Pregnant Teen....

I have several children, and as a youngster I babysat for a 16-year-old mother.

I felt "funny" probably within a week of becoming pregnant. My appetite immediately kicked up. A month or so later, the pregnancy test was no surprise.

Ultrasound involves a disgusting warm goo they spread on your stomach. Otherwise, it wasn't bad.

People sure do touch pregnant women inappropriately and make inappropriate comments. I got some doozies.

By the way, a pregnant belly is pretty hard, I guess to protect the baby. Right towards the end of my pregnancies, I got "false labor," which is when the belly clenches up for a moment and gets harder. It didn't hurt.

Thanks to hormones, there is usually a rush of relief and wellbeing and love on giving birth. Not that it doesn't hurt.

The 16-year-old I babysat for was pretty sad. She still wanted to party and be a teenager, and she didn't really take care of the baby. The house was always smelly and messy, and the baby's diaper was never changed when I went there. I'm sure there are very good teenage moms, but she was one of the overwhelmed ones.

Oh, and I couldn't feel the baby until about month 5. Then it was like someone tapping me lightly on the shoulder. A couple of months later, I could feel it when the baby got hiccups, which they did, a lot. The doctor said that was a good, healthy sign. By month 7 you could see the baby rolling around in me like a cat under a blanket, especially if they stuck out an elbow or knee. Thank goodness for that tough, muscly hard belly. By month 9 the baby was stuck upside down (no more rolling around), but they tickled, I swear, with their fingers.

If you have access to MTV watch their series "Teen Mom" and "16 and Pregnant" to see how kids, male and female, react to pregnancy at that age. It's incredibly eye opening. Almost none of the boys are able to set childhood aside and become providers. Many drop the girls immediately. Other try to stick it out, but they want things to be as they were, and they simply don't get that they will need to change their lifestyles. The girls are very often much more involved in trying to keep the boys or in trying to convince the boys to be responsible than they are in preparing to be moms. The girls usually focus once the baby is there (out of sheer necessity), but they greatly miss their old lives. Parents on the show seem to be remarkably supportive of the girls, but not all are supportive of the boys.

I find myself screaming at the TV quite a bit.

Well, I was a teen mom, and my son was a teen dad. So maybe I can help with this.
The thing is, some stuff has changed (medically; ultrasounds, for instance) in the 20+ years since I was a pregnant teenager. Fortunately, I'm pregnant again now, so I can give you an updated version, assuming your story is set in modern times, not in the late 80s or early 90s.

Okay, let's see:

How does it feel? How long until you actually start to notice that it's there?

Click to expand...

I realized I was pregnant pretty much immediately, because my periods had always been regular, until I missed one. If your character has less-than-regular periods (which a lot of teenagers do) it might be awhile before she realizes. There weren't many symptoms at first, except that my breasts were sore.
By about six weeks, I began to be very nauseous.
At the time (20 years ago), I was vomiting so frequently during my first trimester that I became dehydrated and lost a lot of weight.
These days, however, there is a new medication, which did not exist back then, called Zofran. It is used to treat nausea, and I've been on it for this entire pregnancy, and it's made things much easier this time around.
With both pregnancies, I did not gain any weight or show much at all until the second trimester. This is pretty typical for a lot of women. At around four months, I began to feel a little bit of movement from the baby. Now (I'm currently 6 & a half months) I'm feeling kicks.

What's the ultrasound like, physically? Emotionally (guys and gals)?

Click to expand...

With my first pregnancy, they made me drink a lot of water and hold it during the ultrasound.
This is apparently no longer a requirement, since I haven't been asked to do it this time around. I guess ultrasound technology has improved.
What's it like? Well, they put a gel on your stomach. They usually warm the gel first, if they're nice. Then they roll this thing over your stomach while you look at this screen mounted on the wall. You can see this blobby gray image, but it's hard to tell exactly what's what, until they start pointing it out to you (there's a cursor; they point to things and say, here's the head, etc).
My first pregnancy, I had only one ultrasound, and they couldn't determine the sex, because he was turned the wrong way.
This pregnancy, I've had two so far (and I believe this is standard practice today).
One was at 8 weeks; basically, they just wanted to see that the fetus was alive and had a heartbeat, and look at internal structures- ovaries, etc.- to make sure everything was healthy.
The 8 week appointment was my first appointment; they also did a ton of bloodwork.
Second ultrasound was at 20 or 21 weeks, and that's the one where they were able to tell the sex of the fetus (boy, in my case) and they also examined and measured various parts of the baby to make sure it was healthy and growing properly. They looked at the heart, the brain, the kidneys, everything.
Emotionally, it was as you'd probably expect: a very happy experience.

I know you didn't ask this, but it might help your story to know it; in a normal, healthy pregnancy, the first prenatal appointment is at eight weeks, and there is an appointment once each month after that. During the last month of pregnancy, there's an appointment every week. Most of the appointments consist of nothing more than the doctor checking your weight, blood pressure, measuring
your belly, listening to the fetal heartbeat with a doppler. You also have to give a urine sample at each appointment.

A pregnant teenager, of course, might miss some appointments. She might not get started with prenatal care until later in the pregnancy.
I'm assuming her parents' insurance would cover her care, or you could have her getting free prenatal care at a community health clinic.

If you were a pregnant teen, I'm sure it must've felt different --- how did you tell your parent/guardian(s)? Did you tell them at all? Did they take it well?

Click to expand...

Yes, my parents took it well; they had expected me to tell them something worse. They were relieved that was all that was wrong (I was pretty bad when I was younger).

Nearly two years ago, I had the same experience when my son and his girlfriend told me she was pregnant: I was relieved that that was all. A new life did not seem like such a tragedy, after everything I'd already been through with the boy. I hoped that being a dad would help straighten him out. I offered to help as much as I could. I was- God help me- pretty excited about being a grandma, actually. It's not like my son was college-bound. He was doing nothing productive with his life anyway, and I hoped parenthood would be a good thing for him, a growing experience.
I'm almost positive this is exactly how my parents felt also, when confronted with my pregnancy 20+ years ago.

When the baby is born....
Ladies, did you cry? Guys? How did you feel? The first time you held your kid, how did it make you feel? When my brother and his wife had their first child, when my brother first held her he said, "I already love you more than everything." Did you feel this way? Anything else you wanna share?

Click to expand...

So hard to remember. So long ago. I think I cried. I was pretty depleted by the time my son was actually born. I don't recall that my son's father was crying, although he was there. I remember that we both threw up in the delivery room, lol. I threw up in this basin during delivery, and for some reason he grabbed a basin and threw up too. Nervousness, I think.

I loved my son as soon as I saw him, but like I said, I was very groggy and depleted after a long hard labor, and I'm not sure I felt an instant bond with him. I think that came a little bit later, after I'd had some sleep.

Who knows what it'll be like this time, though; it could be totally different.

Anyway, hope that helps. Good luck!
(I focused more on the practical aspects because you can pretty much imagine/make up the emotional stuff. It's different for each person, anyway).

How long until you actually start to notice that it's there?
Depends on the woman. You could look some of this stuff up on Books like "What to expect when you're expecting." It's a really easy read with little blurbs for specific questions.

What's the ultrasound like, physically?
The first 2 appointments, you have to drink a LOT of water, so they can use the water in your stomach to "see" the baby. Then, they press down on your ready-to-burst bladder with the ultrasound handle that looks like a Wii controller. I've heard it's quite uncomfortable. During the later months, you don't have to drink before the appointment, and around the 23 week, they can tell you the sex of the baby.


One time when my mom was pregnant with my little brother, a random person came up to her and felt her stomach. Another time one asked, "Haven't you had that baby yet?" Does this really happen (often, I mean, or does it happen to a majority of women) or is my mom just a weirdo?
One of my friends was pregnant and a woman asked her when she was due. My friend pretended to be offended and said that she wasn't pregnant... Yes, weird things happen to pregnant women, but sometimes it's because people from different cultures or backgrounds think they're being normal when they ask to feel the belly or do it without asking.


When the baby is born....
Ladies, did you cry? Guys? How did you feel? The first time you held your kid, how did it make you feel? When my brother and his wife had their first child, when my brother first held her he said, "I already love you more than everything." Did you feel this way? Anything else you wanna share?
The woman's body releases a cocktail of emotions when the baby is born. Oxytocin is one of them. These hormones usually facilitate bonding with the baby. If you don't have a baby, but you have a pet, the feeling when you cuddle your pet is a tiny version of the "just had a baby" feeling. However, there is also a decrease in other hormones that have been helping the mother maintain and nurture the fetus. This can have an adverse affect on the woman's mood, which can sometimes lead to Post partum depression (though many factors can contribute to post partum).

Lastly, many things that can impact the well-being of the mother/baby are subtle, but if you are doing it from the teen pov, then it might be worth to note that stressers such as having a place to stay, enough food to eat, relationship worries with significant other/ parents can affect the letdown of milk. The mother's mood and, to a somewhat lesser extent, the father's mood, can affect the psychological development of the child.

Edit: There are a lot of doctor's appointments. Once per month, then i think at 6 or 7 months, it's twice a month, then at 8-9 months, once per week.

Also, my high school didn't allow teen moms to go to school with us. At least, as soon as someone started showing, they had to go to the "special kids' school" - that's where the differently abled kids went. I don't know if that was policy or what, but that's what always happened.


Hope I formatted this right.