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Can you Imagine?!?!
So one of my friends, C, is the homeschool teacher and he told me yesterday that a girl gave birth on Monday. Now at the high school where I teach, we have some 8 girls either pregnant or having just gave birth (one to her second child). So, that's not a shocking... but SHE DIDN'T KNOW SHE WAS PREGNANT. I mean I've heard of the show and I've heard of this happening but can you IMAGINE being 15 or 16 and then BOOM, you have a child, in your hands?!?! OMGosh!!
Crazy... It must be hard enough to tell your parents in a situation like that but imagine telling them and not saying you're going to be grandparents but you ARE grandparents... here!
With the teen pregnancies we have, so often the baby is mostly raised by the grandparents. Like when one of my girls just came back, she was talking about having to try different formula and then she said, "I dont know, my mom is going to go get the other kind, not sure what it's called." My mom always told us, "if you get pregnant, you're raising that child on your own." Not sure what I'd do....
Re: Can you Imagine?!?!
When I was in high school there was a girl a grade younger than me (so she would have been in Grade 11) who got pregnant and no one knew! She was super thin too but it was back in the late 90's where baggy was the style so she just wore a hoodie sweat shirt every day to hide her bump. She didn't even tell her parents until she was 8 months pregnant. She gave the baby up for adoption but then actually took her back a few days after and is raising her and now has a 12 year old!
I honestly don't know what I would do either in Mackenzie got pregnant in high school. I guess I'd do whatever I could to try to teach her responsibility but also help her to be able to graduate and go to college and make something better of her life for her and her child.
By all accounts, the girl didn't know either. I mean I suppose she could have possibly known and just hid it but what we were told is she had no idea. I've had a couple of girls who WE didn't know about the pregnancy and the girls hid it. This girl is either a 10th or 11th grader too.
So sad, we have a good 8-10 girls pregnant or just having given birth. We have 525 total students... sigh.
My sister was 18 when she got pregnant and didn't find out until she was 28 weeks! It was hilarious to the rest of us because we just thought she was getting chubby... She went in for an ultrasound thinking she was around 5 or 6 weeks, and said 'I didn't know they have faces and fingers like that at 6 weeks'. The ultrasound tech said 'they don't... You're in your third trimester'
I can't believe how many teen pregnancies you have in your school! When I graduated we had 2 that were pregnant, and one girl had to drop out the year before to have a baby but that was it. Do most of the girls stay in school at least?
A lot of them do stay in school. I teach in Watts, also known as the Compton area. If you've never heard of it, it's South Central Los Angeles... you know where they film gangland episodes and the stuff rappers are talking about, where drive by shootings are common and gang retaliation is more likely an alert that we're on than any other kind. It's unfortunate, but we have a LOT of teen pregnancy.
I'm not sure how many girls at my HS got pregnant in HS, but I can say I was always in the honors/AP classes, and so most of my peer group were those students. The big news Fall of Senior Year was the head of the foreign language dept's son (who I grew up with and was always in my classes) got his gf pregnant. She was also always in my classes. They got married, thanks to their parents making them, and a week later she miscarried. She was so distraught about losing the baby, they actually TTC and she was like 5 months pregnant at graduation and prom. They are still married and have their daughter and a younger son. I think they were mostly able to pull it off because his parents helped them immensely and let them live with them and financially supported them.
My parents always said if my sister or I got pregnant in HS we were on our own. I didn't have to worry about that though, I was a dork and was definitely NOT having sex in HS. Call me a prude, or a nerd, but I just wasn't ready, and no boys had any interest in me anyway, so that solved that problem.
Oh man! That's nuts. I seriously can't imagine being a teenager and dealing with that, though there are young moms that come out okay. Definitely makes life more challenging and harder I would think.
We never dealt with any teen pregnancies at my school. My high school (private) was fortunate I guess... Actually, I'm pretty sure that there haven't been any teen pregnancies in the past 10 years or more. It's a smallish high school and news like that would spread fast even if a girl managed to hide it until after graduation. I do know of a handful of kids who had or were having sex though.
When I was a secretary at our school board, I can't tell you how many home bound schooling requests came across my desk for pregnancies. A ridiculous amount.
I don't know what I'd do if my kid got pregnant or got someone pregnant. I don't think i'd ever cut them off because that would most likely hurt the child more than anyone. But the majority of the responsibility would definitely be on my child to take care of it. That's assuming that the baby was kept.
This was totally me, too.
At our school, honors/AP doesn't make a difference. Last year, out of the 28 AP students I had, two were pregnant before graduation. This year, one of my SMARTEST AP girls arrived senior year pregnant... she gave birth a little over a month ago. She's back but having missed the first semester, she's no longer in any AP classes. 
I live in Texas which has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country (if not the highest). Of my two best middle school friends and I we all got pregnant before graduation. One of my friends was 14 and dropped out of EIGHTH GRADE and got married to the 24 year old dad. They're still married (unhappily) with three kids total and live on government assistance. My other friend was seventeen. She finished High School and works at McDonalds.
When I got pregnant at 15, my parents were very pissed. I really think they did the right thing in how they supported me. It was very clear that the baby was my responsibility and I stepped up completely. I didn't know it at the time, but my mom was shocked I actually took care of the baby and never once dropped the ball or made her get up at night.
Having been a teen mom myself, I find it so hard not to judge other teen moms who just let their mothers raise their babies. It's really hard, but it can be done with the right kind of support. I hope the girl at your school (and her parents) adjust quickly and the baby is well loved and cared for.
William born 7/12/2000
Andrew born 10/30/2011 (9lb 4oz at 37 weeks)