This is the story of young mum Maddie Lambert on how she got pregnant at the age of 13. Learn about how she was able to overcome the challenges of being a teenage mother here.
In this article, you will read:
- Pregnant at 13: She never expected it to happen to her
- Maddie Lambert’s pregnancy and story on giving birth
“I gave birth at 14 years old, and I got pregnant at 13 years old,”
said Maddie Lambert, a teenager who became a mum at the tender age of 13.
Three years have passed since people first heard about her story on her pregnancy when she was just 13 years old. This time, she shared her personal account of what happened on her own YouTube channel.
According to the young mum, the past years have really changed her life. Her perspective has changed since she became a mother.
“I was 13 years old when I got pregnant, barely a teenager,” she shared.
Even before her teenage years, Maddie Lambert has been through a lot. She was already battling with anxiety and experienced being bullied. She felt that she didn’t belong and the people around her didn’t accept who she was.
“I had a not so great childhood, with a lot of anxiety and bullying,” she said.
When she turned 13, that’s the time she finally felt that she found her place. At that age, she met the father of her child who is already 4 years old as of writing.
She met him through a close friend. They hit it off quickly and dated until she got pregnant.
Around that time, kids her age were also just beginning to learn about sex education. According to her, the message that they were sending in her school was “abstinence.” Do not do it so you would not get pregnant. But she said,
“Teenagers aren’t gonna listen to abstinence. I did not listen to abstinence.”
Because she was so young, she did not have a clear picture of what she was doing. The teen mum confessed that she was not expecting getting pregnant to be that easy.
“I got pregnant at 13 years old. I did not know that it was that easy to get pregnant,” she shared.
Larawan mula sa Shutterstock
She said that the information she got from sex education was not sufficient, which is why she was not able to prevent pregnancy. As a child, she only based everything on what she watched on TV and in the movies, where most couples had a hard time having kids.
She confessed to being so naive at that time. She did not know that it can only take one time to get pregnant. From what she saw on TV and in the movies, she thought that it would not be easy to get pregnant, so she was not scared to have sex.
Maddie and her daughter’s dad only dated for about 4 to 6 months, and just when they were about to enter their freshman year, the guy broke up with her.
“I was so crushed. Here I was, pregnant but I didn’t know.. And single,” she said.
She revealed that she got so depressed after that. She couldn’t get out of bed, and she would throw up a lot. But she and her family didn’t think much of it, thinking that she just had a stomach virus.
Pregnant at 13 – the period of denial
And then it happened. She missed her period. Maddie said that she had extremely irregular periods so she didn’t know what to think of it at first. She even lied to her mum that she was getting her period to avoid any questions.
She tried not to think about that possibility, scared of what might happen if it was true. Maddie was also afraid of how her mum would react if she found out. It came to the point that she would sit in the bathroom and pray that her period was just late.
“I would sit on the toilet and pray for my period to come,” she said.
After a month or two, her mum finally decides to take Maddie to the doctor, as she was always depressed and feeling dizzy and had a headache every day.
At the paediatrician’s clinic, one of the nurses, also a young mum, saw Maddie’s symptoms and suggested that they run a pregnancy test.
“I was scared that my life was over, it wasn’t,” she added.
They ran a pregnancy test and the results showed positive. Maddie was about three months pregnant.
Larawan mula sa Shutterstock
She thought that her mum would be furious at her. She even thought she was going to be disowned. But instead, her mother embraced her when they found out and reassured her that things would be fine.
“She hugged me and told me, it was gonna be okay. She told me, ‘we love babies on this house. It’s gonna be okay, you’re gonna be okay,” she shared.
Maddie Lambert: Going through pregnancy without a partner
“I did go through the pregnancy alone,” said the young mum.
The first time Maddie and her mum told her ex-boyfriend the news about the pregnancy, he did not want to believe it.
“Honestly, I don’t blame him. It seemed like it was this huge, crazy thing that wasn’t real,” she added.
It was only when she showed him a copy of the sonograph that her daughter’s father was able to believe that she was indeed pregnant. But their talk, as Maddie said, was a completely different story.
“Just imagine two 14-year-olds trying to co-parent. It was a lot,” she said.
As expected, it was not easy for her to go through the whole ordeal without a partner to support her. From monitoring her pregnancy development, having severe morning sickness, prenatal care and planning for her delivery – she had to go through them alone.
She also had to face the humiliation and judgment from other people by herself.
“I was a laughingstock of the entire school district,” she said.
Students from where they were from judged Maddie. Other teenagers would make fun of her being pregnant. She would get messages that told her to abort her baby, and even ones that told her that they hope she and her baby dies.
“I’ve been with one person, and automatically they think I’m a whore because I got pregnant,” she shared.
Those were very difficult for a 14-year-old. Luckily, her mother was there for her throughout the whole pregnancy. Maddie considers her mum her rock.
ALSO READ:
14 And Pregnant: How Mary Jenkins Survived Being A Single Teenage Mum
Study Reveals That Early Pregnancy Weight Gain Impacts Baby’s Size
Baby abandoned by young parents: How to deal with teenage pregnancy the right way
Worrying about her baby
But the hardest part for the young mum was when she found out, after an ultrasound, that the baby in her womb had a heart problem.
“I go in to talk to my obstetrician and she tells me that it looks like something’s wrong with her heart,” she said.
At this point, Maddie shared that one of the things that got her through her early pregnancy was her religion. When she learned about her baby’s heart condition, she started praying for her child’s safety and asked people she knew to pray for her daughter.
“I wasn’t scared for me. I wasn’t scared about being a single mother. I was scared for my daughter if she was going to be okay.”
So they went and consulted another doctor and learned that it was fine. For the young mum, it was nothing short of a miracle, but revealed that it was one of the scariest moments of her life.
Maddie Lambert – her daughter’s birth story
A few days short of her due date, she was induced to have her daughter, and she said that it was the scariest day of her life. Not because she was giving birth, but because she saw that her daughter was in distress. Maddie was in labour for about 23 hours.
After pushing for some time, her daughter Everly finally came out. She was born in March 5 at 3:34 AM.
It was a rollercoaster of emotions as Maddie said that seeing her daughter was the best moment of her life, but it was also terrifying because when she came out, she wasn’t breathing on her own.
“I was holding her on my chest and she didn’t start crying.”
She remembers the nurses taking her baby from her and at one side of the room, she could see the doctors resuscitating her newborn. Meanwhile, she also lost a lot of blood from pushing her placenta out of her womb.
Larawan mula sa Shutterstock
But all of those worries and hardship meant nothing as soon as she was able to be with her daughter again.
“It was the best thing I’ve ever felt in my life, holding my daughter for the first time. It was magical and it was worth every single moment,” she shared.
While what she went through was a big ordeal for a 14-year-old, Maddie said that she does not regret being a young mum. She thought her life would be over after she got pregnant, but she was able to push herself to work hard for her daughter.
Fast forward to now, Maddie’s daughter is getting ready to go to preschool, and Maddie is also thinking about going back to school to study Psychology.
“This beautiful little girl is the reason that I was able to push myself and see life, and fight depression.”she said.
“That’s my story and here we are now. Never for a moment have I regretted getting pregnant young. I am proud of myself. I am proud of my daughter,” she finished.
Larawan mula sa Shutterstock
Translated with permission from theAsianparent Philippines.
