Salote
Pregnant at 15
2016
I think being a kid is the best part of life. I loved primary school. I just always remember waking up extra early and getting my lunch ready. I was so independent when I was little. I’d always tell my mum, ‘I got this’. I’d pack my school bag and I’d walk off to school. I didn’t like it when my mum would drop me off. I always liked to walk to school myself.
I think it was cause I was the only girl and my mum’s just so attached to me. I think I just got to a point where I just wanted to do stuff on my own. I mean, I love being with my mum but, you know, sometimes I just wanted to be with my friends or something. I just always wanted to be a big kid. Like, act older than my age.
I think intermediate, that’s when my naughty phase started. I never really did my school work. I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll muck around for these first two years’. I was too busy worrying about plans and friends and stuff. Like, I would do my work but it wasn’t my best. I would do it and be like, ‘Oh, that’s enough’. I did have good friends in intermediate. It was like we were all good people, we just did stupid stuff together.
I was never really into alcohol. I’d have like two cans and that was me. That’s why I’d be the one driving. I’d never let my friends drive but I shouldn’t have been driving cause I didn’t even have my licence. I remember driving around thinking like, ‘I can’t wait to have my own car. I will get to go out in my own car, like, not having to have my mum there or my dad’. I just always wanted to be on my own.
You know like at school how you’d write a bucket list? I’d always write, like, ‘I can’t wait until I’m 18. I’m out of the house’. But now it’s a different story. I’m at home and I’m like, ‘When I’m 27, I’ll be out of the house’. It’s like different now.
I think it was just like every relationship. It was all good at first but then I think when he found out that I was pregnant you could tell he was stressed and stuff. When his family found out it made him worse. Like he always had anger issues but he never showed it until later on in the relationship. He’d just get angry over small things and then he like hit me. I was like five months pregnant and it wasn’t just a hit, it was a hit and a shove and you know.
When I first found out I was pregnant, I was at the hospital and he kept saying to abort it. I didn’t hear from him for like a week and the thing was, it went out so fast. Like everyone knew I was pregnant. I think he was kind of ashamed cause everyone knew it was his baby. He was just keeping everything on like the down low or whatever. He told everyone it wasn’t his, that it wasn’t his baby. And like it kind of made me sad but I didn’t want to make a fuss out of it. I just kind of let him do his own thing.
But then it got through his head, I guess. He moved in with us and he would help out and all that stuff. But then he got kicked out of school and that was just so stressful cause he was doing nothing.
I stayed with him cause I was all about wanting my son to have like a family and stuff. I didn’t want him to have someone around who’s not his dad. I wanted him to see like, ‘family is forever’. Like, you know, ‘mum and dad love each other’. But then I didn’t want him around if he was hitting me.
There was like one time that he gave me a bleeding eye. His family was there to stop it but the cops still came. I guess my family didn’t blame my ex because they knew how he was such an angry person. Like me and my family, we just wanted to help him but he just thought like different of it.
It got to a point where I was sick of it. It didn’t end on good terms. I just broke it off and he ended up coming to my house and he literally gave me a hiding and that’s when I had to go get a protection order. He didn’t want me to move on and stuff. I wanted to stay with him but I couldn’t. Adriel was only three months old at the time.
I was the first out of my friends. Like, we don’t have any other baby mamas. All my friends cried when they found out I was pregnant. I think just cause they know how I am with them. Like cause I’m still young. They were happy I wasn’t like aborting the baby, but they just said, ‘I had a lot of growing up to do’, and all that.
But I think it’s like shown them as well cause they used to think, ‘Teen mums aren’t going to get nowhere in life’, and then they look at me and see like, ‘Still in school and looking after a baby at the same time’. Having a baby at a young age does effect your life but it doesn’t really make it worse.
I judged teen mums until I became one. I know the struggle now. When I first found out I was pregnant I thought my life had turned upside down. But that’s because I thought that’s how teen mums’ lives were. Everything just goes downhill from then. But I think it only goes downhill for me if it goes downhill. Right now everything’s going like great.
I love life so much now. Everything is just like that saying, ‘The grass is greener on the other side’. Like it’s so true. I used to tell myself, ‘It’s only for a few years that it’s going to be like this and then it’s going to be so happy after that’. But I love life so much right now. Even though I’m struggling, I’m still happy.
Everyone always tells me I should regret my ex but then in a way he’s kind of helped me. There were times I would choose him over my family but I think it just made me realise that my family are the only people I need. Even though my mum and I are a bit crazy, it’s true. They are there and they are the only ones who will be there for me. Not only for me but for my son as well.
Before I got pregnant, I was so careless. I didn’t care how I was and stuff. But I don’t want Adriel to be like that, so I changed the way I act and stuff. Especially like when he’s five or something. They start seeing how you act and they’ll start acting like that. I don’t want him to be like that. If I was still the same person from two years ago my mum would have been looking after him. But I feel like everything is meant to happen because my life is like the happiest I’ve ever been.
It is hard but then like I’m not planning on having more kids any time soon. I’ll be at home complaining, ‘I’m so tired’, but it’s the last time I’m ever going to have him like when he’s a baby. Then he’s going to grow up and do his own thing. So I’m just enjoying him while he’s young, while he’s still with me, until he becomes what he wants to be on his own. That’s when I’ll be really sad.
I just want Adriel to be happy. I just want him to have a childhood he will remember like when he’s older. Like you know, ‘I always used to do this with my mum when I was a little kid’, and all that stuff. I don’t want to grow up and be like, ‘Oh, I had a stink childhood’. I want him to be a happy little kid.
In the future, I hope to, you know, have my life sorted. When I say that I mean like my school’s sussed and I’ll be working hopefully doing something I enjoy. Adriel will be like healthy and fit. He’ll be in school being good. I hope it’s just us two doing life together and if I have a partner by then we will see how that goes.
