Dan and I watched two Lifetime movies today. The first was Bastard out of Carolina, which I wanted to watch when it first aired eleven years ago, but couldn’t because my mother said no way. The second was Mom at Sixteen. Both movies were good, even for Lifetime movies (haha), and both were, I must admit, emotion inducing.
Especially the second movie. Dan and I were sixteen and eighteen when we met – the same ages the characters in the movie were when the baby was born. Even though it was “just” a movie, it was very realistic, and hit close to home for us, especially considering how far we’ve come since I discovered I was pregnant with Alyssa (close to four years ago!). When I was pregnant with Alyssa, Dan and I had a lot of discussions about what to do. Abortion was quickly skipped over, as I especially could not imagine aborting a baby, especially considering that our circumstances left a lot of room for improvement. Adoption was briefly thought about, but even my mother had to admit that she could never give up a baby, and couldn’t bring herself to do more than mention adoption as an option, and left it at that.
In a little less than four years, we have gone from two unprepared individuals, one in their early twenties and the other barely twenty, to a settled married couple with a home (that we own!), two new, in very good condition vehicles, a good grasp on finances, a decent income (when monkey wrenches aren’t thrown into the mix, that is), and two children to enjoy it all with. Dan and I spent a good chunk of the afternoon talking about just how good we have it, and how grateful we are for each other and everything we have accomplished and done. ♥
Anyway, I believe that’s enough self reflection for the evening. I have dinner to go check on, and I want to shop around for prices on contacts, as I have a feeling that I’m being ripped off. 
It is amazing what you two have been through. I remember when you first found out you were pregnant with Alyssa. In a way, it doesn’t seem like that long ago, but I know it has been.
Good luck looking for contacts.
Your aQ&A isn’t showing right in IE so I’m asking here. I wanted to know the name of your theme or where I can find it?
oops LOL Q&A
Lindsey, there’s something wrong with the plugin, but I’m not sure what. All of the settings are correct, yet nothing is appearing.
Anyway, I made the theme myself, so its name is nothing more than “nov07″, since I do new themes monthly, lol.
I caught pieces of the Mom at Sixteen movie but I couldn’t quite figure out what was going on cause I didn’t see it from the beginning.
It really is great that you and Dan have made such a wonderful life for yourselves!
I’m glad to hear how things have progressed. I love Mom at Sixteen! It’s one of my favorite movies!
I wish more young mothers experiencing unplanned pregnancies would read blog posts like these before getting sucked into the coercive world of adoption agencies. Thank you for posting it as maybe, someday, a young expectant mother will be googling for support and come across this gem of a post.
I only wish that I had found that knowledge within myself those years ago. So, again, thank you for sharing.
I can’t believe you even considered anything but giving birth and keeping her. You just seem like you’d be naturally inclined to do both. I can see what you mean though if I had gotten pregnant when I was very young, which I thought I did I would be like Abortion=No Adoption=No now what?
I guess I just always assumed Alyssa was semi planned.
I think from the get-go I never seriously considered anything but keeping her. But I did at least give thought to abortion and adoption, since when you’re faced with an unplanned pregnancy that’s what you’re supposed to do. Dan mentioned abortion a few times during the first few weeks, but after that he got his shit together and was on board with whatever decision I made. And here we are, almost four years later…
And yes, Alyssa was definitely an accident! It was Ryan that was planned.
^ But an accident that you couldn’t be more than happy with ;) Isn’t it funny how things like that work themselves out – that when you have an unplanned pregnancy that you aren’t prepared for at all whether it be financial or emotional or whatever the reason is that you automatically (or at least it seems to be the norm, not in all cases though) consider adoption, abortion etc. and of course those that choose to do neither and keep the baby they were so unprepared for always say it’s the best decision they’ve ever made. Of course, it isn’t until after you’ve had the child, see the child, and start raising that child that you wouldn’t have it any other way and just think of what you’d be missing had you decided to give her up for adoption/abort!
The same kind of thing happened with my cousin when she got pregnant at 17 with Zachary who will be 3 in December – the first thing that came to everyone’s mind even her parents was adopt but that quickly was squashed.