Expecting Young

I got pregnant when I was 12 and I found

out on my 13th birthday.

I felt so sick. I was like, "Oh, he it's

that same feeling I had had a week ago."

And I was like, "I should probably go to

the clinic and get a pregnancy test."

And I went and I remember going in and

they had um done a test and they had me

wait in a room and they took a long time

to come into that room. The doctor comes

in. I'm sitting down and the nurse comes

in with him and they look at me like

someone had died. My face was just very

like neutral, but I knew what he was

about to say. And so with concern in his

face, he says to me, um, "Miss Ayala,"

he called me by my last name. He goes,

"Miss Yala, you were 5 weeks pregnant."

And I didn't say nothing. Like nothing

came out of my mouth. And he goes, "And

because of a state law, you got pregnant

when you were 12 and that falls under

statutory rape." and um uh I'm going to

have to by law tell your parents like

I'm I'm going to have to tell your mom.

So, you have about 2 weeks before a

social worker shows up to your house.

And I think that was like the beginning

of it sinking in like that. My life was

going to change a bit. 2 weeks later, um

I used to write my mom these love notes.

I wrote her a love note. I folded it up.

A love note. It wasn't a love note, but

I like made it seem like it was. My mom

thought it was too. And I said, "Mom,

please don't open it until I'm

downstairs cuz I went to my my friend's

house." And she's like, "Okay." Like

normal. You know, this is very normal

for me to do. So, I folded it up, gave

it to her. I went downstairs about an

hour later. Amy, my mom, she calls me

and she says, "Um,

like come upstairs, you know." And I can

hear like she's crying. And I sit down

like a little girl telling her mom, you

know, something. I sit down on the

floor, crisscross applesauce. And uh

she's like crying and she goes, "You

know, I don't know what you're going to

do, but what you're not going to do is

have an abortion. So that's not an

option. Um I don't have money to help

you, so you're going to have to figure

this out."

And I remember it was like a coin

dropped and the room was silent. And

that's the moment that like I I knew

that I was going to have to do this by

myself. And when I think about that, it

makes me so emotional because I wish she

would have like hugged me or like told

me that it was going to be okay.

Um, and that she had my back, but she

was upset. So,

uh, it was like the beginning of me

going through my pregnancy journey by

myself.

Um, I took myself to every prenatal

appointment besides the first one on my

own. Like, no one went with me.

When I met Jasine, we call her Jazzy.

That's my baby. And I remember they

pulled her out and they, you know, they

always placed the babies to start um

breastfeeding. And so she went on and

immediately went into breastfeeding.

That was the moment. And that night, cuz

I couldn't sleep cuz she cried all

night. Um that I realized, oh, like my

life really is changing. You know, being

a teen mom doesn't only affect the mom,

it affects the child as well. And I

think for Jasine being a daughter of a

teen mom, um, you would get a completely

different story, right? Because as much

as she was part of my life, she has her

own story.

It took a lot of therapy and a lot of

tears to get to where we are now, which

is a like that like she told me the

other day, I'm like her best friend.

Like I started crying because I was

like, man, like it took so long for us

to get there. Um because there was just

so much that happened while I was

raising her that she wishes, for

example, she wishes I was more present.

I went to school for writing and

producing and was able to also work in

that. And I've been working um in the

entertainment industry as a makeup

artist for TV and film. I've worked with

some of the most famous people rooms

that I went into that I could have never

imagined I'd walk through. you know, you

know, even later on when I like worked

at Paramount Studios and I was working

with all these cool ass people and, you

know, celebrities and stuff and I I

remember I would come home and, you

know, um tell my mom about her, tell my

brothers about it. But my daughter, she

didn't care that I worked with like any

famous person. Like she wanted her

mother. Like she wanted her mother to

comb her hair. And even though I was a

teen mom, even though I went through

that, like it pushed me to pursue the

things a lot harder because I wanted

Jazzy to look at a world where you could

do the things you say you want to do.

You know, that teen mom, like I wear

that title very proudly because my life

turned out to be pretty cool. But maybe

for someone else it it it seems like

you're never getting out of the

challenge. You're never getting out of

the hardships. I know you will though.

Like I if I was talking to someone who's

going through it right now, like you

will like you will look back at this and

it's only going to be an empowering

moment of your life and your child's

going to just thank you for um pulling

through, you know, and continuing. Life

doesn't end when you become a teen mom.

If anything, it just encourages you to

push more uh and keep going.