Doing Hard Things: Amber's journey as a teen mom led her to help other moms

Shortly before her 16th birthday, Amber took a pregnancy test in the bathroom at her local Food Lion grocery store, and was shocked to see two pink lines — but despite her shock, she was determined to parent her baby.

However, sharing the news was harder than finding out herself.

“I’ve got to not screw this up”

“I waited several days to tell my mom because I was really nervous about how she would react and I didn’t know how to tell her," Amber recalled. "I ended up just writing it down and gave her a letter because words couldn’t come out of my mouth about this.” 

Understandably, “She freaked out and was really upset... My mom got married when she was 16 and had me at 18 and I think a lot of it was grieving something for herself.” 

Then, too, Amber’s mom had worked hard to move her family out of a trailer park and into a nicer part of town with an academically rigorous high school. She didn’t want her daughter to lose out on the better life she’d sacrificed to make possible. 

On the other hand, when Amber told her baby’s father, he was open to supporting her in whatever she chose. A friend of his suggested “terminating the pregnancy,” but from the beginning both abortion and adoption were off the table for Amber.

She was unwavering in her desire to parent her baby. She told Live Action News that her thought was, "I’ve got to not screw this up, I’ve got to stay focused."

Living and learning

What did that look like for her?

“I tried to read everything I could, take all the classes I could," Amber said. "Because I was a teen mom, I had Medicaid and WIC and I had access to many classes [on pregnancy, parenting, and baby care]. I prepared myself as much as I could, and said, ‘I’m going to make the best of this situation.’” 

Unfortunately, many people she encountered along the way didn’t offer the support she and her baby needed and deserved, starting with the receptionist at her OB/GYN’s office.

“She would make me wait a long time every time I had an appointment, so if there were two or three people in line ahead of me, she’d check them in, and then when it was my turn she’d say, ‘Oh, hang on,’ and get up and walk away for a while. She just made things hard for me each time.” 

Amber had another discouraging experience when she went to the emergency room at her local hospital because of vaginal spotting early in pregnancy. She overheard a nurse speaking loudly outside her room, telling another staff member, “If there was a God, he wouldn’t allow teenagers to get pregnant.” 

Thankfully, Amber’s actual OB/GYN was much more encouraging despite the fact that she was a teen mom. “... My son was probably one of the last babies he delivered, but he was really cool," she said, adding that he encouraged her not to "worry about anything."

Staying in school

At school, Amber was something of an anomaly, not because she was pregnant but because she was pregnant and stayed in school until she graduated.

Her school had opened only a few years prior to her freshman year, but while “there were many other pregnant students, they just didn’t stay in school after they got pregnant.” 

Because of this experience, Amber necessarily developed tenacity and perseverance earlier than most of her peers.

A public health nurse who worked exclusively with teen moms throughout the county came periodically to check on her at school, pulling her out of class to give her pamphlets and flyers.

“We got to talk and I loved reading all that stuff. She was a really good resource,” Amber said.

That nurse advocated for Amber to leave high school and enter an accelerated program to get her Associate’s Degree — but Amber’s mother, who had dropped out of school in ninth grade, was set on Amber staying in school to have a more typical high school experience. 

Health scares and challenges

While Amber's pregnancy passed relatively smoothly, genetic testing results suggested a possibility of her son having Down syndrome.

She had an amniocentesis to check for the condition — an experience she described as frightening because “the needle is so long and it has to go through all the layers [of the belly and through the uterus].” The amnio results revealed that her son did not have Down syndrome.

Then, as her due date approached, Amber began having concerning symptoms, including frequent headaches and puffiness in her hands and feet. Despite repeatedly advocating for herself at her prenatal appointments, she was brushed aside by practitioners covering for her main OB/GYN, and her symptoms worsened until finally she ended up in the ER again.

This time, she was diagnosed with preeclampsia, and labor was induced. Her cervix barely dilated in over 24 hours, and her son ultimately entered the world via Cesarean section.  

Finding the right support

Amber gave birth in late July while on summer break from school, and she asked her nurses in the hospital to get her a pump so she could begin pumping breastmilk, with a plan to continue when the school year began.

She met with resistance because of her age and because she was still a student, with one nurse telling her, “Why do you want to do that? You’re so young, it’s going to be such a hassle. Just use formula, it’s great.” 

While she eventually received a pump to use in the hospital, Amber was sent home without a pump and without education on how to properly latch her baby at the breast. This led to painful engorgement and trouble breastfeeding.

One day, she was in so much pain when visiting a local drugstore that she couldn't even bend over to pick up an item she dropped due to the engorgement and pain from her C-section scar.

All of this contributed to Amber's postpartum anxiety and depression.

Around 10 days postpartum, Amber’s mom recognized that “this is not great,” and drove her to the local WIC office. That’s when things started to turn around. 

Amber met a peer counselor who “wasn’t even a lactation consultant, but she was an older lady and you could tell she was really passionate and she totally knew what she was doing." The counselor showed Amber how to get her son to properly latch at the breast.

Amber said she was surprised, telling the counselor, "‘Wow, this is so easy,’ and [the counselor] said, ‘Yeah, has no one shown you how to do this?’ and I said, ‘no,’ and she said, ‘well, that’s why it’s been so hard. No one has helped you.’” 

The peer counselor also got Amber set up with a pump loan program that she utilized until her son was about 10 months old, and she stopped breastfeeding him.

A mixed bag

Going back to school for her junior year was difficult in other ways, too.

“It was really hard to leave my son when he was so young," Amber said. "He was so little that he had to stay with my aunt for a week or two until he was old enough for daycare.” 

In addition, while her peers were more or less respectful, the drama teacher who kept the key for the room where Amber went to pump her baby's milk each day repeatedly asked loud, inappropriate questions in front of her fellow students, like “Why do you need this key again? What do you need to do?” 

Yet, caring for her young son kept Amber out of trouble that can come with a ‘typical high school experience.’ She acknowledged, “With some of the stuff that was going on, honestly, I was glad I was home with the baby.” 

When the past shapes the present

Several years passed, and Amber and her son’s father eventually parted ways. But her experiences as a teen mother ultimately led to the work she does today. 

While Amber's first attempt at college didn’t work out due to ongoing postpartum depression and anxiety, she didn’t give up. Later on, she returned and earned a Bachelor’s degree in biology before focusing on caring for pregnant and postpartum mothers.

This is the work she has done for the last decade, first as a doula and then as childbirth educator, board-certified lactation consultant, and business owner of The Latch Link.

Today, she employs 15 other women who are equally dedicated to “women supporting women,” whether their clients end up breastfeeding, bottle-feeding, or a combination of both. 

Amber believes that her challenges as a teen mother actually contributed to her current success.

“I’m more successful than I would have been if I hadn’t been a teen mom because I had to do so many hard things," she told Live Action News. "Like not being willing to give up when things get hard. Going to high school every day as a teen mom was hard. Showing up every day was really hard… The baby was great, but the showing up and going to school sucked."

She added, "Being able to develop the self-discipline of putting myself through something that was really uncomfortable for a greater outcome — that was the best skill to have gotten.”