A letter to my first born.

To my beautiful first born daughter,

I hope that when you read this I would have already done my job well enough for you to already know this.

You're beautiful. You're amazing. You're unique.

You will always be as beautiful as you were the first time I looked at you.
You are a strong and intelligent girl, at just two years old you could melt the hearts of the people surrounding you.

Don't ever settle for less than what you're worth. Don't give in to the pressures around you and please, don't give yourself away to a person who doesn't respect you. Grasp the person you are and don't let anybody stop you from being the person you're destined to be.

Stop doubting yourself, stop seeing the worst in yourself. You're perfect.

Don't change the way you look to satisfy anybody else, because that little girl who used to walk around in her mums shoes, wearing the Tu-Tu over her jeans and the princess tiara tangled in her beautiful blonde ringlets knew she was different and that made her happy.

I look at you now and you're so small and I can't imagine you grown into a young woman and it scares me.
This world is full of so much hate that could easily destroy the hopes of anyone, but please, don't let it disappoint you, because despite the bad, there is so much beauty in the world.

I want you to travel, to see the world around you and I just wish that there was a way that you could see yourself through my eyes, because if that was possible, you would never doubt yourself again.

By now I would have said it a million times, but I love you.

I have loved since the moment I held you and looked into your eyes and seen the whole entire world, my entire world.

If for some reason I'm not longer around to remind you of all of this, please know that even at 17 as a single mother, you were the best thing that ever happened to me, your brother too.

You both gave my life meaning and you gave me a reason to wake up every morning.

If I'm no longer around to see the woman you have become then I want you to know that I am proud of you.
That nothing you do could ever make me ashamed to call you my daughter.

I've been proud of you since I announced that I was pregnant and even more proud when I introduced you to the world.

Watching you and your brother grow has been my best achievement and my biggest privilege.
Even if I wasn't to amount to much in my life time, I know that raising you both has been my biggest accomplishment.

I hope that when you read this we have relationship as close as what we have now, where you will lay with me and tell me your secrets and know that you can tell me anything without being judged.

I love you more than you could imagine and I hope that by the time you have read this that you have learned to love yourself as much as I love you.

Sincerely,

Your biggest fan. <3

Puzzles.

Society today is a giant jig-saw puzzle.

They say that the once "taboo" lifestyles are becoming more acceptable to society, but is this really the case?

I'm not just speaking of homosexuality, interracial couples or body modifying.

I am speaking about teenage pregnancy and what it means to live in a society that CLAIMS to have become more perceptible to young families.

When I mentioned that I see the world as a giant jig-saw, I meant it in the sense that to get to the pretty picture you need patience and determination, because a lot of the time the pieces aren't always going to fit.

I imagine the world as a half completed jigsaw puzzle. These are the people who live normal lives, with normal jobs and children they had after marriage.

Scattered around the half completed jig-saw puzzle you will see a lot of odd shaped, different pieces that when you look at them you can't quite tell where they're going to fit. Well, that's me.

I am a teenage mother of two beautiful children. I fell pregnant with my daughter at 17.I didn't have a graduating certificate from high school or even an equivalency certificate. I was half way through studying administration and working a job at Subway just so I could afford to pay for my course.

One day I jokingly took a pregnancy test to ease the mind of a family member who thought she may have been pregnant and presto that was it, my whole life changed.

The minute those two lines came up on the stick my whole outlook on life changed. I didn't know what to think or feel but I knew that this miracle of life was a blessing regardless of my circumstances.

A whole 8 months went by and on the morning of January the 30th, 2012, I had given birth to the most beautiful little girl that I had ever laid eyes on.

It was love at first site. I had never known any love like this and not only did I feel love I felt pride. I was so proud of the little wonder laying on my bare chest glancing at me with the whole entire world in her beautiful eyes.

A year went by and my baby was a year old and I was in a committed relationship with a man who gave me hope and support. He took on the hardest job, Picking up where someone had left off and he was doing an amazing job.

January 2013, I fell pregnant to my Casanova. A wave of shock came over us, but our hearts grew to love this little life. 

In March 2013, 3 days before my birthday my love took me for a nice weekend drive around our small little town.

As we looked out over the lookout to the small country town we lived in he proposed. It all fell into place and besides the birth of my daughter at that point it was the happiest moment of my life!

Another 6 months down the track on a beautiful Sunday morning, we went to watch my sister in-laws football game. As I sat on the side lines I started getting cramps, I knew this was it, I was going to meet my little man!

Hours passed and contractions grew more consistent and after a few drives up and down a long bumpy drive way I went home to rest.

I couldn't bare it anymore, I went into the hospital and told the midwife my symptoms and described my pain. The nurse had set up the heart rate machine wrong and told me that because I was so young I didn't know what contractions were and that I would know when he decides to come in another 5 weeks (he was due October 17th). I told the midwife that my age has nothing to do with this, that my motherly instincts knew this was it and that I had been in labour 19 months prior with my daughter.

The midwife told me that I should go home until I know for sure that I was in labour, but I refused to leave. I told the doctor I wanted to stay the night, just in case I was going to have him through the night.

At 11 pm I finally got taken to a bed and after an hour of laying in the maternity room I struggled to get up and I waddled out of the shared room as quietly as I could trying not to wake the sleeping mother in the next bed.

With tears streaming down my face I asked one of the nurses if they had a hot water bottle to ease the cramps, unfortunately they didn't have any and offered me the next best remedy, a hot shower!

The nurse assisted me to the bathroom and helped me undress. Once she left the room I turned the shower handles and as I stepped into the bathroom I felt a gush run down my legs. At first I thought my waters had finally broken and that this was really happening but I remembered that broken waters feel like a continuous trickle or a gush, but this was different.

As I looked down I was grief stricken and somehow simultaneously as I looked down I hit the emergency button. There was blood everywhere, I was haemorrhaging. I was rushed to the labour room. The midwife on duty checked me over and told me I was 2 cm dilated.

At 7 am Monday morning my prince was born. But the happy moment that was supposed to follow the birth of my son, the moment where a mother and child bond for the very first moment, didn't happen. Instead I watched in horror as they ripped my son away from me. A paediatrician stood beside me resuscitating my baby.

My son was rushed to intensive care and because I had a severe haemorrhage I was stuck on the hospital bed for 3 hours before I could even see him.

Finally my strong Fiancé told me that our bundle of joy was doing fine and invited me to come and meet him. As he wheeled me around the corridors we arrived at the intensive care units.

Josh wheeled me through the doors and I stood up from my wheel chair to search for my baby. Not even 2 minutes of seeing him I was grief stricken once again. I started crying and I couldn't stop.

My precious premature baby was covered in chords and wires with tubes down his throat and up his nose.

I couldn't believe it. Why did this happen to us? What did we do to deserve this? We don't do drugs, we look after our daughter, we are a healthy happy family and my partner works hard to support us. Why was this happening?

Disaster took an even bigger turn when my son had a turn for the worst and was flown via helicopter 6 hours away.

"We can only take one of the parents. Unfortunate ma'am, you have haemorrhaged. You cannot go with your son to Sydney, You're simply not well enough to go." The intensive care nurse explained.

I fought and I cried and my heart shattered into a million pieces. I hadn't even held my baby!

I watched my son get strapped into an incubator and waved my fiancé and baby off as the care flight helicopter lifted off.

Tears in my eyes I huddled back to my hospital bed and I was so numb I couldn't feel anything but heart break. 

20 minutes later a doctor came in.

"We have just organized for the flying doctors to fly you down to Sydney. Make sure you have your belongings, we are just organizing the ambulance to transport you from the hospital to the airport. You will be a patient of West mead hospital where you can stay close to your son and provide feedings for him." she said.

I couldn't help but smile, I was so thankful.

Two weeks passed and my baby was home. I was so blessed to have both of my children under the one roof, and to finally have that bond with my son and boy was it a bond. He was a mummy’s boy from the start!

Months went by and we packed up our life from the town we were living in and decided to move an hour and a half away just for the change.

Josh changed his job and while I was a house wife I studied.
Organizing our wedding made me realize how much I liked the feel of event managing.

Although there was a big difference between organizing my own wedding rather than organizing an event for somebody else, it suddenly occurred to me that this is what I wanted to do.

It was like a light at the end of a dark tunnel, my new calling.
I love being a mummy, there really is nothing more rewarding but my motivation and drive to prove to my family that I could make them proud of me gave me the determination to finish my units and I passed them all with ease.  

Life wasn't just about me anymore and the more I studied and the more I passed, the more I was realizing my self-worth. All of the Negative comments about never being able to achieve anything because I'm a teenage mum and all of the doubts everybody had no longer existed in my world.

I was teaching my kids that no matter what your circumstances are you can always change and better yourself no matter how hard it may seem.

I did it. I made a life for myself outside of my home. I joined a gym, I got up and I stopped waiting for opportunities to knock on my door. I started making things happen. Most importantly I proved to MYSELF that I could do it.

It may seem like I re directed the whole theme of this post, but in actual fact I purposely did it. It may seem like anyone under the age of 25 doesn't care about their parental duties or that they don't work hard enough to deserve kids or maybe that they aren't going anywhere in life... you're wrong.

I didn't ask for a television show at 17 when I fell pregnant, I pulled my socks up and I stepped up to the plate.I didn't abort my kids because I don't believe in abortion. I didn't adopt my babies out because life would have been easier because it wouldn't have.

Waking up every day to my children is the most rewarding part of my day. They really do light up my life.

There are different aspects of my life that seem harder than others being a mum at my age and I will share them with you just to shed some light on how much harder parenting is at my age.

Socially-

It is so much harder to make friends because a lot of people my age are doing drugs and drinking and I don't do either because my kids deserve more than that. Nobody wants to be around that girl with all those responsibilities.

BUT, I joined a reading group and I am slowly meeting people in my community with children.

Professionally-

Now this is the biggest problem I have.

Humanity acts as though they are more accepting to young mothers but in retrospect they aren't. Having kids alone makes it hard enough to find employment regardless of your age because to an employer they think that there are too many outside distractions and that you're going to skip days off work because your kids have a runny nose.

Well, we aren't a waste of time. We have responsibilities and priorities too. We want a chance to prove to everyone that we are more than just house wives/husbands. We have goals and dreams too and there should be no restrictions on gender, sexuality or age just because some people aren't open to change.

I hate going grocery shopping because people stare and whisper.
What gives society the right to prey on people in my situation, wait, this is NOT a situation. I am NOT struggling, I am NOT helpless and my kids are NOT missing out.

My kids are well looked after, well fed, dressed and well mannered. They have two role models teaching them that they should make the best of the hands they are dealt and that with determination they can strive to achieve any dream they have.

Stop trying to cram and reshape more of those "perfect" looking puzzle pieces where they don't fit. These different looking puzzle pieces are what makes the bigger picture whole.

We may not be perfect and our life choices may not be your cup of tea but don't judge us on the bad examples like teenagers from MTV pregnancy sitcoms. We are nothing like that.

The difference between the perfect jig-saw pieces and the "different" pieces is that the different pieces that don't look like they will fit don't assume, they don't judge and they don't care how you live your life as long as it makes you happy.


My finishing note is this:

Never just "ASSUME" because in the end it will just make an "ASS"of"U"and"ME".