Bulletproof

by Maci Bookout

  3. If you want things to turn out well, you better work for it.

  My mom had my brother when she was seventeen, but didn’t let it stop her from getting her GED. She had me at twenty, and worked full time. By the time she was twenty-four, she graduated from college with a Bachelor’s Degree, on the Dean’s List. (There’s a picture of me, my mom, my dad and my brother at her graduation, her with her crazy perm!) She was able to build a career while raising a family, and thirty years later, she’s set to retire from the same job she started with. From a teen mom perspective, that’s as inspiring as it gets. Anytime I wanted to slack off in school or felt like I just couldn’t handle all my obligations, I’d think “Mom got it done, and she did it fast, and she did it without a TV show. And if she did it, I can do it.”

  4. Learn how to be independent, and never forget.

  It’s not just about men, but in all areas of life. It doesn’t matter how much people are willing to help you or how much you appreciate it. You should always work to be capable of handling problems yourself before turning to others for help. Not only does it make you a more confident and well-rounded person, but it gives you the strength to make choices even when they might mean losing a measure of comfort or assistance you’ve become dependent on. Besides, if you’re surrounded by a wonderful group of friends, family, and a great partner who would all race to your side should you need them, wouldn’t you want to know that you’re just as capable of helping if they need you someday?

  5. Respect yourself and know your worth.

  This comes from both my mom and my dad, and what I learned from their relationship. They had their struggles and arguments, but there was always a level of respect between the two of them. One was never scornful or dismissive of the other’s feelings or views. When my mom felt she wasn’t getting an equal level of respect, she demanded it, and my dad paid it. It helped me understand that if you don’t demand that level of respect, it can easily slide away. Watching them interact with each other, I saw that she was demanding it and he was man enough to give it to her. So at the same time, I learned from my dad that that’s what I needed to look for in a partner. It’s thanks to them that I know my standards for how I’ll accept being treated and spoken to.

  6. You always need a back-up plan.

  She’ll know what that means.

  7. Don’t say it’s impossible until Mom has tried it.

  I don’t know how many times it was seven in the morning before a softball game and I couldn’t find my socks. I’d comb every inch of my room and turn it upside down before I’d go downstairs swearing I’d looked everywhere in the world. She’d say, “Really?” And then she’d sigh, walk upstairs, and find my socks in two seconds. It always blew my mind. It wasn’t just socks. If I feel like I’ve looked everywhere for a solution to a problem and I still can’t figure it out, I know my mom will suggest something I haven’t considered and make it seem like the most obvious thing in the world. Also, years later, I was getting my son ready for baseball practice and he swore his socks were nowhere to be found. I asked, “Really?” And I sighed, walked in, and found them in two seconds.

  8. You can be a parent and a friend.

  People always say you should be a parent and not a friend, but my mom always seemed to have the perfect balance of both. I always thought of her and respected her as my mom. But I could also talk to her about things that some teenagers would only talk to their friends about. I always felt like even if she might not want to hear what I had to say or she wasn’t thrilled to have some awkward conversation with me, I knew I could be open without her judging me or being angry. She always knew when to listen as a mom and when to listen as a friend. Because of that, I know to constantly make sure Bentley knows that he can come to me and talk to me about anything at all without feeling like what he thinks, feels, or says is going to change how I feel about him. My mom always kept a line of communication open in a very nonjudgmental way, and she’s my best friend to this day. Frankly, when I want to spend the day drinking beer and talking and having a good time, I go hang out with my parents.

  9. Your lipstick only looks as good as the words coming out of your mouth.

  It’s another cliché to say that inner beauty is more important than outer beauty, but I’m glad my mom never focused on my appearance. She let me dress the way I wanted to. If I wanted to wear makeup she let me, and if I didn’t want to wear makeup, she had nothing to say about it. She was never the type of mom to say, “Why are you wearing that? It’s ugly.” If I wanted to put on my brother’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tee shirt with some pink shorts and two different shoes, that was fine with her. She was way more concerned with the kind of person I turned out to be on the inside, and so that’s what I learned to care about, too. I think I look better with makeup, but I don’t think twice about going without it. But I will freak out if I think I’ve acted in a way that makes me look like a dumbass.

  10. When you find a good partner, let him be a good partner.

  For all she taught me about being independent, she also taught me to let people in. And that includes your romantic partner. You should never feel like you can’t live without a man, but when you do find a good one, you have to let him be good. You don’t have to keep proving yourself all the time or reminding him that you don’t need him. Let him take care of you and let yourself enjoy it. That’s what he needs if he loves you, and that’s what you should appreciate in a partnership. Be independent, but don’t be too stubborn about it for your own good.

  CHAPTER 3:

  THE DAY MY LIFE BEGAN

  It was a Saturday morning just like any other Saturday morning...until it wasn’t.

  When I got up that day, I had no reason to think anything crazy was about to happen. I hadn’t had any weird dreams. I didn’t feel a sixth sense tingling. I was just minding my own business, rolling out of bed and auto-walking into the shower to start my morning. I bet I wouldn’t even have remembered that day if I hadn’t almost puked.

  The wave of nausea hit me out of nowhere as I stepped under the spray, and it was major. My stomach rolled so hard I had to get out and sit next to the toilet, convinced I was about to throw up. I stayed there for a few minutes, not even moving, frozen in that horrible waiting-to-puke zone. But then, to my relief, the feeling passed and I felt fine.

  I shrugged it off and got back to my business, still barely even awake. I figured I’d just gotten out of bed too fast, that maybe I’d moved around too much before my body had a chance to adjust. But when I stepped back into the shower, I had another problem: the water was killing my boobs. I couldn’t blame the shower; the water pressure was the same as usual. I didn’t know what to blame. I didn’t have any bruises. I wasn’t on my period. There was no reason why I shouldn’t be able to handle a bit of water on my chest. But I couldn’t! I spent half the shower with my back turned to the spray. That’s how tender my boobs were all of a sudden.

  I tried to shrug that off, too. But as I woke up, my brain started connecting the dots for me without even asking my permission. By the time I turned off the water, I knew.

  I was pregnant.

  I just knew it.

  Of course, there’s knowing and there’s knowing. This was the kind that’s easier to keep to yourself. Even though I had a feeling in my gut, I tried to push it all the way out of my head. I’m all about trusting your intuition and everything, but this one seemed kind of...well, insane. There was just no way, I thought. I wasn’t that type of girl. That sort of thing would never happen to me.

  The bottom line was, I didn’t say anything to anyone about my shower epiphany. Not one word. To be honest, I barely even said anything to myself about it! Call it denial or call it procrastination, but I spent that weekend deliberately ignoring the elephant in the room. Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep that up for long.

  When Monday rolled around, it felt like that elephant was sitting right on top of me. The anxiety of it was stifling. It was all I could think about: I’m p
regnant. I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant. It took a lot of will power to make it through the motions of a normal day, making my way through the hallways amid all the usual sights and sounds of lockers shutting, friends hollering and bells ringing us in and out of class. Because the entire time, I knew something was off. And as crazy as it seemed, as much as it pained me to think about it, I knew what that something was. And I knew my shut-your-eyes, plug-your-ears strategy couldn’t go on forever. It was time to face what my instincts were telling me and get myself a damn pregnancy test.

  At the time, for some reason, I thought a person had to be eighteen to buy a pregnancy test. That wasn’t true, for the record, but that shows you how well prepared I was for the situation I was in. Anyway, lucky for me, I remembered that I’d seen an unopened box of pregnancy tests under the bathroom sink at home. I had no idea why there were there, but thank God. I couldn’t wait another minute to face the music, and I wasn’t in a state to figure out how to get one of my own.

  It was only two-thirty when I finished school and got home to take care of business. I approached the whole task in robot mode. It was almost an out of body experience. No one knew I was taking a pregnancy test, or even suspected I was thinking about it. It was just me, alone, in the bathroom, with a little plastic stick that was about to turn my crazy gut feeling into an inescapable fact.

  When the test was positive, it wasn’t a big moment for me. It was just a formality, reality, confirming what had been obvious to me since I’d stepped out of the shower two days before. The test might as well have said, “Yep.” So once that moment of anticlimax was over, I walked slowly out of the bathroom, down the hall, and into my bedroom to call Ryan. He was at work early that day, a good forty-five minutes away.

  “Hello?” Ryan answered.

  I knew he couldn’t talk long, so I’d have to be clear and to the point. “It says it,” I said.

  There was a pause. “Hello?” Ryan said again.

  “It says it,” I repeated, only vaguely realizing that he hadn’t been in my head for the last few days.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I took a pregnancy test and it says I’m pregnant.”

  Whatever his response was, it was lost on me. For all my outward calm, I was a lot more dazed than I realized. The call was short. But I asked if I could come and see him at work, and he said yes.

  Shifting into a quiet stealth-panic mode, I told my mom I was going to the mall with my friends. That was a completely unnecessary fib. She wouldn’t have interrogated me or forbid me to go say hi to my boyfriend. But in my mind, I wasn’t taking any chances. So I told her I’d be back soon, and I walked out the door without even waiting for her to respond.

  Even more than taking the pregnancy test, the drive to Ryan’s workplace felt completely unreal to me. It was almost like I was watching myself go through it. My emotions had run off somewhere to escape the reality that was taking shape. I don’t even remember feeling anything, or thinking anything. I didn’t cry. I didn’t say much. I was just in complete, actual shock.

  So was Ryan. He asked me the normal questions. Why didn’t I tell him I was taking a pregnancy test? Was I sure? The look on his face was the definition of confusion. He just stared at me with big round eyes and tried to process what I was saying. It seemed hard for him to understand that something so big could happen without any kind of warning. After all, we’d only been together for about six months. We’d only been having sex for two. How could something like this come at us so fast? We were both reeling in disbelief, so it was quite an awkward conversation. And to top it off, he was still at work and could only stay outside for five or ten minutes before he had to get back on the job.

  Finally we hugged and both tried to say the right things. We said our I love you’s and told each other that we were going to be okay, that it would all be fine. It was obvious that every reassuring word coming out of our mouths was meant for ourselves as much as the other person. We may have prided ourselves on being low-drama types, but everyone has a threshold. No matter how chill you are, the words “I’m pregnant” can have a pretty powerful affect on your nerves. It went without saying that we were both freaking out inside.

  That night, after everyone else in the house had gone to bed, I stayed up late in the den with the TV on and wondered what to do next. I did not want to tell anyone. My first reaction, even though I knew it didn’t make realistic sense, was that it wasn’t anyone else’s business. But obviously I couldn’t tell no one. That wouldn’t really work.

  I couldn’t tell any of my friends something this serious. Not when I hadn’t even wrapped my own head around it. They were my best friends and everything, but even then I was old enough to know that if you tell one fifteen-year-old a secret, she’s going to have to pass it on to someone or it will drive her crazy. I didn’t want it to get out of hand like that. Adding rumors and gossip to the mix could instantly turn the situation into a nightmare.

  Finally, I decided to tell my brother Matt. Not only because he was one of my best friends, but because I knew he’d give me a real, valuable reaction that wasn’t sugar-coated or overly negative. I felt confident that he’d listen to me and give me advice on what to do next, without getting angry at me or judging me. So I texted him from the den, woke him up, and told him I needed to talk to him. He didn’t want to get up, but I told him it couldn’t wait.

  My brother and I sat there for about five minutes in silence while he waited for me to say whatever I had on my mind. But when he couldn’t take it anymore, he asked, “What is it?”

  I put my hand over my mouth like it would help filter the truth, and then I came clean. “I’m pregnant.”

  “I knew you were gonna say that,” he replied, without missing a beat.

  “How did you know?” I groaned. Great, I thought. So I have “PREGNANT” written on my forehead now.

  “As soon as you said you needed to talk, I just knew it,” he said. “Did you take a test?”

  “Yeah. I took one.”

  “You need to take another one, just to be sure.” And just like that, he stood up and told me we were going to the drugstore. Our dad noticed us leaving and texted us once we were out the door — we told him we were going out for a snack.

  My brother went into the drugstore with me. We approached the checkout counter with three tests, and the woman working behind the counter told us they were more accurate when taken in the morning. We thanked her and headed back home.

  “Try to get some sleep,” he told me. “Take these in the morning before school, and come and tell me what they say.”

  I don’t think I got any sleep that night. In the morning, I passed every one of those tests with flying colors. Meaning they all said I was pregnant.

  I went to my brother’s room. The door was ajar, so I knocked softly and pushed it open. “Are you awake?”

  My brother was sitting up in bed and looked at me like, Are you kidding? “Do you actually think I’ve been asleep?” he asked.

  “All the tests said I’m pregnant,” I said. I felt nothing. I was still in shock.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” my brother said, perfectly calm and reassuring.

  “I don’t know what I’m gonna tell them.”

  “Mom and Dad went through this themselves,” he said. “They’ll freak out, but they’ve been here before. It’ll be okay and you know I’ll always be here for you.”

  I hoped he was right. For the moment, all I could do was grab my stuff and head for school. Keeping my brother’s support and confidence in mind helped me keep it together that day, especially once the shock wore off and my mind turned into an echo chamber of, “What the hell am I going to do?”

  The first step I knew I wanted to take was going to the doctor. Even though I’d taken enough tests at that point to be sure I was pregnant, it still seemed smart to get an official confirmation from the doctor, just to be absolutely certain before I dropped the bomb with my parents. I also thought that if I c
ould find a doctor, make an appointment, and get things figured out before I approached them, it would take some of the initial stress and burden off of their shoulders. Maybe they’d think, “Well, if she’s done this all on her own, maybe she understands the seriousness of the situation and her responsibilities.”

  The trouble was I didn’t know how to go about it. I was only sixteen, and I’d never even been to a gynecologist. Luckily, Matt had a friend who was pregnant at the time, and he asked me if he could tell her what was going on so she could give me some advice. Within the week, I’d called her doctor and made an appointment for two weeks away. But as soon as I hung up the phone, I thought, “Oh, no. I’m still a minor. What if they don’t let me in without a parent?” When I called back to ask, they told me I could come in alone as long as I had my insurance information. I told them that was great, but really I was thinking, “Great. One more thing I don’t know where to start with.”

  It was crazy. I hadn’t even told my parents I was pregnant yet. I hadn’t even been in a doctor’s office. But already things were coming at me that were totally beyond my experience and understanding as a teenager. I got my insurance card from my mom by telling her I needed it for a job application. She found that odd, but she handed it over anyway.

  When the appointment rolled around and I sat down in the waiting room with Ryan to fill out the paperwork, I had a fresh batch of problems. I’d never filled out my own medical paperwork before. The forms asked for information I had no clue about, along with my mom’s social security number, since she was the insurance holder. I slunk back to the receptionist with the clipboard and told her I had no idea what anything meant. She walked me through it and helped me fill it out, and then it was time to see the doctor.