I'm pregnant.

It looks like such a small sentence, but in reality it is not small at all. Pregnancy is a big deal. It changes lives, both during a pregnancy and afterward. Bodies change, relationships change, lives change. It can be exciting and terrifying all at the same time. So I start this with a small statement with big implications.

At Scarleteen, we see many questions about pregnancy. Often they are about a specific pregnancy risk or whether someone is pregnant or not. Sometimes it is about the choices that accompany a pregnancy. Sometimes there are questions about the things that happen during pregnancy.

I'd like to share with you, in this blog, about my pregnancy. It is not my intention to suggest that this is what every pregnancy is like for every woman. I am not arguing that my choices are the "only" or "best" way. I want to talk about my experience and my perspective. I want to share the good parts and the bad parts.

To that end, I feel like it is important to tell you wh...

What do we know about teen parents? Take a moment to make a mental list (or, if you’re motivated to get out a pen and paper, I won’t stop you) of all the facts and statistics you’ve heard.

In case you’re coming up short, I’ll give you a few:

• Most teen parents drop out of high school.
• Only 2% of teen parents will graduate from college by age 30.
• Many teen parents will end up on welfare, costing tax payers billions of dollars nationwide.
• The children of teen parents are more likely to fail a grade in school. Their sons are more likely to go to jail. Their daughters are more likely to become teen mothers themselves.
• The relationships of teen parents almost always fail, leaving teen mothers to be single parents.

You can read more here or here or here or watch any episode of 16 and Pregnant that features Dr. Drew. He’ll usually cover most of these points before the hour is up – while interviewing young people who are actually parenting.

Beyond these “facts”, we hear plenty of othe...

I had a favorite line, in high school, when debating people on the subject of abortion. It was "Hey, that thing in your stomach's not gonna come out a toaster, right? It's a baby!"

Oh, I thought I was really, super clever with that one. Because I loved talking about the babies. I talked about the babies at the high school Young Republicans Club--not only was I the president, but also the founder. I talked about the babies at Club 412, the evangelical punk teen hang-out in Fort Worth I frequented with my friends. I talked about the babies in class. I cried about the babies while I strummed my guitar. I wrote songs about the babies, imagining myself as a broken, murderous whore who regretted her abortions.

I didn't have an opinion one way or the other on abortion until I started hanging out with right-wing punk rock kids in high school. Then, somebody -- probably one of the older teenage punk rock boys I would later fend off in the back of a car or behind the chapel at church camp -- ha...