I know I should feel different but I really don’t. Everyone keeps asking and I don’t know what to tell them. Everything in my life has changed but me. I’m supposed to be all grown up but I’m still just a little girl. And him, he’s still just a little boy. In the hospital he held my hand in both of his and cried. His brown eyes welled up with tears just as they did the day he found out. For the first time since all this happened, I really saw him for who he is. I saw the person I am still in love with, a little boy hiding inside this man he’s trying to be, scared to death.

I didn’t cry, even though it hurt so bad. I just wanted it to be over. It didn’t feel like a moment that was going to change my life. A moment that I’m supposed to remember for the rest of my life, and I wasn’t even paying attention. I never thought I would be “that girl.” I always thought I was smart. I always thought I was mature, but I’m not. I’m stupid and immature and so scared.

All I want is to be five years old again. I want my dad to hug me like I’m his perfect little girl, not like a stranger, not like something to be ashamed of. I want to scream, “I’m sorry, Daddy,” and I want everything to be okay again. I want my mom to look in my eyes without turning away. I want to go out with my friends. I want to go to a regular high school. I want to fight with my parents about teenage things. I just want to be normal again. God, I don’t want to be a mom.

Suddenly everything you never thought would happen to you is happening and you have to grow up so much faster than you ever imagined. You have nine months to prepare. Sometimes it seems like a lifetime and sometimes it seems like a split second.

You can’t imagine the looks of disgust a 16-year-old girl with a swollen belly gets everywhere she goes. You can’t imagine how hard it is to carry your baby in your arms and have people tell you how beautiful your little brother is. Some days I find the courage to say he’s mine. Most days I just say thank you.

Sometimes I just want to scream that I’m so sorry. I’m sorry he has to grow up this way. I’m sorry that his mom is still just a child herself. Sometimes I can’t believe he came out of my body. I can’t believe I’m so messed up and yet managed to create something so beautiful. So pure and innocent and loved, everything I feel like I’m not.

The other day my friends came over for the first time to see him. We were planning to spend a night together doing the things we used to do, but while they were passing my baby around, smiling and laughing and touching and kissing him, I stood there. And I knew that they were all relieved he wasn’t theirs, that none of them had to take him home with them, or get up in the middle of the night when he cries, or love him so much it hurts. And I realized that things will never be the way they used to be. And I just collapsed to the floor and sobbed until my mom had to ask them to leave.

I’m trying not to let the stares and the disapproval hurt me. I’m trying to hold my head up when I walk. It’s so hard not to run and hide and cry, but I know I can’t. No one else can be his mother. Someday I will stare right back at the people who stare at me and say, “Yes, this is my stupid mistake. Yes, this is the best thing that ever happened to me. This is my child.”