.  My husband had to get up at 6:00 a.m. to go to work so I just waited for his alarm to go off.  He knew I was in labor too but we weren't exactly sure when I should go to the hospital.  (When it hurt?)  I told him to go ahead and go to work.  My husband had a woman boss who sent him right back home when she heard I was in labor.

          My contractions were five minutes apart and starting to hurt.  I wanted to get to the hospital so I could get some painkillers.  I was checked at the hospital and I wasn't dilated at all.  They wanted to send me home but they let me try walking around the floor.  That did help me to dilate so I got to stay.  But I still wanted painkillers.  At some point both my husband and my mother went to the nurses to try to get my pain relief.  They kept putting me off.  They'd say first do this....then we'll give you some, do that and well give you some.  I didn't know it at the time but they were waiting for the doctor.  I went into the hospital at 7:00 a.m. and the doctor didn't get there until 7:00 p.m.  The first nurse to check me was wonderful and gentle.  The other nurse really hurt me when she checked me; I was practically climbing out of bed.  She was also really snotty with me.  She was one of the reasons that I decided never to go back to that hospital.

          My water was bulging and they decided to break my water; the contractions really hurt after that.  Then I had six hours of hard labor.  They gave me Demerol and I promptly threw up all over.  I hadn't eaten anything in 12 hours.  I was so mad because they said I wasn't in hard labor.  I was whiney: it hurts, it hurts!  My aunt came and told me to breathe.  She really helped me focus.  My mother was no help at all.  She tried but it didn't help.  She was comforting for a while then irritating.  I wanted to smack my husband out of the room when a friend of his came in and said, "Hey, what are you doing?"  I was not in the mood for visitors!

          When I was finally dilated, I pushed for two hours.  My brother came in while I was pushing.  He was horrified.  I was so touched because my brother was almost in tears because I was in having such a hard time having this baby.  I guess my brother really loves me after all!  My little girl finally entered the world.  Almost immediately after I had her, everyone left the room, all the doctors, nurses.  It was 1:30 in the morning and they had kicked everyone else out.  I was drugged, tired, and dozing off.  They still hadn't put the bed back together.  I was sitting up, half dropping the baby when I buzzed the nurse.  She came in and barked "What?"  Then took the baby. I'm not sure why the nurse was so rude and insensitive.  I'm not sure if was because I was really young, whiney, on Medicaid, or maybe she just didn't like me.  If I had it to do over, I would have requested another nurse.  I'm sure she would have been just as happy to have a different patient!  But really the most important thing is that my daughter was born safe and healthy.

Joanne's Birth of Alan

         I knew my husband was having an affair.  His new girlfriend and I looked enough alike that when friends saw them out, they assumed it was me.  I'd then find out about "our" dates in casual conversation.  Even though I knew of his infidelity, I didn't think it was serious.  I thought it would pass and we would be a normal family.

          I began to have labor pains in the morning.  My husband had to be at work by noon, so we went to the hospital early to see if I was ready to have the baby.  I was checked into the labor room.  I was pleased to see that my best friend's mother was working and would be my nurse.  My husband was getting ready to leave so he wouldn't be late for his shift when I asked him if he would please stay.  He said no, he didn't want to, and it didn't matter anyway because he had found someone else.  He then went on to say that when I came home from the hospital, he would be gone.  With that, he left me alone in the hospital.

          I just worshiped my husband, so I was really crushed!  Naturally, the whole delivery was emotional for me.  I was also on edge because I didn't know if he would come back or not.  My nurse was upset because we were so close.  I could see the shocked look on her face, then the fury, but she never said a word.  Sometime later my mother came by the hospital on her way to work to check on me.  I didn't tell her what my husband had done.  She only stayed briefly.  By the time she sat down at her desk at work, I had called her to tell her she had a new grandson.

          After the delivery, I was put into a new room and settled into my bed.  Frequently I would see people peek in the door at me.  I figured that they had all heard the story and wanted to see the woman whose husband had left her in the labor room.  That was a hard time.  I felt like a freak.

          My husband did come up to the hospital to see the baby.  I thought after he saw the baby that he might decide to stay with us to become a family.  He didn't.

          My son and I did great.  I eventually remarried and had other children.  My husband married the woman he left me for.  The ultimate irony was finding out that they had to adopt a baby because they were never able to have children of their own.