I would have made a good mother

By Melissa Forsyth

Date: Fri, 04 Jun 1999

I remember when I first found out I was pregnant. It was March 11, 1999 and I had gone to planned parenthood for a pregnancy test. When they told me I was pregnant, I was totally speechless. I couldn't bring myself to say anything. And the nurse was so mean to me. I think it was because I am only 16 years old. She gave me a book of places I could go to get an abortion and I thought that that was very insulting, to encourage someone to kill your child. I was very scared for a couple of weeks. But my boyfriend and I decided that we would keep our child. We went shopping and picked out what kind of baby book we would get and we picked out names.

3 months into my pregnancy I started bleeding, it wasn't much but I called the doctor to make sure everything was going to be ok. But nothing was ok. I was rushed to the emergency room for an examination and 3 hours later the doctor walked in and told me my baby was dying.

As soon as I heard those words, I started crying. I was so upset. I did everything I was supposed to do, I ate right, I took my vitamins every day, I stayed as germ-free as I possibly could. All of my memories of how perfect my baby would be were destroyed within 5 seconds of a strange doctor's conclusion.

I had a miscarriage about a month ago now. And every day I think about my loss and wonder what it would have been like to be refereed to as mom in my teen years and how good it would have felt to make my baby smile and laugh. Even though I'm only 16 years old, I know I would have been a good mother.