I really feel rotten, and I hate to admit this, but…I’m jealous of L’il Annie. I used to get love and attention and tender loving care, now…now I’m just lonely, frightened, exhausted, depressed, really, really depressed.
Cinderella Annie…with no Fairy Godmother to come save me.
October 2, Wednesday
7:59 p.m.
Mom came home from school and found me fainted on the floor just outside the bathroom. I don’t know how she brought me out of it, but Mrs. Turner, who lives down the hall, came to sit with L’il Annie while Mom took me to the doctor. He said it was mainly being run down and exhausted. Mom was tense about me, but I didn’t care about myself. I was only concerned about L’il Annie. Mrs. Turner is soooooooooooo old, I wasn’t sure she’d remember what to do from the way-back time when she had her kids.
October 4, Friday
9:45 p.m.
I’m back in my old routine, but I am sooooooooooo tired and drained all the time. After getting L’il Annie and myself ready for school and feeding us, I’m ready to go back to bed. Anyway, life goes on…but barely. Dr. Milshaw talked to me for a while after lunch. She thinks I’m depressed, but I’m not; I’m just tired, all-the-time, to-the-bone tired.
I’m scared about Mom too. She’s so busy taking care of me and the baby that she doesn’t have time to take care of herself. I dread to think what would happen if anything happened to her.
October 5, Saturday
6:45 p.m.
I love L’il Annie with all my heart. I adore her! But I find all that is expected of me is harder and harder to handle each day!!!! Last night I dreamed I was a little teeny kid myself, going down life’s slippery, slippery slide…slowly, slowly going down, down, down, though I was trying to hold onto each side with my hands and by bracing my feet. It was scary and exhausting. I wonder if it meant something; dreams sometimes do. Maybe I’ll get a dream book from the library, but probably not; it’s too much trouble.
9:20 p.m.
I know Mom’s worried about me, even though I try my hardest to be cheery and keep my part of the house and the baby up and everything. She’s a good mom.
I’m trying really hard to do everything Dr. B. suggested about keeping my attitude positive and my energy level up, but…. Sorry, just got the baby down; think I’ll go to bed myself.
October 6, Sunday
11:49 p.m.
Dearest, dearest confidante and friend:
You won’t believe what happened. Right after dinner, Bishop Marden, from the church that Mom and I have gone to a few times, came by. Actually, Mom had called because she was so worried about me and L’il Annie, and…I guess, everything. Anyway, Bishop Marden was so…so much like a kind, wise grandfather that I could see little kids laughing and climbing on his knee and playing horsey on his bucking foot, and all those things that little kids need.
He stayed for a long time and Mom fixed her special banana and frozen strawberry and orange juice blender drink, and we talked about Annie and me and “unplanned pregnancies” that happen to very good, good girls. It took him and Mom a while to convince me that I was one of them, but I finally believed it. I really do! I’m not the—all the things Danny said I was—I am just one of the dumb, immature kids who made some very, very, very stupid choices that I’m going to have to live with for the rest of my life.
Bishop Marden told us about his son and daughter and their families. How much they love each other and work and play, and laugh and tease, and sometimes bicker together. He said the disagreeing was a very normal part of life’s problem-solving program if it’s handled without people losing control.
As he talked, a part of me realized how much L’il Annie would be missing by not having a real father—I haven’t seen mine in a couple of years—or a grandfather, or…I started crying, and they both comforted me like I was the little kid I really still am in many ways.
Bishop Marden gently told me to be superkind and considerate of myself until I have adjusted to my new role, and more emotional healing has taken place. Then he started talking about adoption so lovingly and sacredly…YES, SACREDLY! that my heart bleeds for the sad, lonely, grown-up couples who love each other and aren’t blessed with the cooing sounds and smells and feels of a baby.
He told us of one couple he knew, actually fairly distant relatives of his, who had longed and prepared and prayed for children all the seven years of their marriage. He even showed us a beautiful picture of them and their big dog, which had a smile on its face that reminded me of Newley. When Bishop Marden finally told us good night, he reminded us again that he would always be available if we needed him.
Mom and I both wanted to stop him, but instead we fell into each other’s arms and talked for almost five hours, about the pros and cons of allowing L’il Annie the privilege of living with the complete, mature, full family that is part of Bishop Marden’s huge, mature, extended family. He hadn’t mentioned it himself, but…how could I ever part with L’il Annie? It would be like giving up part of my body and my soul…. I don’t know much about soul…but I know there’s something beyond what I know! Something important and powerful and eternally omnipotent! I don’t even know what the word means, but I heard it once and it feels right!!!!!!!!!!!!!
October 10, Thursday
8:21 p.m.
Mom and I met Bishop Marden’s relatives. They’re a beautiful young couple, in fact he has my hair and face coloring, and she has my light brown eyes. Mom says they’re “gold.” Steve calls his wife Jo-Jo (her name is really Josephine) “Golden Eyes” because her eyes are light brown too. Isn’t that strange?
And another thing strange, L’il Annie was crying when I picked her up, but as soon as Jo-Jo held her with Steve goo-gooing over her shoulder, the little stinker started smiling and drooling. It was like an omen or something, but not really! I AM NOT GOING TO GIVE HER UP!
10:31 p.m.
Mom and I talked for another couple of hours, and I’m sooooooo confused. I want L’il Annie to have all the love and security and normalcy that Steve and Jo-Jo can give her, but still I’m sure I’ll just wither away and die, and I’ll forever feel guilty and like I’ve committed two major sins instead of one! I wish I knew how to pray. I remember when I was teeny-tiny, Mom took me to Sunday School for a while; then Dad didn’t want her to anymore. I wonder why not? Why didn’t he want me and Mom to do lots of things we wanted to do? I guess maybe that means I didn’t really have an exactly normal childhood, and I want L’il Annie to have one! I really truly do! I do, but I DON’T! I won’t give her up…yet how can I, a barely fifteen-year-old kid…I know Mom will help, but she’s got a life of her own. I wish, though, that she’d tell me what to do! But she said it had to be my decision. I know she’ll support me a million percent and I suspect she thinks…Jo-Jo and Steve both love the names Mary Ann and L’il Annie, and we’ve seen pictures of their house, and he is SO STABLE AND KIND, and he treats Jo-Jo like she’s the smartest, nicest, most perfect thing in the world, and she loves and respects him the same way. It’s exactly the way a nice family should be. I wouldn’t want Mom to know this, but it’s like the one I wish I had grown up in, instead of us living in that dingy one-room apartment while Mom finished getting her teaching credentials. It was so scary and dangerous there that neither one of us dared go out after the sun went down.
Thinking about that, I’ve got to be realistic and consider what would happen to L’il Annie and me if something happened to Mom. What if she got married again in the next year or so? No way would her new husband want to be saddled with a baby and a mother kid. I wish I…I don’t even know what to wish. I want L’il Annie to be taught ethics, to have good role models—but from still-little-kid me? I’m not sure.
January 7, Tuesday
Dear Daisy Diary:
I’ve been weeping from loneliness, guilt, and pain for three months, but I know in my heart…at least, sometimes I think I know in my heart, that it was right to allow L’il Annie the opportunity to grow up in
an normal adult home with normal adult parents, who love her and also respect and love each other. But I hurt so much, I honestly didn’t know anyone could hurt this much and not die. I don’t think I could make it without…I’m not sure I am going to make it.
Often I feel L’il Annie’s soft little fist burrowing its way down into my fist, and I miss her nuzzling and cooing and baby hugs so much that there are not enough hurtful words in the world to express it. And at night sometimes I wake up feeling so empty that I’m just a dead shell of what used to be a living creature. OH, I do hope I won’t always and forever feel this empty, dark, lonely, incomplete, totally useless, totally expendable way. I guess I’ve got to dwell more on what, in the overall picture, is right for Annie!!!!! Yes! That’s the only thing I can do. I’m sure…well, almost sure, that that’s what God wants me to do! I wish—I honestly, truly, absolutely, for sure knew…whatever.
January 9, Thursday
6:23 p.m.
Mom bounced in about an hour ago, like a little five-year-old kid. She had a torn-open letter in her hand and was gushing and laughing and stumbling over words until I wondered for a minute if she had had a nervous breakdown instead of me. Finally she collapsed on the floor, dragging me down beside her, and told me that she had received an offer to be the vice principal at a fancy, high-paying, respected private school upstate.
“You, a vice principal,” I giggled. “The kids will eat you alive, you twinky.”
She wrestled me over her knee and tickled me, then gave me a few swats on the rear. “That’s what I’ll do to them too, even the biggest jocks if they get mouthy with me.”
We scuffled for a while, teasing and tittering like we hadn’t done in a forever of forevers. It was wonderful, and I knew for the first time since…you know, that I truly could make it.
January 27, Monday
6:32 a.m.
Before I take the last box out to the car and tremblingly tiptoe into my new life, I must take one last-time look at the two hearts I carved on the big old weeping willow tree behind our apartment complex the day after my first meeting with Danny on the junior high school soccer field.
Questions from Teenagers about Pregnancy and STDs
(Sexually Transmitted Diseases)
“CAN I GET PREGNANT THE FIRST TIME?”
Yes, if you are in the fertile part of your menstrual cycle.
“A GIRL AT MY SCHOOL SAYS SHE GOT PREGNANT AND SHE DIDN’T EVEN REALLY…YOU KNOW ‘DO IT.’ THAT’S NOT POSSIBLE, IS IT?”
Yes, it is possible for a girl to get pregnant without intercourse. One drop of semen (the fluid secreted by the male reproductive organs) can contain as many as 50,000 sperm. If the semen touches the vulva (the external, visible part of the female sexual organs) only one of these aggressive swimmers needs to wiggle its way up the vagina (the muscular passage forming part of the female reproductive system) and through the cervix. Then we have a case like the girl you mentioned.
“DOES THAT HAPPEN A LOT?”
Chances are against it because it is some distance from the vulva to the uterus (where the baby grows). Young people may feel safer “fooling around” instead of having intercourse, but that is a false sense of security, since the odds of a renegade sperm getting loose are directly based on the number of exposures.
“HOW EFFECTIVE IS IT TO TAKE THE PENIS OUT BEFORE THE GUY COMES?”
The risk of pregnancy is great. Even before ejaculation there is a chance that a drop or two of semen will be secreted, and remember that each drop can contain about 50,000 sperm.
“HOW SAFE IS ‘SAFE SEX’ WITH CONDOMS?”
Not one hundred percent. Even using a latex condom with a spermicide is not one hundred percent safe one hundred percent of the time. Of one hundred women whose partners always use condoms, about twelve will become pregnant during the first year of typical use, if the condom is used correctly. Sometimes it isn’t, as all users know. The medical field considers condoms an “unreliable barrier” against pregnancy.
“HOW SAFE IS THE BIRTH CONTROL PILL?”
Of one hundred women taking the birth control pill for a year and using it according to directions, three may become pregnant.
“WHAT ABOUT NORPLANT? HOW SAFE IS IT?”
Norplant is 99.96 percent effective. A clinician puts six small capsules (shorter than toothpicks and a little bit thicker) under the skin in the girl’s upper arm. The capsules constantly release small amounts of hormones that prevent the discharge of eggs from the ovaries and thicken cervical mucus to keep sperm from joining the egg. The Norplant can be removed at any time by a clinician. It protects against pregnancy for five years but is not effective against any sexually transmitted diseases. It costs about five hundred dollars and is covered by some insurance policies.
“TELL ME ABOUT THE SHOT.”
Depo-Provera is a shot that will keep you from getting pregnant for twelve weeks. The shot contains a hormone that keeps the female’s eggs from leaving her ovaries. It also thickens the mucus at the opening of the uterus so the male’s sperm cannot get inside. About three out of one thousand women who use the shot for a year get pregnant. Depo-Provera does not protect against AIDS or other STDs.
“HOW MANY SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES ARE THERE? ARE THEY HARD TO GET?”
There are more than twenty STDs and most are easy to get. Actually more than three million (one out of four) sexually active teens are affected by sexual diseases each year. A few of these are chlamydia (which can cause sterility), syphilis (which can cause blindness, death, and death to the infant if an infected woman has a baby), herpes II (related to the cold sore people get on their lips, has no cure, and is recurring), and AIDS (which is eventually fatal to the mother and can be to an infant).
In a single act of unprotected sex with an infected partner, a teenage girl has a one percent risk of acquiring HIV, a thirty percent risk of getting genital herpes, and a fifty percent chance of contracting gonorrhea. Use of a condom every time a man and a woman have sex reduces the risk of contracting an STD from a sexual partner. It is the only reliable way to reduce the risk.
“WHAT IF YOU ARE RAPED?”
Anyone, boy or girl, should get to a phone as soon as possible. Call 911, the police, or your local Rape Crisis Center. DO NOT BATHE, WASH, CHANGE YOUR CLOTHES, GO TO THE BATHROOM, DRINK ANYTHING, OR BRUSH YOUR TEETH.
“WHY?”
Because semen is as identifiable as fingerprints and there may be traces in your mouth as well as on your clothes ore elsewhere on your body.
“IF I WENT TO A CLINIC OR HOSPITAL IMMEDIATELY AFTER, WOULD THAT KEEP ME FROM GETTING PREGNANT OR AIDS OR SOMETHING?”
Yes and no. The nurse or doctor would give you medication to prevent pregnancy and they can also prescribe antibiotics that fight some sexually transmitted diseases. However, AIDS and herpes II cannot, at this time, be controlled by ANY MEDICATIONS.
“DO TEENAGE MOMS HAVE MORE TROUBLES WITH PREGNANCY?”
Yes. A teenage mother is much more at risk of pregnancy complications such as premature or prolonged labor, anemia, toxemia, high blood pressure, and miscarriage. These risks are even greater for teens who are less than fifteen years old.
“DO TEEN MOMS’ BABIES HAVE MORE PROBLEMS?”
Yes. A baby born to a teen mother is more at risk than a baby born to an older mother. A large percentage of teenage girls have low-birth-weight babies (less than 5½ pounds). These babies often have organs that are not fully developed, as well as lung problems, mental retardation, difficulty controlling body temperature and sugar levels, and other problems. They are forty times more likely than normal-weight babies to die in their first month of life.
“I’M VERY MATURE FOR FIFTEEN. WHY CAN’T MY SEX LIFE BE MY DECISION?”
It is your decision! That is why I, as an adolescent psychologist and great respecter of young adults, am asking you to carefully consider the CONSEQUENCES of teenage pregnancy. More than a million girls get pregnant each year in the United States and over hal
f a million give birth. The others have abortions or miscarriages. Fifteen percent of teens who get pregnant will be pregnant again within one year and twenty-five percent of teenage mothers will have a second child within two years of their first.
Two out of three pregnant teenagers drop out of school with no job skills. It is the major cause of school dropouts among girls.
“I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANY MORE BUT MAYBE I SHOULD. I’D LIKE TO KNOW HOW I’D GO ABOUT GETTING WELFARE FOR ME AND MY KID IF I DO GET…OR I AM…PREGNANT.”
IT’S NOT AS EASY AS IT USED TO BE! In January 1997 the government changed the nation’s welfare system into one requiring work in exchange for time-limited assistance. This new, tougher program is called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which says no one is entitled to something for nothing.
“HOW CAN THEY DO THAT?”
Probably because the old AFDC program (Aid for Families of Dependent Children) cost the United States government $25 BILLION A YEAR!—mostly for families begun by teen births.
“SO WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO NOW?”
TANF guidelines say if you are under eighteen years old and unmarried, you must participate in educational and training activities AND live with a responsible adult or in an adult-supervised setting in order to receive assistance.
“WHAT ABOUT THE GUY THAT GOT ME PREGNANT?”
On the old program the ORS (Office of Recovery Service) would go after the male you named as the father of your baby. Now you are responsible for any money you get from the government.