Suzannah Gilbert
Dr. Moore
ENGL 1301
March 7, 2013

When you are young and you have a baby people think of you as just another stereotype. They think that since you are young you will most likely drop out of school, not go to college, and be stuck with a child with a minimum wage job trying to make ends meet. People vary rarely see a young mother and think “She is going to make something with her life.” Well I proved that stereotype wrong. I am a teenage mother who got her high school diploma, is going to college full time, who has a full time job, is maintaining a relationship with the father of her child, and makes time to spend with her baby each night. There are defiantly things in my life that I could have done differently, but what matters to me now is that I am making the best of my situation and bettering myself for not only me but my child. High school was the first obstacle that I had to overcome when I got pregnant. I had to go to school every day with people looking at me like I made a terrible decision, or that I was a bad influence because of my choices I had made. On top of that I had to deal with morning sickness throughout the day in my classes, which meant getting up and running out of the class to the bathroom every hour or so. Even though I had the morning sickness and classmates and teachers always looking at me weird, I still managed to keep my grades up for the rest of the year and walk across the stage with all of my friends. It has not just stopped at high school. Since then, I have gone on to take college classes. This is my second semester in college, and both times I have taken enough hours to consider me a full time student. At times it is not always the easiest; especially when I have deadlines to meet and a baby crying the majority of the day who seems to want my full attention 24/7 and who seems determined to keep me from studying. Not only is watching her while I try to get my work done tough to do, but also the fact that she wakes up almost every other hour making it almost impossible to get any sleep for the upcoming days.
I have not just stopped at schooling though. I also have a full time job so I can provide for my little girl, and get her everything she needs. Working all throughout the week can sometimes get stressful but I always seem to make it work. I am happy that I am able to keep up with a job, because some people cannot balance a newborn, school, and a job, and even with all of the pressure I am still able to do it.
Aside from school and work, I am still able to maintain a relationship with my husband. Some would say that it is not hard to do, but it is a challenge in its self. After all of the school throughout the day and the work at night, maintaining that relationship is something we have to actually work at. We talk about how our days were, and what we did. We sometimes do not get to talk that much before we both go to bed, or our schedules always have it to where I am at work while he is home and I am home when