April 26, 1999
Message from expectant teens: Don't have sex
By Cathy Willoughby
Staff Writer
Three pregnant teens, all with varying stories to tell. Yet they seem to have a common bond besides their pregnancies. That they come from homes where parents were absent or neglectful.
They will be identified as Teen One, Two and Three. They agreed to talk about their experiences, hoping that their stories might help others understand their plight and prevent the same from happening to others.
"He's still my boyfriend,'' Teen One said of the father of her baby. She is currently 8 1/2 months pregnant, due June 5. She is 15 years old.
"I only knew him for a day before we had sex. I met him in the morning, we had sex that night.''
That, however, was not her first sexual encounter.
"It was the day before I turned 14,'' she said, "with somebody else. I guess I did it because I wanted to feel love by a guy; my father was not around to give me that manly kind of love. I just said OK Š I was scared, but I just let it happen. He was 24; the guy I lost my virginity to was married and had three kids.''
She met him on the street, when she was walking. He had a nice car and would stop and talk to her; their friendship grew over a three-month period. After their sexual encounter, he left her. Her current boyfriend is 20. They were sexually active about four times a week until her pregnancy.
"We used them before all the times but this one,'' Teen One said of contraceptives. "I guess that time we just didn't want to use anything. Nothing was there at the time we felt that urge.''
"We usually had sex at my home,'' she said. "Nobody was there; everybody was out at parties. My parents were usually down the street at a friend's house partying.''
She is planning on keeping her baby at home until she is 18.
Teen Two, who is 17, is six 1/2 months pregnant. She had her first sexual experience at age 12, partly due to her unwillingness to appear "stupid'' to her friends.
"He was 13,'' she said. "I knew him a week, tops. My best friend was going out with his brother. I lied and told him that I wasn't a virgin; I didn't want to look stupid. I guess it was peer pressure; now my friends come to me, and ask me questions like, 'How do you do this?' I've always felt kind of like a guinea pig, because I was the first in our group.''
That first young boy stayed with her for three years.
"I had sex every day with him,'' she said. "Wherever it was available, just anywhere, a lot at his house.''
The baby's father is 23; she met him while she was working.
"He was friends with my friend's boyfriend,'' she said. "At first we didn't get along; I didn't like him at work at all. And we didn't use any contraception, we just forgot.''
Now he has left her and moved out of state. Teen Two said that she cannot locate him, a problem since she is thinking of giving her baby up for adoption.
"I want to go back home and the only way I can go back home is if I give the baby up for adoption,'' she said. "My mother is not happy about the pregnancy, but she accepts it now. My dad doesn't accept it, he's not happy."
This is Teen Two's second pregnancy; the first ended in miscarriage several years ago.
Teen Three is 15 years old and two and a half months pregnant. She began her sexual activity not long ago, exactly one month after her 15th birthday.
"I knew him, but I had never talked to him before,'' she recalled. "We were at a party, and I got really intoxicated. You know how that goes. He was going out before with one of my friends, and we were at some party and he talked me into having sex with him.''
"He is still just a friend,'' she added. "He was 17 and I had sex just one time with him. I'm easily influenced, and I believed we would be together then. We had sex just once, and instead, I got pregnant.''
Her parents still are upset; Teen Three said that her mother realized she was pregnant before she did.
"She is really upset with me,'' she said. "I wasn't going to school a lot, because I was always getting sick in the morning.''
Her future for the unborn child she is carrying is uncertain right now.
"I'm not sure whether I want to keep the baby or give it up for adoption,'' she said. "I'm still thinking about it.
"If I could go back,'' she added, "I would change what happened. I wouldn't have behaved the way I did in the first place.''
And if her child is a girl, what would she do differently to insure her daughter's well-being.
"I never really had much supervision; I would have supervision over her,'' she said. "I would let my kids know that they can come to me if they start to have sex. I would them them know what could happen, all right, and talk to them and educate them on how to use birth control.''