Nutrition as an addiction

Good nutrition is my addiction. All my time in St. Agnes was not a waste. One class I adored was nutrition, because it was run by a registered dietitian from the Hartford hospital. It wasn't a class run by the staff just reading information to us they photo copied out of a book. I also signed up to meet with her for one on ones as well.

I love food..I mean everyone loves food but for me its not just eating food. Its learning what makes up food. As in, if I take a bite of this..what vitmains and minerals are going into my body. Then I break it down into what do these specific vitamins and minerals do for my body.. it goes on and there. Food obsessed!!

So of course I wanted to make sure every bite that went into my baby's mouth was well worth it for her developing mind and body. I'd researched and decided during my pregnancy that Earth's best was the baby food I would use for her because its organic and I had huge concerns about the amounts of pesticides in fruits and vegetables. Along with breatfeeding I was a golden child in the eyes of this woman.

I learned everything I could and because it was a huge interest of mine anyway, I took to the information like a bee on honey. I also tweaked bits for what worked best  for us and what my instincts as a mother said to do. I also needed to pay close attention to my own in take because I was still growing and because I was still breatfeeding, what I took in was also very important.

All of my parents, mother, father and step father eat very healthy. I grew up vegetarian, so this gave me a great start on my journey. While at St. Agnes, the food served was not what my body was used to and as I mentioned earlier was slathered in gobs and gobs of butter. Not that I don't like or use butter or most likely margarine which is even worse. A routine physical and blood draw showed my bad cholesteral numbers were sky high after a short time of eating the food served. I was ate all the time because I felt half starved, I was a hundred pounds soon after giving birth, and because DeAna nursed so much I was in constant need of calories and nutrients.

I waited 6 months before starting DeAna on any kind of baby food. I never used infant cereal with her. I saw one to many babies struggle to digest the stuff. When I did start her I started her on one type of baby food a week. One week peas, one week carrots, one week sweet potatoes. We have a long history of food allergies in our family and I needed to observe for any reactions. I didn't introduce her to fruit for a while. My reasoning is that I did not want her to develop a taste for sweets early on. Of course it was obvious that she loved the sweet potaties best which was fine with me because it is a "Super Food" and is loaded with huge amounts of vitmains per bite.

When she was  around nine months I started her on Cheerios. Can I get an Amen! Are Cheerios not the best finger food for babies ever??? Super healthy, low in sugar and affordable! They melt down easily in baby's mouth, so the choke risk is less and they travel well. They help with fine motor development and they dont hurt when they get stuck between your toes! haha

From cheerios, I started giving her a very small amount of juice in a sippy cup but only my favorite brand of juice would do. Can I tell you how upset I get when I see babies with things like Kool-aid, soda, and fruit drinks in their bottles and sippy cups! I was known at St. Agnes to dump them right out, while explaining to the mother why and refill them with milk and water, or if its juice..it has to be Juicey juice. I know that crossed a line but a baby bottle filled with soda is like putting a pure posion into a little ones mouth and that will not happen under my watch. Every baby's health matters to me, not just my own child's,

I grew up on Juicy juice and my parents knew best, because it is 100% fruit juice and packed with vitamins and antioxidents. I have a belief that there are benefits that come from a diet of fruits and vegetables that we don't even have names for yet. Look how long it took the main stream public to learn about antioxidents!
My parents also knew best when they only let me have small amounts each day and watered it down. Although Juicy Juice and all 100 % fruit juice  have no added sugar, it has natural occuring sugars from the fruit it's self. These sugars can effect a child's teeth.

I prepared DeAna scrambled eggs a little after a year old. Eggs are jam packed with good for you things. They are mushy and easy to swallow. You can quickly prepare them in the microwave even. They are a great source of protein and now you can get them with enriched with Omega-3s. Yay Eggs!

Giving up the boobs

Also known as weaning..
Weaning my daughter wasn't easy. As I made mention earlier, she didn't stop nursing until her fourteenth month! The decision to breastfeed was easy for me, the benefits for my baby and myself far out weighed any excuses I might have had. Before I get to the weaning, let me preach a bit about why breast feeding works for young moms.

Its unusual for teen mothers to pick breastfeeding in the U.S.A. ! That is a sad statistic because a teen mother's body readily makes breast milk just like any other mother. Breast milk isn't just healthy for a baby in so many ways, it is healthy for mommy too. I personally lost weight easily after my pregnancies by nursing and I had 40lb weight gains. Teen girls are notoriously worried about their weight. That should be reason enough to nurse, get your figure back.

More importantly its free! What mother doesn't need extra money? Especially a teenage mother, whose chances of employment paying anything more than minimum wage are not good.

Some teen mothers have told me their milk supply wasn't good. Trust me, your baby is getting enough, your breast fed baby is going to eat more then a bottle fed baby because natural breast milk digests  easily. If your baby is gaining weight, you are doing good! If your doctor isn't concerned, keep going! There are many natural teas that help milk supply come in better. I used these teas, this is my personal favorite

Please take a minute to look into what formula is really made of, reading the label may disgusts you enough to second guess bottle feeding. Podered cows milk.. vegetable oil, corn syrup and added vitamins and water.. now you drink it!

But this is NOT  La Leche, so back to my story...

 

DeAna who wouldn't wean... At fourteen months she had a decent vocabulary and understood much more than she could say. I finally had to tell her no more. The first day I refused to let her nurse and handed her a sippy cup. She wasn't happy at first but she complied. She woke me up so often that night and my breasts hurt so bad, I gave in and nursed her.

When the sun came up, we went to the sippy cup again. That night I gave her a bottle and refused to give in no matter how I ached. I wore my wash able breast pads and toughed it out. She took that bottle ( I LOVE washable breast pads, cost effective and environmentally friendly!) .

The next morning she didn't even try to nurse, she used her cup. That night I gave her a bottle and she took it happily. I know, a bottle! and yes, I slowly had to wean her off that too. The pain and engorgement from not nursing was terrible, but guess what?? After 9 months of pregnancy and 14 months of nursing I finally allowed my self to take Tylenol, between that and hot water packs, I was good to go and so was she! No more nursing. I had my body back and she was a healthy happy toddler.

Dr. Sears advises pregnant mothers..

My instincts in pregnancy were right..and he confirms it!

The Baby Book was my Bible

I would like to take a moment and touch on one of the many building blocks that laid the foundation for me to become the kind of mother I am. Especially for the type of mothering methods I chose to use with my children as infants. Did you know there are actual labels for child rearing? The label my parenting style falls into is called Attachment parenting.

As I made mention before, I read a lot of books during my pregnancy at fifteen regarding pregnancy from the local library but two books given to me by another young mother were the most powerful and resonated the most truth for me. These two books were written my Dr. Sears. One was called The Birth Book and the other was called The Baby book. Dr. Sears and his wife, a registered nurse, co-wrote these books and are the parents of eight children. Their parenting practices wowed me. I threw away my outdated books and latched on to these like the Holy Bible itself. Literally these two books were my Go-to guides. I can testify that everything they said worked well for me and my children. The practices they preach really do create a life long bond between parent and child, they truly have helped me raise healthy children who are rarely if ever sick. My kids next to never go in the doctor for an illness. There have been many years where the only time they've seen a doctor was for a well child visit.
To my knowledge the Sears' have over 30 books out there. If you are a mom or dad.. or expecting a baby, adopting baby..young parent or old parent, childcare provider or grandparent...READ as many books by Dr. Sears as you can! I cannot brag on these books enough!

 More information about the Searses can be found at www.SearsParenting.com  and www.AskDrSears.com.

Stirring the soup

Funny how somethings don't change in people. There was a time I felt huge injustices were being served to me and other girls at St. Agnes. I felt that my basic right to be heard as a concerned mother was ignored. As with all injustices I see now, the need to speak my mind and be heard was a force so great inside me, I could not hold it in if I tried.

With the Department of Children and Families monitoring me and all the other girls in the home, all our actions both good and bad were charted and filed by the St. Agnes staff for review. Knowing this, I was always very careful to choose my battles carefully, if not covertly.

What would concern, if not out-rage a working older mother, was expected to be unquestioned and accepted by us. A major red flag for me was the use of volunteers in the daycare center. These were people from the outside who signed up to volunteer, male and female, young and old. Most came from the church which was heavily affiliated with the home, actually I believe the church own the actual building.

These people to my knowledge were not screened or qualified care providers. They were average citizens. In a real world daycare, I don't think that would be very legal, if nothing else, it would be high risk and I don't think many parents would accept it. Being fifteen I was supposed to not even question the practice.

When I came home from school and looked around the daycare not seeing my baby I almost choked to death on my panic, seeing all the workers and babies in the main area of the day care and her not there. In a connected, somewhat open yet separate room where the babies cribs were, an elderly man I did not know was cradling her to sleep.

When I questioned them about this, they said the issues was in my head. That the man had volunteered for years and contributed toward my cash allowance along with other expenses in the home and I was just being mean. I'd like to think my reaction to the situation would have been the same had the volunteer been male or female. For someone who was not qualified as a child care provider to have hands on access in a not so supervised area bother me.

They implied my issue must be stemming from some childhood past abuse and that I had no right to demand permission or dictate who would care for her while I took advantage of free daycare services.

That's when my little revolution began. That was one of many straws on the camel's back. I knew how to access not only the computer room but the printer. I knew when the door was left unlocked and when no traffic would be in that area of the building. As I do with so many things, I put the issues with the home into words.

My first action was to grab my note pad and pen. When I knew staff were busy I went room to room and questioned each girl about the issues they had with the home. What changes they wanted to see and if they would be willing to sign a petition of sorts. This went over well, there were complaints like crazy and they had someone to listen to them.

Late that night, I snuck down to the lower level. This was my hang out, actually a few of us went down there and popped locks to the doors on a regular basis. Not to the offices them selves because well felt that was crossing a line. If anyone ever did get into those rooms it wasn't with me.  We definitely go into  the other rooms, like the classrooms and the computer room, just because we could sit unheard and be away. Doing something we shouldn't was exciting to us because of our ages. I wasn't very good at it breaking and entering, but two of the girls could pop a lock like the best little burglars, using nothing but a metal spatula and a butter knife. I was lucky that the room I needed to get in was unlocked.

The downstairs was scary at night. If you believe in ghosts like I do, this was a very charged and active area. The air was so thick it almost vibrated, you'd catch glimpses of the shadows of who I can only assume were the nuns who once resided there. You could almost feel their disapproval staring at you for being where you shouldn't be. I went down there often, I hated using the shared bathroom upstairs so much that I snuck down every night to the only one on the lower level. It was rarely used by even the staff and I knew it was cleaned each night before the one night staff woman came on.

Ghosts or not, I had work to do. With one of my friends listening for Deana, I got to work typing. When all was said and done, I had a five page booklet ending with a signature page of which we all signed off on.

Now what we should have done with the booklet was turn it over to someone within the home or in charge of but above the home. What we decided to do with it, was pass it out to every girl who came to tour the home when no one was looking. With the hopes that she would in turn, give it over to her DCF social worker and someone, somewhere,would do something. Nothing really came of it, but we tried.

Its not that we didn't want new girls to come in, we wanted things fixed for us, for them, for the purpose and mission of the place.

When the news crew came in to do a story on the home, I was kept away. They interview three girls who spoke of the pluses. I probably would have to. I'll never know if the staff got wind of what I'd been up or if it was because I'd decided to dye my hair the greenest green ever the day before. Blending in with the crowd of Rave going kids I'd linked up with at school and definitely not representing the wholesome mommy image I had previously taken on.

Plotting and Planning

Deana learned to walk at fourteen months..long after the other babies her same age. Like all mothers there was a small competition for who would do things first. She took forever to walk because all she ever wanted to do was be held.

She was still nursing at that point and the staff at St. Agnes's were appalled. Everyday I had to hear them tell me it was time to quit. I knew it was. She would bite, she would grind her teeth. She could say a variety of words and I'd had enough.

It was one of many things they complained about me and the way I mothered. They also complained about me for more valid reasons. I was still a teenager after all and having a baby didn't change that.

Confession time...When DeAna was still on baby food I pulled the wool over the old lady who did the grocery shopping's eyes. Organic baby food, Earth's Best, to be exact was the only food I wanted her eating. I knew how much it cost and knew I wasn't going to be able to keep buying it on the ten dollars a week on got in child support alone. It was almost a dollar a jar. They were providing baby food but it was awful stuff. It was actually made by Heinz ..as in the ketchup..company. That just didn't seem good enough for my baby to me.  In comes the plot. One day catching her alone, I said, "The doctor said my baby has to have organics baby food, Earth's Best, because she is allergic to pesticide". How that worked, I'll never know but for months it did. The someone auditing the grocery bill caught it and the gig was up.

I still had growing up to do. I still wanted everything exactly my way and if it wasn't going my way I found a way to make it so, even if it came to lying.

Each week we earned a certain amount of "store credits" to shop for our babies in our in-house store. They had things like candy and soda, donated baby toys, diapers, wipes and sometimes household items. Most girls bought candy. I always bought DeAna books because I read to her every night, diapers and some small house hold items. I was buying more diapers then she needed. I started buying diapers in bigger and bigger sizes. I was stocking up for when we left. Someone decided to put an end to it. Reporting the fact that I was buying more diapers then I could possibly be using and in sizes she didn't yet need.
When confronted, I admitted what I was doing. Instead of praising my good planning, I was told I had to stop.

I always had a plan. Instead of studying I made lists. I made lists of things I would need for my own apartment. I tore through every book and magazine looking for things I might have missed on my list. When I had a pass to go out, I'd put DeAna in the stroller and go to Wal-greens. With the small amount of child support I received plus a small allowance from the home, I started buying things we'd need. I learned the best clearance was in the back rack of the store. I bought things like dish towels, utensils, magnets, cups and toys for her.  Other girls went to the mall down the road for clothes. I did buy her clothes from Old Navy, that was before it was popular and you could buy baby clothes there for five dollars a piece and shoes for three dollars. I also got her pictures done every two months at the photo studio.

My original plan was to move into one of the homes transitional apartments and graduate from high school right there in West Hartford. Deana would continue attending the same daycare and I would eventually come back to work at St. Agnes as staff. That was my goal. God had other plans for us.

AND THE TEST SAYS YOU ARE THE FATHER!!!!

My baby didn't have her dad in her life much. His family wasn't in her life at first either. While at St. Agnes we had a DNA test done. We went into the city where a clinic took both me and DeAna's DNA to be sent for sampling. Her father was living in a home for boys at that point. Although we stayed in touch by letter, we weren't together and didn't get along that well anyway. I sent pictures constantly and updates, but I knew what they said was true, everything regarding them being in DeAna's life was pending on the DNA test.

It was a long while before the results came back. Everyday I check the mailbox file in the staff room for the envelope and everyday there was nothing. When that fat envelop of papers finally showed, my heart raced a million miles a minute. I opened it and read what I already knew..by 99.98% he was the father. I understand the rush of adrenaline that hits those Maury guests. I couldn't have been happier if it was Publisher's Sweepstakes handing me a check. I was ecstatic.

The boys home brought him to see her. He didn't come often, he didn't see her often. We got along and saw just enough with each other that I convinced my self I would never get over him and wanted him in my life no matter what. Again, I was fifteen.

His family started seeing her. They occasionally took her for a few hours on weekends. She was getting older then and a lot better about going with other people. The court ordered him to pay 10 dollars a week in child support, an ordered amount that would stay in place  until she well into grade school.

At one point I bought this beautiful card of a daddy and baby. I hung it on my bedroom door at St. Agnes. I can still remember the photo on it perfectly. What no one knew was that one the back of a card, I wrote to God my silent prayer. That she would always have a daddy in her life even if I didn't have a man in mine.

Although she didn't have him in her life much, she was blessed to have an abundance on males in her life. My father, my step father, my brother, step brother and so on. People tend to think that teenage boys don't step up to the plate often. I was lucky that I had a lot of mail friends from middle school and high school that more than stepped up to the plate to be there for her and I both. Guys that would come over just to roll a ball around on the floor with her or later play chase with her around the yard. These guys stayed in her life until I met my husband and got married to the man who would become her daddy at age four.

Men deserve more credit. I am fortunate and blessed to have an amazing dad and step dad in my life. I have two dads. They have been incrediable grandfathers to my children. I also have an amazing husband who took on children who were not biologically his and raised them as if they were.

All the guys who stepped up, my daughter to this day calls "uncle." There are good men out there, doing good things. Yes, some men are punks, they run. But for every punk, there is another good guy out there, ready to pick up where the other left off.

My maternal instinct was strong. So strong I pushed against the grain of what was expected of me. Some people might say that's what saved us. I don't know. Was it the fact I'd planned my entire childhood on being a mother? Was it something chemical? A super charged increase of serotonin when I looked into my baby's eyes, or any baby for that matter. Was it because I had strong family support and a super supportive group of friends to fall on? A higher I.Q.? A stubborn streak to defy any limitations set before me? Was I just born under the right set of stars?

I will never know. I will never know why I succeeded why my peers fell into the statistics trap. The statistics that say teen moms just cannot and will not be the kind of moms others are. I was and am a good mom, and I beat a lot of odds. Not that the challenge wasn't great, that I didn't occasionally fail or fall or just plain old fuck up. I did. The truth is I got back up every time fighting. They say the proof is in the pudding and I made one heck of a pudding then.

There were a few other teen moms at St. Agnes who did amazingly well, I am not the only one. I am the one telling my story. I have been lucky, seventeen years later, to still get occasional updates. Blessed to still count two of these girls as my friends, and one of the two doing a super job of raising a house full of children. They were two of three girls I was closest to while living in the home.

The girl recognized as super mom by the staff, the girl with the calmest baby, the prettiest and cleanest room did well for years and years. Sadly at one point a couple years ago I was contacted by this same girl's second daughter, a child I didn't know. She was wondering how I knew her mother, because her mother had abandoned her the year before with family and she'd not heard from her since. Broke my heart to pieces.

I am positive that some of the moms who struggled early on, later turned their lives around. I wish I knew how it all turned out but I think of them too. I can remember their names and faces, their babies. Some of these girls had no families to speak of. Most came from some kind of heavy dysfunction. They all had stories. I carry those stories in my heart.

We all had a baby's father somewhere out there. Some were lucky enough to have the father in their life. That wasn't my story but it was beautiful when it worked. Most of us just had broken hearts and babies left from our broken dreams.

My nurturing instinct was always strong. I was always offered to take a cranky baby for a while so the mom could have a break. It wasn't uncommon to see me up in the middle of the night rocking two babies at once. The 12 year old mother who moved in next door to me flat out refused to get up with her little baby boy. She was immature even for being twelve years old. She was bratty and selfish. I tired to teach her and she had no interest in learning. I would knock on her door when her baby newborn would scream unfed for hours in the middle of the night, and she agreed to let me come in and feed him. I was up all night anyway between DeAna and hearing his cries was torture because my milk would rush and I'd have to wake up to see if it was DeAna or him crying. Most nights I had him too. She arrived a few months before we moved out. Within a few months of my leaving her baby was taken.

Without a lot of support, I do believe there are some ages where it is near impossible to raise a baby with out massive 24 hr. side by side support and girls 12 or younger just can't do it. The ideal situation for a pregnant child like that would have been in a foster home where a foster parent would parent them both together. Even in a teen mother home, there is just not enough hands on learning or supervision.

A baby who doesn't eat, doesn't sleep

Even after the days of colic were over, DeAna didn't sleep. Was it a direct result of her days not eating in daycare? I can only assume the answer is yes. She was up all night nursing while the other babies in the home slept soundly in their cribs. How much I envied the moms whose babies slept through the night when coming home from the hospital.

DeAna never used her crib when she had colic because she had to be fed and rocked constantly to find any comfort. Shared sleep was banned at St. Agnes for obvious reason, before the known risk of SIDS was known, there was the reasons of a baby falling out of bed. They'd previously had an incident where a baby rolled from a bed and whose little face was burned badly on a floor heater.

Every night I'd try hard to put my daughter to bed in her crib. We had a whole routine. I'd bathe her, give her an infant massage, read her a few books, and feed her. When she was sleepy I'd lay her in the crib. She'd instantly wake up and cry. Staff would come in and I'd still be trying to get her settled hours later. The other moms would be gathered in the TV room, watching television and hanging out on the phones. I would be in my room with my baby. Sometimes some of my girlfriends would come sit in my room with me but mostly I was socially isolated.

Wee into the late hours of the night I'd be nursing her and of course, pass out exhausted with her in my arms. The night staff, one woman, who was generally  a stickler for rules, would shine the flash late in my face and tell me to get up and put her in the crib. ( Think Whoopi Goldberg in Girl , Interrupted)  This happened every night and every night she said " I am going to write you up."

After weeks of this, she was pretty mad at me. One night I looked and her and said " That's fine, tomorrow night when you come on, I am taking my baby downstairs and we are going to sit with you for the night." Babies were not to be downstairs after a certain hour. The next night I did just that. She was shocked at how hard my night with my baby were. She was, as I said, a very strict staff and a lot of girls flat out hated her. After that night we had a bond and she became my favorite staff in the place. I'd occasionally call her when we finally left St. Agnes just to check in.

The worst experience when it came to Deana's sleeping and rules happened when she was old enough to stand up in her crib. I was told it was time to let her start crying it out at night. They made me put her in the crib and stand outside the door. They stood with me, she cried, I cried.

A mother knows her child's cries. DeAna's wail went from one of unhappiness to one of pain. I told the staff something was wrong and they wouldn't let me go in. They told me she was just crying because she was spoiled and eventually she'd go to sleep. They said go downstairs, they listen to her until she was quiet, check on her and come get me. Of course I couldn't enjoy my alone time because I knew this was the worst thing possible. Yet there was always a fine line I couldn't cross. If I didn't do as I was told, the Department of Children and Families could be called and I'd risk the removal of her completely.

When I later went in, she was asleep. A small lamp was tipped over on the dresser. I stood the lamp up and switched it off. Then went to sleep myself. Of course she woke up soon after wanting to nurse anyway. It wasn't until the next morning when we woke up, a mother's worst nightmare was discovered. She'd managed to touch the hot light bulb of the lamp from her crib that night of crying it out and burned her little hand. It was blistered and bad.

I showed the staff, they didn't say or do much. I was beyond upset. The whole reason I didn't want her alone the room while awake was because things like that can happen. Babies and small children can get hurt in just a few minutes of being unsupervised. Not to mention how abandoned a baby must feel when left alone in their crib to cry with no one there to comfort them. Their needs ignored by their parents. What a pattern it sets up for them later in life.

Because I was a young mother, and because I was a mother living in an institution, my rights to raise my child my way were gone and being that powerless is an experience most people will never face thank goodness but that was difficult to do in a positive way and I had no choice but to.

School and daycare aren't for every mom and baby

I will say it time and time again, I hate boxes, I don't fit in a box. My personality has always been to diverse to truly or fully fit in any grouping. This has given every parent, teacher, staff, boss, etc.. in my life a very difficult time not only profiling but referencing back to any text book on how to "manage" me. My experience with raising a baby at fifteen and my baby herself were no exception.

An effective institution, whether it be a teen mother home, a group home, a school, or even a nursing home, is run by a somewhat rigid system of rules and regulations. Organization is what leads to order and you can't have mass amounts of people under one roof without order because chaos is sure to arise.

St. Agnes ran on rules as all of these places. We had rules as to what time we needed to wake up, have our chores done, our babies and ourselves fed and dressed. We needed to drop our babies off at daycare by a certain hour. Attend our high school for a full regular school day. We had classes like parenting, nutrition, and house meetings scheduled for each day after school where we were expected to put our babies back in daycare during. We had a dinner meal to be present for, certain hours for bathing, days and set time slots for laundry doing, and a set time that babies needed to be in bed. There was limited free time, with majority of free time being late afternoon and on weekend. Weekend I spent back in my home town with my family and friends.

I had major issues with the set up. It may not seem like there were obvious flaws to the system but for me, well, like I said, who I am and the way I live, don't easily conform to other people's regulations.

I wasn't being rebellious, I'd already hung up my rebel shoes. I was trying to do what I felt were the right things as a mom. when how I should parent her had already been dictated for me. It was an up hill battle.

I loved my new school. The high school was great and had I arrived there under any other circumstances I have no doubts I would have thrived.  I couldn't concentrate in school. I missed my baby and even worse my baby missed me. I optimistically breast pumped bottles of milk each day for her to eat at day care. I'd drop her off crying, into the arms of near strangers. I'd come home from school each day to find that she just wouldn't each for them. At times she may take an ounce of milk during the entire time I was gone, more often then that she'd take nothing. I was more than concerned and no one would hear me out. Many would wonder why I didn't wean at this point but how could I wean when she flat out would starve than take a bottle?

Almost as worrisome, was that the daycare workers were totally stressed with her. She cried the entire day until I'd drag in to get her. One time I came home to find her strapped into her infant seat, balanced by her day care worker, on top of a running vacuum cleaner because that was the only way they could find to calm her. She was miserable, I was miserable, and the daycare employees were stressed. Other times I'd come home from school and she'd be sleeping. She'd still be breathing heavily and whimpering in her sleep and it was more then obvious by her tear streaked face that she'd cried herself to sleep.

Those days were horrid. My breast engorged with what felt like 20lbs of milk, rock hard and leaking through my shirt. Can you imagine what it was like to be fifteen, sitting in class and having breast milk soak through your breasts pads, and run down the front of your shirt, onto your pants?? by the time I got home I swear I had milk dripping into my shoes. True story.

When she would latch on I'd want to scream it hurt so bad. No sooner had I fed her and calmed her, possibly got some studying done or laundry folded, then I' have to go to an in-house class and turn her over again. It was brutal on both of us.

Eventually I started leaving school early. I just couldn't focus on my classwork when I worried about my baby. At first this didn't go over well. By law, they had to keep me in school. The first time I snuck in and signed my daughter out of daycare, I'd just barely made it back to my room when the staff started knocking on the door. I was of course in mild trouble.

I waited a bit and then continued picking her up. I got in trouble a few more times and it stopped. I'll never know if the daycare workers took up my cause because they seemed so relieved whenever I came in the door or if they just stopped reporting that I'd picked her up to the staff. Regardless I'd pick her up, take the back way up to my room, close the door and not reappear until a time when it would be normal to see us home.

 I'd signed up for drama and loved it, but eventually missed so many classes I was forced to drop it. I was involved in a young parent class at school, which had some St. Agnes moms in it, but also a number of everyday teenage moms and dads, who I learned to lean on. I found myself more days than not, crying in the arms of the social worker who ran the group. I just wanted to be with my baby.

I would rough school out a while longer but issues such as these would rear their ugly little heads again and again.

The unexpected effect of toxins on my personality

What started off as a concern over toxins during pregnancy, turned out to be a small step in change. Somewhere during my very early pregnancy, I read an article about the toxins of hair dye and it possible effects on a developing fetus. As I stated early, I was ultra cautious when it came to any potential harm to my child. Almost obsessive compulsive about reading labels, never taking medications, and avoiding things like car exhaust when passing by running cars or being anywhere near second hand smoke. So early on I decided to ditch the bleach bottle and let my hair grow to its natural color.

For those who don't know, I am not a natural blond. My real hair color is the dullest shade, of the most boring, lifeless, mousy brown you've ever seen. Blond is the color I feel most comfortable in though, any other color just doesn't feel like me when I look in a mirror.

Cutting my hair short and letting it return to its natural color was uncomfortable. Along with the physical shape of my body morphing and changing into something unfamiliar, my physical appearance was also someone I didn't yet know.

I'd been dying my hair as far back as I could remember. At the ages of 9 and 10, I begged my mom to let me go blond. Of course it was not allowed. So sunny days were spent drizzling lemon juice on my head, sitting in the yard with my fingers crossed. Later standing in the mirror hoping and praying for a few lightened streaks.

 I have to say I did the same thing with make up very early on, at about age six. I wanted make up. Not just play make up, I wanted to wear make up everyday. So I'd smash up brick into bits and us the red powder it made a blush and eye shadow. White rocks I smashed into face powder. Red berries became lipstick. If nothing else I've always been stubbornly determined to achieve whatever my goal is for better or worse.

In my early preteens I learned about peroxide. I think my mom just gave up after that and so I became an everyday blond and loved it. I've never had any intentions of being plain and my decision to let my hair go made me feel exactly that way.

It was a segue way decision that led to other changes in my life. My goal to have the approval of those watching my movement as a young mom took center stage. I learned every on, it is never enough to act the part if you don't look the part. This would be a concept that I would rub against the majority of my life when trying to establish myself in a variety of ways. The truth is, our culture judges solely on appearance alone, and then makes other judgements later based on things like actions and motivations.

Previously I'd been the ultimate Madonna wanna-be. My appearance was a cross between things my idol Madonna inspired and my other culture, that of the urban hip hoppers I adored. Sadly in a predominately Caucasian, rigid thinking, New England type people ..this persona did not fit their rigid and biased, type casted prediction or classification system of a successful parent.   

I began to change the way I dressed in order to please the scrutiny I faced as a mom. This worked both for and against me. The adults who judged me from my home town, saw the physical changes that seemed to confirm for them the emotional grow I was going though. On the other hand, I was now in a teen mothers home in an inner city where the culture I felt most comfortable in was prevalent, and I physically no longer represented the social group that  I  felt most a belonging to.

The personality types I normally attracted wanted to nothing to do with me. This gave me not only an identity confusion but lowered my self esteem and were the first hints of depression settling in.

Like I eluded to early, I did make friends. Both at St. Agnes and at school. Once the girls got to know who I was inside, I gained the friends I would have easily outright made to begin with.

I felt ugly. I felt unlike myself and yet, I had something to prove that was more important than the approval of my peers. I needed to show physically that my focus was on my baby and my success and not on social standing. It was hard on me because I'd lost who I was in the process. I also gained because I did attract a fraction of friends that might never have approached me otherwise. This was high school, and not only was I living in a teen mother home but I was attending a public high school. I was suddenly in school with people I didn't grow up with, who didn't know me for anything but what I appeared to be. It had its positives and negatives. I also began to attract a different type of guy then the ones I would normally have my eye on. But because I didn't look like me, I wasn't treated like me and I found myself not knowing how to even act like me or the me I knew myself to be, anymore. It was awful!

And to think, all this began with throwing out a box of toxic hair dye.

The more out going me before St. Agnes

The me I presented myself as during my stay at St. Agnes, someone sweeter, clamer, quieter

The saints and not so saintly sides of St. Agnes

It took time for me to feel the other girls out. Some I clicked with, others I simply could not. Being all teenagers, girls, and moms, we had enough in common to start conversation anyway. I was young, some girls were even younger.

   I will always carry precious memories of these girls and their beginning steps into motherhood. The thirteen year old who lived on Popsicles and candy..who gave birth to teeny tiny baby boy. When she brought him back to St. Agnes he weighed only four lbs. She was terrified to even change him and passed him on to me for help. Very early on, taking on the senior mom role amongst the girls, as if I'd been a veteran super mom for years. I later learned this young mom eventually abandoned the baby when he was just about a year old at the home in pursuit of a boy.

There were three moms who were seventeen in the home when I arrived. Both with toddlers, and both transitioning onto independent living programs. Most of us ranged in age from 13 to fifteen, some pregnant and some had babies. At the time I was there all mother's planned on keeping their children. Although there were moms that left before I arrived and moms after I left that gave their babies up for adoption. At the time I was there that wasn't the norm. Not unheard of for teenage moms raising twin infants to reside there but again that was not in my time there.

When I first arrived I attended school in the downstairs classrooms with the girls who were pregnant. I was eventually enrolled in the public high school, Conard High School.

We all ate meals together in the dining room, served buffet style and mostly cooked by an elderly woman (Swedish?) chef who put too much butter in everything. I was mostly vegetarian still and had a difficult time with the meals served. I ate a lot of rice, collards, and salad.

There the occasional teenage outbursts. I remember one time biting my tongue til it bled because a fourteen year old pregnant girl stood screaming, crying and hollering that someone got her sandwich wrong when they'd ordered us Subway as treat on lunch time.

There were the success stories. There were the potential failures and the teen moms who flat out flunked at parenthood. There were cliques. Smoking was still allowed outside of the building ( this would later change) and there was the usual smoking clique of pregnant and not pregnant girls of which I was not apart. There were girls who grew up in the same school systems, ones who had lived in the same area as the home. There were city girls and those who were not. The usual high school cliques shaped and formed within the home.

There were girls who stayed in trouble or who caused trouble. A thirteen year old who dealt an amount of drugs that rivaled quantities I'd see in dealers twice her age in later years. A thirteen year old kleptomaniac who would be thrown out of the home when her huge haul of everyone else's belongings was discovered.  A young mom who let her baby scream for endless hours and kept her radio blaring to tune him out and refused to let any of us girls in to help her with him because she didn't want him spoiled.

There was a definite issues of favoritism among the staff too and because I wasn't your typical teen mom that came through the doors, I don't think most knew what to do with me.

I had my group of friends, I had my group of staff I could turn to. I was horribly home sick, but went home on weekends. My friends would page me on my beeper and I would call them back from the pay phone. I stayed in touch with everyone. Plenty of people from back home came to visit us too. My dad, step mom, mom, step dad, step sister, step brother, lots of friends and even my baby's dad and family came. So although I was about an hour away, it never seemed too far.

We had a tightly scheduled day, yet still found little ways to be teenagers together. Walks with the babies in the park, bus trips to the mall, shopping, and walking home from school together. Blasting  Selena or Faith Evans from the stereo in the livingroom and singing at the top of our lungs. Most of us also had boyfriends or at boys from school we talked to. We still found ways to feel normal.

Me and some of my St. Agnes friends at the public high school we attended.

These next two pictures were taken in a bedroom at St. Agnes

I was blessed to have true friends

Through my pregnancy as a teenager and as a teenage mom, I was blessed not only to have the love and support of my family but I had an amazing group of friends who stood by my side and supported me in every way. They are still a part of my life, although we don't get to see each other  often anymore. Words cannot express my gratitude for the love they showed me and my babies. They made every effort to feel as much a part of our high school group as if I attended class side by side with them everyday. They spent hours donating child care when I returned to work and bought my daughter clothes, toys, spent time with her constantly. Still included me in sleep overs, parties, and took me as their dates to school dances so I wouldn't miss out. I think my experience as a young mom might have been a darker place if not for those friends bringing light to my life everyday.

Maternity clothes were so ugly, not what I would have preferred to be wearing at fifteen.

We were included in our little "get togethers" sadly DeAna screamed through most of them

We often walked up to the high school to see my friends when they got out of school.

I was lucky to be included in things like school dances because my friends brought me as thier dates.


I loved and love my friends.




I was about 9 months pregnant in this school group picture..hiding the baby bump.

A home for unwed teenage mothers

When DeAna was six weeks old we moved from my mother, step-father and younger brother Cody's home in Torrington, Ct. We moved to St. Agnes, a home for teenage mothers as agreed to with my juvenile probation officer and the Department of Children and Families who were over seeing my case.
DCF was not involved because of any incident. They were involved because of age and my previous juvenile record put me as a high risk mother according to their system.

My mother drove me and my daughter to the big brick building called St. Agnes, located in West Hartford, CT. The building was once a home for nuns and was tucked into an upper-middle class neighborhood within walking distance to a strip mall.
http://www.stagneshome.org/who/index.shtml

This was not my first time living in an institution. From the beginning of 1990 to mid 1991 I will at Klingberg Family Center in New Britain Connecticut. From 1903-1970, it'd been an orphanage for children. When I lived there it was a residential therapeutic treatment center in what is commonly referred to as a group home, for children with behavioral needs.
http://klingberg.org/mission-aspirations/

I some what knew what to expect from St. Agnes as I'd left Klingberg only four years before arriving to St. Agnes. The building was stone and brick and surrounded by a shade of trees. A small fenced in play ground was to one side. We climbed a few stairs and rang the front door bell. We were greeted by a young mom caring a baby, and a woman with keys dangling from her neck stood behind her. I recognized her instantly as being "staff".
"Staff" were those who over saw the children living in the home, the pseudo parents of the place.

After introductions we were given a tour. On either side of the entry were offices. ( Shortly after my leaving I understand most of the home was remodeled) To our right was a hall that led to a two room day care center on site. Going straight from the front door and down, their was the "staff office to left and just past that a large living room with many couches and a television. To the right of the room was a large dining room and a kitchen, off of that a large play room, and a closed of sitting room.
Taking the door from the living room, you entered a hall with a payphone. If you went down stairs there numerous door, mostly opening to in house classrooms and offices, there was also a laundry room where we did our own wash.

If you took the stair case upstairs, it led to an L-shaped hall way. There were between fourteen and seventeen ( cant recall exactly) bedrooms. All box shaped, with their own door not much larger then a jail cell. Each room issued a single twin bed with sheets and hospital style bed spread, a crib, a built in closet, a single wire shelf above the bed, a small desk, a dresser a sink and a mirror. It seems like a lot of furniture but it was very very tiny in there. Especially for a mother of a baby and all the things a baby needs.

There was a very large bathroom with three or four school style toilet stalls, a changing table and a few shower stalls. A row of sinks of bathing babies in. Everything was very institutional.

After a bit of explaining from the staff to my mother, my mother and I said our good-byes. I was left to unpack and settle DeAna in. Then I would have to meet the other girls and begin our new life.

Colic survival list, mommy's little helpers

Here is a brief survival list of products that helped with the newborn colic stage.

I highly recommend that all moms have these on hand because they come in handy with teething babies too.

I am a huge fan of the vibrating bouncy seat. This was the product that finally gave my daughter a level of comfort that freed me up long enough to take a shower.

These seat vary by maker, mine adjusted to 3 different levels of vibration. These seat are dangerous once your child can really move themselves around because they tip over easy. Until then, they are incredibly soothing for little ones, especially those who need the extra physical stimulation to stay calm.

Another must have item..I used this with all three of my little ones and a number of children I cared for is a sound machine. I liked the stuffed animal variety because it looked cute but really any soothing sound machine will do. Most have a heart beat or womb sound option, mimics the sounds babies knew so well for their 9 months inside mommy. This also work extremely well with puppies newly separated from mom. Although the stuffed Animal varieties come with a Velcro strap,  I strongly advise not hanging these inside a crib from the rails. There is a link between items such a stuffed animals, pillows, crib bumpers, blankets being in the crib and SIDS. This is because of the possibility of suffocation.

Infant massage is a great strategy for helping with colic. I spent many nights learning about infant massage from videos and books. After baby's bath, a rub down with a baby safe lavender lotion is very calming. Lavender is used in aromatherapy for its calming effects. Just make sure you are using a product that is safe for baby's skin.

And the last item that did NOT work with my daughter but worked well with my sons, was a swaddle blanket. A swaddle blanket gives your baby that warm hugged around feeling they experienced in the womb. Its also helps with flailing and keeps them from accidentally scratching their little faces when their nervous system is adjusting and their arms fly everywhere. This also helps baby sleep better and may lesson the risk of suffocation that placing a blanket on top of baby may pose.  Love this product!

Did your baby have colic? Was you baby overly fussy? What methods worked best for you and your little one? What product could you just not live without?

Someone broke my baby!

Someone broke my baby!

When I was pregnant my alternative school sent me to the big high school one period a day for Early Childhood education class. It was a big privilege to me because I also got to see my friends. The class itself was great, I loved it. We also had the opportunity to work in the on-site day care which made me fall in love with the idea of having my own day care center someday.

The teacher in the class passed out the robotic baby think it over dolls two weeks before my due date. She said I didn't have to bring one home if I chose not to. I wanted to. I wanted to be ready. We were to keep the dolls for a minimum of two days at a maximum of two weeks. I'd kept mine two weeks, with the doll waking me up all hours of the night. I patiently got up with her and went back to sleep. The baby doll was set to colic, I didn't know, either did the teacher. Once my actual real life baby was here, someone must have set her to colic as well. The baby never seemed to sleep, and if she did, she was on my breast or tucked close to where she could hear my heartbeat.

 I was almost certain of it. For one thing, she ate all the time, like she had a huge hole in her tiny belly that was leaking out every drop of milk that ever went in. She was never satisfied. She detested the Binky. Every pacifier in the world must have tasted bad because wouldn't use it. What she wanted was to be constantly attached to me and she cried.

She cried constantly. She hated to be swaddled, which most colicky babies need. She wouldn't let anyone hold her but me. We couldn't sit still. If she wasn't asleep, we had to be walking. If we were sitting me had to be moving, and rocking in the rocking chair just wasn't enough. We had to bounce in my arms AND rock. I got so used to standing up bouncing, the few times I wasn't holding, I'd still be standing there bouncing. It was awful.

I was worried I was eating too much spice in my food and my milk was upsetting her stomach but even that didn't help. She cried if she was in the car seat until the windows were down and she could feel the wind against her face. If the car stopped for a read light, she screamed. This was colic in its worst form.

I had no choice but to share sleep with her. The bassinet and crib were nothing more then expensive decorations. She would not be put down. Now I know what your going to say, "Let her cry it out" ..there was no letting her cry it out. She just didn't stop, it just went on and on and on. My heart couldn't take letting her cry.

The dangers of sleep sharing were still not widely known. i knew to place her on her back to sleep. THAT was brand new information that I received and followed.

She went from a sleepy little newborn and to a high needs baby. I couldn't get a break because she went to no one, at least without screaming in their arms. I had to shower with her, because we were alone in the house most of the day. I had to eat with her in one arm and my food in the other. Sometimes I could put her in the stroller to take a walk and other times her screaming became so great that I had to take her out and hold her with one arm and push the stroller with the other.

I eventually bought a vibrating bouncy seat that she would tolerate for short periods of time, at least long enough for a shower or if she had worn herself out, she might even fall asleep with it. Between that and a teddy bear that played a recording of a heart beat, I got occasional breaks. Rare, but they happened. She couldn't be left to sleep in the bouncer because it kept her mostly upright and she had yet to gain neck control.

Everything happens for a reason. If she hadn't been so high needs, maybe I would have eventually gone back to my teenage ways. Maybe if I wasn't her only source of comfort in life, the temptation to leave her with a sitter and do my own thing would have gotten to me. I had no choice but to be with her every waking second. The colic would eventually wear off, but the high needs would warp and take shape into other aspects of parenting her. The large demand load would always remain.

Let me interrupt my chronicles a moment here..

Let me interrupt my chronicles a moment here..
I want to take a minute to get political without going  much into depth and throwing myself off my own path. Or boring and offending people BUT
I'd like to wrap my head around the Republicans, the tea-party, and certain GOP ideas but I just can't understand.

Because this is a blog about teenagers and teen parents, I am going to base my rant as best I can in the way in effects and pertains to people in this populace.

First of all, based on what I suppose is religious motivations.. birth-control has become a public enemy with the above mentioned parties. Birth control? (why not child hunger? domestic violence? child molesters?) and Planned Parenthood has become a major target of their political agenda.

In Wisconsin, the GOP is trying to pass into law that single parenthood is a form of child abuse!!!

I am alone in my out-rage??
Am I wrong that none of these politicians belong on the show 18 or (is it 19 now..) kids and counting? Are they saying that they don't have sex? Or that they don't use birth control and are immune to pregnancy? I am guess I am greatly confused here, which is why I am asking.

Do some and did some of them not have teenagers? Do they believe their teenagers were not sexually active? Because we all saw how well that worked out for Sarah Palin's family. The average teenager is not going to turn to his or her parent when they are in need of birth control. They aren't going to go to their family doctor who they know has a relationship with their parents. They are going to go to Planned Parenthood. If they don't have these places to turn to, they are going to get pregnant at a minimum, they might also get bigger things than a baby like herpes or HIV with out easy access to free condoms. If you've never been to Planned Parenthood, most offices keep a basket of condoms in the waiting room or at the counter that you can take for free without being asked any questions. This is a blessing for those who other wise might be too shy.

The average teenager is not going to feel comfortable going to a sales counter and asking for condoms. Its like pulling teeth to get them to buy their own tampons. The embarrassment factor is still to great. There is a lack of immaturity because they are still developing in both mind and body. Which is why a pregnancy is not always the best thing.  We rank number one in the world in the number of teen pregnancies as it is. That's a fact. Its also a fact that many teenagers who become parents fail to meet the needs of that child through little fault of their own but because services that once safety netted them have already been taken off the table by those lovely budget cuts we all faced during the Bush administration.

I cannot think of a single sexually active teen or a teen contemplating becoming sexually active that is going to stop having or decide not to have sex because they shut down Planned Parenthood or stop making condoms available in schools. What we are going to end up with is a major health crisis in our future generations.

They are doing this to females with the thinking that what?? They are going to charge unwed mother's with child abuse and put their children into an already failing foster care system? I can only imagine the pending mental health crisis that would arise from both parent and child as a result.

I can understand the thought process that people who are mature enough for sexual relationships should be able to afford their own birth control, and why force the state or country to pay. Planned parenthood is currently federally funded and I for one, don't mind a single dollar of my tax money playing for the services they provide. I also think that people who make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year shouldn't fly first class on the tax payer's dollar. We all don't get what we want. If you don't fly first class their are no ramifications, if you pull birth control out of reach from us, this will not only impact our population, but our economy and our physical and mental health as a nation.

What are your views on birth control being easily accessible to teenagers? or to people as a whole? Are your views personal or religious? What/ if any impact do you think not having birth control easily available to the poorest classes of people would have on our nation?