a message to anyone who wants a baby young

soooo...i'm not a teenager anymore. today i am 20. it doesn't really feel like it. i keep forgetting actually...
justin got me some goofy presents and a starbucks card, and he took me out to lunch. it's been nice spending the day with him. we're probably going to go to the drive-in tonight and see harry potter (again).
it's amazing how sometimes your life can be completely different than you ever imagined it being, and you can love it just the same. i always imagined i would be doing missions work every summer, and traveling with different groups...but i'm not. i'm here with noah and justin, i nanny, i just finished summer class (english--i got a 95%...yeeeeah.) life is different than i thought it would be on my 20th birthday, but that's not a bad thing at all. i think people are always searching for that one thing that makes their life fulfilling, and sometimes it's easier to come by than any of us thought.
people tell me sometimes that they don't know how i do it. they don't know how i take care of noah by myself about 90% of the time. they say that they never could have gone through being pregnant and leaving North Park for a community college, and they don't know how i stayed strong through everything that i went through. when you look at the big picture, yeah, sometimes things seem so impossible. but we learn to live through things moment by moment. at times i don't know how i did all that. the telling my parents i was pregnant, the doctor's appointments, the stares at the mall, the birth, the c-section, the sleeping 2 hours at a time for 6 months, and then 3 hours at a time for another 3 months, the nighttime feedings, the diaper changes...but if you love someone enough you can do it.
all these high school girls think it's all awesome to have a baby young, because you get attention, you get to name him or her, you get to dress the baby up and take them out and people ooh and ah over him or her...but that's only a small part of it. motherhood sometimes means being more tired than you thought was possible. you have to learn to operate on empty day after day after day. it means bringing the baby's high chair and breakfast into the bathroom in the morning just so you can get a shower in. for any young girl who wants to have a baby right now, please, please think harder about it. think about giving up school, time, friends, prom, sleep, energy, and freedom. motherhood (and that's what having a baby is: being someone's mother. can you fathom that?) is the hardest thing you have ever had to do thus far. listen to someone who has been there. but for now, i am victorious.
this moment right here, me sitting here writing this with a cup of coffee at my side on my 20th birthday, with noah taking a much needed nap upstairs, this moment is victorious. for now i have come out on the other side in victory.
for a mother, and especially a young mother, every moment that you look on and think, "you know, things are really good right now. we're all going to be okay," is a victorious moment.
so to mothers who are reading this in victory, congratulations.
and to mothers who are too young, or too scared, or too alone, or too anxious about the future, you are going to be okay. your little one is going to be okay, just get through this moment. all you can do is stay at God's side and get rest while you can, and live each day moment by moment. eventually, someday, you will be victorious.




song of the day: undiscovered, by james morrison
link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtE18O555_k


poem of the day: hope, by emily dickenson

Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.