Teen Pregnancy - Vera's Story

Vera never considered adoption while she was pregnant. She "knew" she would keep her baby and reaise it herself. While she was pleasant to the two other girls who were relinquishing that semester, she said,"How could anyone give up her baby?"

But she discovered that caring for a baby full time was harder than she had expected. She began to wonder, as much as she loved Grant, if perhaps the baby would be better off with someone more ready to settle down to the constant care he demanded:

I never thought I would let anybody else take care of him, but it happened. I wasn't able to give him all the things he needed, and besides, I really didn't know how to take care of him. Grant's father and I met when I was 14. We were going to gt married as soon as I turned 16. But the first time I saw him hold Grant, I thought,"He can't do that". I couldn't realize the baby was his too. From that minute I knew we would break up. So one day I said,"You know, I'm not going to marry you," and he left.

Being pregnant was so neat. I remember when he would kick me and the funny feelings I'd get in my stomach -- it felt like butterflies. And sometimes when I was lying on the couch, he would turn completely over, and I could feel his heart beat. It was weird.

But after he was born it was hard getting up in the middle of the night every single night. Every time he cried I picked him up, and I had trouble taking care of him without falling asleep myself. Then he'd wake up again early in the morning, and in the afternoon when I wanted to take a nap. God, I was tired!

You have to clean him, change his diapers, clean up his room so it won't smell, wash his clothes, mix his formula just right. But first you have to find the right one or he'll be sick. He had a lot of problems with formula. I took him to another doctor who said he was getting too much solid food. He put Grant on plain cereal and not much of that. He was aout two months old then, and he started feeling better. When he was six months old, I decided I couldn't handle it. I asked my sister-in-law to take him, but she wouldn't. She already had a baby two months yonger than Grant.

So I tried a little longer. But if ou go to school, you don't have time to take care of a baby. He was beginning to think my mother was his real mom. And I didn't think that was good. He'd be confused at having two moms.

Then we decided to call my sister in Arizona. She already had two kids and she said she would be glad to take Grant. She hasn't adopted him -- she's just his legal guardian. But Marge(my sister) couldn't get him for almost a month, so my Mom took over. Sometimes people criticized me because I wasn't taking care of him myself. But I felt I was missing out on things with my friends and I didn't want that any longer. I feel kind of bad about that now -- I should have taken care of him until he left. Now I miss him and want to go see him.

What hurt the most was the day he left. He had just learned to crawl and I wanted to sit and watch him crawl forever!