Hi, my name is Mouse. Well, not really ... it's the nickname my father calls me and Aurora (not her real name either) asked me to use a pseudonym to write this.

Aurora asked me to write this because she thinks I have something important to say to a wide variety of people.

When I was 15 years old, I made a huge mistake in judgment. I thought I had found the guy of my dreams and I became pregnant by him. I can't tell you what I saw in him because I can't find anything redeeming about him now, but at the time, I was certain we would spend the rest of our lives together, so I agreed to have sex with him, trusting my future to a piece of rubber and changing my life forever.

Why? I don't really have any clear explanations for it. As a Christian raised in a Christian home, I knew about sex, contraception and God's ideal for marriage and monogamy, but I still messed up. My mother is Hispanic, so I had just had my quinceanera a few months before and thought of myself as an adult in all ways but the legal definition. My mother had also had a child out of wedlock when she was young, though she was in college and engaged to be married before they had sex and he probably would have married her had he known she was pregnant. He disappeared off the streets of Bogata like so many foreign nationales did in the 1980s before she even knew she was pregnant with my brother. She learned the lesson of wages of sexual immorality the hard way, raising my brother alone for six years until she met my father, an American GI sent to Panama to bring down Noriega. They married and he brought to her to US, where I and my sister were born. I grew up hear the story of unwed pregnancy, but I somehow missed the lesson of hardship it brought.

Many of my friends were sexually active and several of them were already pregnant. I believed that condoms would protect me from becoming pregnant, but I wasn't all that frightened at the prospect of it happening. In the back of my mind, it wouldn't happen and if it did, either I could get an abortion or Alex (his real name) would marry me.

When I found out I was pregnant, Alex was very excited to hear that he'd "proven himself a man" (he's Hispanic also) and then, he disappeared. I didn't hear another word from him until after the baby was born. I was so scared! I went to Planned Parenthood thinking I wanted an abortion, but then I got to thinking about the baby and how he didn't deserve to die because I was silly. I was terrified to tell my parents! I told my youth leaders first (Aurora was not the youth leader of our church at the time). They were very supportive, but made it clear that I needed to tell my parents. I finally worked up the courage when I was five months pregnant and knew I couldn't keep the secret for much longer. My mom cried and my dad stood there shaking his head, then they both put their arms around me and said "We're here for you. What do you need."

Several of my non-Christian girlfriends were excited for me, but the strongest response I got from any of my friends was from Bri -- Aurora's daughter, who was 13 at the time. Hers was probably the most mature response now that I think back on it. She asked "You trusted your future to a piece of rubber?!" And, yet she was the most supportive of my friends and the least judgmental, for all that she was one of the few who was absolutely real with me.

I decided to keep the baby. I'm not sure that was the best choice, but at the time I harbored the naive belief that Alex would return to his son. Turns out Alex is a drug-dealing jailbird, but when you're 15, you don't always recognize these things. My little boy is wonderful and about 14 months ago he got a real daddy -- my husband Dan. Dan was a young soldier in my dad's unit who came to Thanksgiving dinner and kept coming back. Dan is a Hispanic male of a different sort -- the type who believes you should support a family before you start producing one. He's serving in Iraq right now, but was able to fly home a couple of months ago to be with me as I had our daughter. He flew halfway around the world in two days to be with me by my due date and left four days later to return to duty, having spent 24 hours with our daughter. He's adopting our son -- and he does insist upon the OUR.

Things are working out okay for me, but my life will never be what I had dreamed it would be at my quinceanera. I'm 19 years old and I have two children. I finished hgh school because my parents helped, but I didn't get to date or hang out with friends and a lot of the fun activities that are a part of high school were not possible for me. I had planned to go to college, but I couldn't say no to a marriage to a good man who loves me and will take responsibility, so I'll take night courses and get my degree on the 15-year plan.

In hindsight, although I wouldn't wish for Jairo or Bella not to exist, I would not have had sex at 15 with a 14-year-old boy-child with a charming smile. I would not have trusted my future to a piece of rubber. I would have waited for a man like Dan, who was willing to wait for sex until we were married even though he obviouisly knew I was no virgin.

Getting pregnant ended my childhood and though my adulthood looks like it's going to be okay, I wish I'd made different choices. I knew all the information that supposedly was going to protect me, but what I really needed to understand was what my mother and the older women in my life had been telling me. Sex comes with responsibility. When you choose to have sex, protected or not, you choose to potentially create a life that depends on you. Anyone taking the life of an innocent baby is a murderer. I knew that in my heart as soon as I knew that I was pregnant. I could have killed Jairo to make my life easier, but I could not have lived with my choice and so I accepted motherhood. The difficulties that has caused in my life are of my own making and a responsibility that I accept because I know that I have no one to blame but myself. God warned me. My mother warned me. I knew there could be consequences. I simply didn't think they'd come to me.

God is with Christians in all circumstances. I really believe that. He's worked things out for me in a truly remarkable way. All things work together for good for those who are in Christ. My story is not a happy one with a happy ending, but it is a thankful one with a blessed future. My hope is that other girls will not follow my example, but learn that sexual immorality has consequences that can be avoided only by not committing sexual immorality.

Hear me and live wisely.