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Taking Care

Emily had moved to the small town outside of Calgary to get a new start, her marriage of twenty years had dissolved and she felt that she needed to have everything new again. She had one friend there, who could help her out, and had helped her find a place and got her settled in. Now to establish her self on a bus route, get comfortable in her new job and allow her and her daughter to settle in to their new home. She knew that it was not going to be easy being a single parent of a sixteen year old, but she was willing to go with the flow of life. Throw her self into the battle and see where it took them.

Things did straighten themselves out after a few weeks and they were on a good schedule of work and school. Emily had felt that her relationship with her daughter was close and they could speak freely about anything. She also felt that she kept pretty a tight reign on things, know where she was and who she was with most of the time. Until her daughter came down with the flu, that lasted for far too long, And finally ended up with a trip to the hospital. Tests later revealed that her daughter did not have the flu after all, but was indeed pregnant. Emily was in disbelief! She had talked to her about safe sex, birth control, how could this have happened? They had been planning to go to a doctor to start talking about birth control, but her daughter assured her that she did not need it yet. Had she missed all of the signs? At home, later that night they talked about all these things and shed tears over what was to come, what the future held for them now? Her daughter talked about the man who was the father, a man who was living with another woman at the time. The anger in Emily was at the boiling point, how could he do this to her daughter? But knowing the legal age limit, Emily knew that there was nothing that she could do. Her daughter was old enough to consent to having sex, even though the man in question was older than she was and had another woman at home. But this would not stop Emily, she would contact him, and his partner and let them know exactly what was going on. He happened to be a friend of her friend that had helped her move in the beginning, so she called them up and asked them to come over. When she told them why they were there he acted shocked, and his partner got very angry. Apparently this was not the first time that he had been out carousing behind her back. He denied the baby being his, and we agreed that a paternity test would be done at birth to prove that he was the father. There was not much else that we could do, besides pick up the pieces of our life and try to move on.
Emily had talked to her daughter about adoption, but she was dead set against giving her baby away. So, Emily made a deal with her. There was a home that was run by the Salvation Army where young pregnant teens could go and live and still go to school. They had everything right there, they also taught parenting classes and the basics for taking care of your newborn and young child. If she wanted to keep her baby then she would have to go and live there and finish her school year, and learn what being a mother was all about. They are also able to stay after the baby is born so that they can get the extra support of the staff; there is a nurse on duty to help the girls and babies at anytime day or night. The girls can get passes to go for the week-end to visit family, but these must be earned. And can be taken away for the slightest infractions. When Emily looked into it all, she was amazed at what a wonderful organization that this was, and how many teen moms that this was helping. The teen moms who were giving their babies up for

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