This blog post comes to us from Do Something, a non-profit organization that empowers young people to engage in the causes they're passionate about.
A baby crying is not exactly the ideal wake-up call. I know that now more than ever. After signing up for the "Pregnancy Text," I sat and thought about what this could be like. I can handle it, I thought. Little did I know that I was in for a rather large surprise.
The week the pregnancy texts started coming, my schedule could not have been more hectic. I only had two weeks left in my second semester of college and was trying to study, do homework and work all at the same time. Throw in a baby and I could have sold tickets to the circus act that my week had turned in to. On Monday, I was offered a promotion at work with a pay raise. "Did I want the job?" they asked me. Heck yes, I did! I started the job and started working later hours. After getting home at midnight, I would shower, change my clothes, plug in my headphones and buckle down with my homework and YouTube until four in the morning, just in time to catch a few hours of sleep, wake up, and do the whole thing over again. Then, all of a sudden, my phone started going off every morning. The baby was awake and needed me. The baby was hungry and needed food. The baby was crying and needed a diaper change. Needless to say, this baby was driving me crazy.
Back in my little high school in Illinois, you could not swing a dead cat without hitting someone pregnant. Teenage girls who had no idea what they were getting themselves into were with child everywhere you turned. I had always believed that getting pregnant in high school or any time before I was married and settled down, would be the hardest thing I could ever do. Looking at these girls and getting these pregnancy texts only reassured me of this. For me, having a baby right now would change my life. I would have to stop working as much. Trying to get to class and make the grades I am used to would be like climbing a mountain that had no peak -- difficult and disappointing. Trying to be a college student at all would be almost impossible.
If I could give any advice to teens out there right now, it would be to take this challenge and do the Pregnancy Text. Learn about what having a baby really means and how it would change your life before you are toting around a diaper bag. A baby would change my life completely, and I am not ready for that. Are you?