We were kids when he arrived, but loving him made us grow up fast, and the life we built together turned out better than the one we thought we were losing. She was still in high school, shy of eighteen, when a quiet worry pushed her into the nurse’s office. She sat in that small room trying to breathe while her brain ran loops: it won’t be positive, it can’t be. The nurse returned with two bright pink lines and a soft voice about options. Adoption. Abortion. Keeping the baby. None of it felt simple, and none of it felt like the life she had pictured. She walked to the library, texted a sister and a couple of friends, and felt more alone than ever.
Days later, she dialed the number for an abortion clinic, whispering guesses about how far along she might be. Before an appointment could be set, she hung up and slid to the floor in tears. In her heart, she knew her path: she would have the baby and step into motherhood just as her adult life was beginning. Telling the baby’s father, Jordan, came first. He surprised her with steady support. Telling her parents came later, a week before graduation, out in the garage, where words were hard to say. She cried, not from shame but fear of letting them down. Her mom stayed calm and said she would tell her dad. Later, her parents called with a clinic they had found online. She felt shocked and hurt. She told them no. She was already seventeen weeks. She was keeping the baby. The conversation ended there. Jordan’s parents, by contrast, were openly excited. They welcomed her with warmth that felt like air after holding her breath.
Her doctor did not treat her kindly. He dismissed her concerns, ignored Jordan, and set a due date that never seemed to fit. She knew he was breech when she felt the baby’s head high in her belly. The office insisted she couldn’t say, but an ultrasound proved her right. A C-section was booked for November 9 at eight in the morning. It wasn’t the birth she had imagined but the one ahead of her. On surgery day, the operating room felt cold and bright.
The spinal needle, the staff chatter, the rising panic, then Jordan’s hand in hers. When they lifted their son, Malachi, into the light, he looked like an angel. Moments later, he was taken away for breathing trouble. She lay in recovery, waiting for her baby, who did not come. By the time she could move, she was wheeled past other new mothers with their babies and felt her own arms ache with the absence. That night, she finally saw him in an incubator, tiny and peaceful, and learned he had been born at thirty-six weeks because the dates had been wrong.
Thirty hours later, Malachi was brought to her. She held him and swallowed happy tears. But the hospital would not allow her to breastfeed and insisted on formula, which he couldn’t tolerate. He lost weight. She begged the nurse; they said no. Her dad challenged the mixed messages on the walls about breastfeeding. She realized how easily young parents can be silenced, and how often they would have to speak up. Going home felt strange. It was her parents’ house, not her own. Friends came to see the baby, but life had shifted: they were starting university while she was learning night feedings and diaper changes. Malachi had colic. Jordan still lived with his parents, so she took the nights alone from eleven at night to eleven in the morning. It was lonely and exhausting. On the weekends, Jordan’s mom would take the baby at dawn so she could sleep a few hours. Those mornings felt like rescue.
After four months, the crying eased. They moved into a small condo together when Malachi was nine months old. Having their own place finally felt like building a life. There were still storms: ear tubes for infections, steroid shots for croup, a hospital stay with pneumonia that left him lighter and bruised from IVs, an ADHD diagnosis that took five years because people kept brushing them off. Again and again, they had to fight to be heard. She learned to push back against the stereotype of the “teen mom.” She knew being young did not make her less capable or less loving.
Malachi, whose name means my angel, my messenger, tested and taught them. He knit their family together, growing alongside parents who were still growing up. They celebrated his firsts while he witnessed theirs: first apartment, first hard decisions, first time being genuinely listened to. None of it was the plan she had at seventeen. In many ways, it was better.
She learned to push back against the stereotype of the “teen mom.” She understood that being young did not make her less capable or loving. Malachi, whose name means my angel, my messenger, tested and taught them. He knit their family together, growing alongside parents who were still growing up. They celebrated his firsts while he witnessed theirs: first apartment, first hard decisions, first time being genuinely listened to. None of it was the plan she had at seventeen. In many ways, it was better. She feels only gratitude when she looks at her son now- blue eyes, blond hair, freckles dusted across his nose. He made her a mom. He made them a family. And he showed them how strong they could be.
