*Sensitive Content Warning*

As you may have read in my first blog post, “Why having a child young isn’t the end of the world” I told you that I delivered my baby by myself in my bedroom when I was only sixteen years old. Now let me give you some personal background about my sixteen year old self. I was very active as I played sports, took weightlifting as a class and worked out on my own time. I had a lot of emotional issues I was dealing with at the time and the way that I dealt with those was being active. I felt as though it was the most productive way to clear my mind. The two sports I played in high school was cross country in the fall and soccer in the spring. I did this as I was pregnant. My last soccer game was two weeks before I had Colbi, my daughter.

Sixteen year old me was dumb and in love, I had dated a guy that I thought was the one and that I thought loved me just as much as I loved him, typical story. I told myself I was going to wait until marriage and I genuinely thought he was the one I was going to marry.. Again, that’s a story for another day. I’m here to tell Colbi’s story so here it is.

May 24th 2013, It was the night after school let out and I was going to watch a movie with my friend, Zoe.The movie got done around 11 pm and I begged and begged my mom to let me stay the night with Zoe but by God’s grace, my brother was graduating the next day so she didn’t let me because it would have been too much on her to get me in the morning and make sure I was up in time. On the way home, I had major back pains but it was different this time because they would just come and go, I thought I was having back spasms or something. I got home and took a bath to try to relieve my sore muscles and then just went straight to bed because I just really wasn’t feeling well at that point. Throughout the night, I was awaken by major back pains but again they would come and go and get stronger and stronger as the night went on. Suddenly, the natural urge to push came but it was more in the back area so I tried to go twice but nothing was happening. The third time it came I knew it was something different and when I checked, I noticed there was something… different; and in that moment I felt my body go into complete shock and I felt like I had to do something, quick. I had some many questions rushing through my head but i knew right then that something needed to happened. I began pushing but it was completely dark so I couldn’t see, I was relying only on touch. I couldn’t tell which way her head was facing so I decided to stand up and pull her out that way.

As soon as I had her in my hands, i dropped her. In my defensive she was extremely slippery and I wasn’t in anyway prepared to hold her. I stood there as the infant laid crying in the floor debating my next move, wondering if I even could and I hear my brother walk into the house, turn the hall light on and go into the bathroom next door. My emotions were so numb and I stood there, nude, looking at the little infant crying in the floor in the sliver of light shown from the crack in my door, as it grew bigger I looked up and saw my brother standing there with the look of fear in his eyes and the only thing that could come out of my mouth was “Don’t freak out.” He mumbled words that I was unable to translate before shouting “I gotta go tell mom!” and like that he was gone. I finally picked up the baby (she wasn’t on the ground that long I promise) and carried her into the living room. I heard my brother’s muffled voice in panic saying “You just gotta go in there, you just gotta go in there!” I heard the door from the den open and I looked up and saw my mother’s jaw drop to the floor, she came rushing to my side and I handed her the baby and all I could say was “I’m sorry.” and immediately her mind was just rushing to finding a blanket or a towel or something for the baby. She tells me to go clean up and I looked down and noticed blood all over me dripping down my leg and what was that? Is that an umbilical cord stretching down my leg? I walked over to the shower and turned it on and began stepping inside before my father comes into view (i forgot to close the door) and says “what are you doing?” and very plainly I said “mom told me to clean up.” He urged me to come into the living room and sit down and that I didn’t need to be up walking around. I walked into the living room and I couldn’t decide where to sit because I didn’t want to mess anything up. “Just sit down somewhere! It doesn’t matter where” and just then blood poured and spread to the length of a three cushion couch and I took a seat on the footrest of our rocking chair. My father insisted my mother to call 911 (she was going to take me herself) and I remember sitting there and hearing my brother crying from the outside.

The EMS arrived and brought two ambulances for “two patients” they said. But my mother told them that we were all going to ride in one ambulance and she was going to hold the baby (they also told her she wasn’t going to ride in the ambulance with us.. That wasn’t happening either.) They put Colbi on my chest and told me that my heartbeat and body temperature would be comfort to here and the loaded us onto the stretcher. As we were going to the ambulance I noticed Josh wasn’t outside but his truck was still there. “Where’s Josh?” I asked and my dad said “we will find him later.” Once we got into the ambulance my mom took the baby and they put me on IV’s. “I don’t like needles” I muttered. The EMS guy looked at me and said “You just delivered a baby by yourself and you’re telling me you don’t like needles?” I didn’t have the energy to fight it. We arrived at the hospital at 2 am. Nurses were rushing in hooking us up monitors and getting everything ready for the baby. They cut the robe off of me and got me prepped to deliver my placenta.

Sitting in the quiet hospital room after everything happen, all I wanted to do was sleep but there was no way that i could. I looked over to see my dad taking pictures of Colbi. “What are you doing?” I asked as if it was a weird thing that he was taking pictures of a newborn baby. No one does that, right? My mother was at my side discussing my options such as adoption or keeping her and how I wanted to go about all of this but I was still in shock and had no desire to think of anything at that moment. My mom looked over at my dad and said “Well, I think someone is already in love with her” and I glanced over at my dad making faces at my little one and talking to her softly and said “I hope her dad does too.”