To understand the trials and tribulations of this young mom, you should read this and this first.
Being emancipated at 16 certainly makes you feel like a full-grown adult. Everything I did was with a responsible thought process, but I certainly wasn’t perfect. Many times, I would act like a typical teen and just have a boyfriend or hang with my friends, but work, school and sports encompass your whole life and leaves little room for fun. As adulting does to everyone. Even learning to drive was taught by my older friends since I didn’t have an adult to guide me, but I managed. With a bit of scrimping and saving I bought my own $500 car at 16. It was a necessity, since you really can’t get around on Long Island without a car.
I did attend a community college through a grant due to my circumstances. Since I was a little girl, I wanted to be a “doctor of babies.” At this point I was working full time at a bank, making decent money in collections and part time at a pediatrician’s office as a medical assistant, so taking classes was part time. Many trials and tribulations with money and time management made my doctor journey take different paths, but somehow through many years, I was able to get my associates degree. Another distraction came when I was 19…pregnancy.
Unfortunately, I was always searching for the right guy to marry and start a family with. Certainly, not intentionally but to fill a void-as per my therapist. It wasn’t as though I wanted someone to take care of me, it was to create the PERFECT family that I had craved my whole childhood. So, when I was 19 and realized I was pregnant, I was elated! At the time, I felt as though I was a “grown ass woman.” Nineteen is young in the grand scheme of things, but I had lived through a lot already and felt like I was 30 so having a baby wasn’t overwhelming to me. It became my focal point. Fortunately, my boyfriend and I felt the same and did everything we could to have the healthiest, safest and best outcome.
We announced the pregnancy and planned a wedding in 6 weeks. Besides a few phone calls here and there my mom and I were still struggling to repair our relationship. She did walk me down the aisle at the wedding as she was all I had. Other than the rain, the wedding was fine. The pregnancy was perfect, and I felt great. Mentally I was in the best space ever and delved into learning everything there was to know through books, other parents and classes (there was little internet in 1988). Honestly, this was the start of my career in birth. My baby girl was born on Memorial Day, a week before my due date on a full moon. We were both healthy and thrived.
A NEW Young Family
Those first months were HARD! I knew babies were a lot of work, but I didn’t have a single role model. Matter of fact, I had never held a newborn baby before and thought the hospital would deem me unfit to leave with her. So much fumbling and guessing in those early months (who am I kidding-I still guess half the time). My daughter was colicky and screamed for 4-5 hours every night for 3 months, my husband I and became more and more distant and we did not have good resources for support. My mother in law was strict in her convictions and didn’t feel I should hold her so much so she would put her down to scream alone while my own mother had no words of wisdom. She would come and hold her for a little while and go back to Queens. My friends were clueless and there was no social media. Ahhh the trials and tribulations of a young mom!
When my baby was 4 months old, I found a babysitter and returned to work, begrudgingly. I was so affected by the lack of a relationship between my mother and I that I believed all children should have a stay at home parent. Just the thought of leaving my baby for 40+ hours per week made me sick-literally! I did not want someone else to raise my daughter and resented the fact that I had to work but I did it. By the end of the first week, I had been having headaches so bad I started to throw up. Once at the doctor, I was whisked to the hospital and put in quarantine. Everything was a whirlwind for 5 days! The only people I saw were doctors and nurses dressed in those suits you see in movies. Apparently, I had viral meningitis and it was awful. I guess your mind can make you sick.
Trials and Tribulations of a Young Marriage
My recovery was at my in laws house and slow. I had a spinal headache for a month following my hospital stay. I couldn’t sit up comfortably and hold my baby, my milk was dried up and my mother in law was not caring for her the way I would. Plus, we couldn’t find an appropriate formula for my daughter. She was more miserable then before. We later realized she was and still is lactose intolerant. Of course, I was scared, hormonal, in pain and helpless as well. My husband had to go to work every day and leave me there, but I was not happy. I was grateful for the help, but it was hard to watch someone else raise your kid the opposite way you wanted her to. I did not return to work until she was 1 and even then, I brought her with me.
That was the beginning of the end of my marriage. We grew further and further apart and didn’t have help to fix it. Even though my husband is 6 years older than me, we were young and dumb! After all, this was the divorce era and it seemed easiest to do just that. So, 14 months after we were married, we said goodbye. Just before my 21st birthday!
