“Things Teenage Girls Always Wanted to Know About Gynecology”
Episode 5: Teenage Pregnancy
Bringing life into this world is supposed to be a beautiful thing, and when the time is right with the right person, pregnancy can be a lifelong dream. But in some cases, this news is not always expected or wanted, especially when you’re a young teenage girl in high school. Teenage pregnancy is a rollercoaster, and, depending whether the teen chooses to carry or abort, this experience can be tricky and one that many choose to stay away from at a young age.
Teen pregnancy comes with many big decisions that young girls aren’t always prepared to make while balancing the hardships that come with growing up and being in high school, let alone pregnancy. I’m sure most girls would rather be deciding which Starbucks drink they want than deciding if they’d like to be a mother at 16. Protected sex should be practiced if you want to avoid pregnancy, but teenagers aren’t always smart. I’ve had a few girlfriends who have had to make these tough decisions at the ages of just 16 and 17. Some made the decision to abort, while others chose to carry, and both decisions changed them. Going from parties every weekend to diapers every day isn’t easy, but neither is having an abortion. That decision is never made easily, but facing what others may think of the decision is even harder. High school kids are full of judgment and most of the time don’t understand what it’s really like to have to make these kinds of choices at this age.
I had a girlfriend I knew briefly who got pregnant at age 17. She was one of those friends you only saw and hung out with at parties. We followed each other all over social media, so I also kept up with her day-to-day life outside of the weekends. Her life, from an outside perspective, looked like it was flipped upside down. She literally went from being the average teenage girl to a responsible mother in a matter of months. She now works and provides for her child like a normal adult mother would, despite having had her baby towards the end of high school. It looked like she got her life together pretty fast, which I think helped her avoid most of the backlash from our peers. I believe she was a lucky one. While she had a supportive mother and partner to have the child responsibly, I also knew someone else who was less fortunate. This young girl was pregnant at 17 as well and had to make the decision to abort because she didn’t have this kind of support. As they always say, it takes a village to raise a child, and despite only being in one relationship all high school, when she got the news, her boyfriend wasn’t supportive at all. She also thought her parents would react the same way due to lack of trust, so she made the decision to abort when she knew she wouldn’t be able to give the child the life it deserved. Both young girls had to go through life-changing decisions at very vulnerable stages in their lives that I couldn’t even imagine having to make. Growing up and becoming the young adult I am hasn’t always been easy, but I couldn’t picture going through pregnancy on top of everything else I’ve gone through as a teenage girl. This all makes me wonder whether I should judge them for being careless and becoming pregnant at a young age or applaud them for their bravery in being able to make such mature decisions in their adolescence.