To Be a Young Mother

Just to start.

Bare with me as I learn to navigate through this site, I'm here to tell my story. To share how I've become who I am. How to raise my daughters, and how to get through this life I've been handed. 

To begin. Not many people realize that I am 23, I had Gianna at 18 years old, pregnant only weeks after my 18th birthday. It was eye opening. By that time I was only a month away from graduating high school, and was also graduating as a licensed cosmetologist with a small following at a Mens Salon.  I thank god that I had a good support system, I don't know where I would be without my dad. He stuck by me, I was young and stupid and looking back I made a lot of horrible life choices before Gianna. 

I was with her father up until her first birthday, it was February of 2015, he changed, I changed. I was strong willed and tired of being in a relationship that did not feel right. Things got messy. Again looking back, I wish I could change a lot of things that went down. It was toxic and not how you want to raise a child. I moved back in with my dad after living away for over a year. Moved back, just Gianna and I.

I replay those months over and over in my head, constant court dates, him not showing, going from staying home for a year to running a children's salon FULL time with Gianna in daycare, January 2016 something happened. I gave up fighting, I did not want to do court anymore. There was no reason for me to continue to miss work for him to not show up. The courts could not serve him papers because they did not even have a clue to where he was. February 2016, shortly after Giannas second birthday, I dropped the restraining order. I realized that although her dad was HORRIBLE to me, he loved her. So I tried for her to see him. We met a few times that month, I just wanted a relationship for her with him. He was different now, he no longer was the man who got me pregnant, something in him changed. I was just too stupid to see it.

Addiction- I've been around it my entire life, and it took nearly 21 years to understand what it really was. I've never personally had an addiction problem. But so many people around me have been affected by it. Including my own parent, to this day I cannot look at because they wont get help, after watching me suffer so many losses.

April 27th, 2016 

I woke up, took Gianna to daycare, and met a friend for Brunch before I was to start work at noon. That is when I received the worst call of my life.  A voicemail. From Giannas grandmother. (her dads mother) -she was crying. Before I had the chance to call her back I could feel coldness creep over my body.  I called her. All she said was hes gone, hes gone, hes dead and hes not coming back. At 21 years old, I lost the father of my child. The father I kept from her for nearly a year. At that point I couldn't understand what was happening. I called my boss, called out of work. Drove back to the daycare to get Gianna, bawling my eyes out. I shouldn't have been driving. I couldn't contain myself. I signed her out, and drove to his families house an hour away to find out what was happening, this couldn't be real? Did he get into an accident, did he have a heart attack? What happened.