Hi! My name is Karina Rosales I am 22 years old and I am a teen parent. I was 13 years old when I found out I was pregnant. At first I was in denial until a pregnancy test confirmed it. I could not believe what that pregnancy test said because I never planned to be pregnant or had even thought of. I always thought being young and pregnant couldn't happen to me; also I had little information about how to prevent pregnancy and even less about being a parent.
             When I told my mother that I was pregnant, she was in shock - she couldn't believe it. Eventually, she accepted what was happening and was there to support me. My father, however, didn't speak to me when he found out.
             I continued to go to school as an eighth grade student at Spring Woods Middle School. I was the only pregnant eighth grader and the other students stared at me and that made me feel sad. When I was about seven months pregnant I had to leave school because I became sick from my pregnancy, so I went to a school that I could attend only two days a week.
             Finally, I went into labor on Tuesday, January 29, 2003. I was in severe pain so I decided it was time to go to the hospital. At 9am, my mother picked me up from my boyfriend's house and took me to the hospital. When I arrived at the hospital, the pain had gotten worse I was in so much pain that all I could do was cry. The nurses checked me in and found that I was 5cm dilated. An hour passed and I was ready to get an epidural to help ease the pain.
             Giving birth was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. My baby, Ruth Michelle Perez was born on January 30, 2003 at 1:03pm. Her dad was not at the birth because he was in school and he didn't see her until she was a week old.
             Time has passed and I've had two more babies. I was only 15 and I had three children. If you ask me why I had more children, my answer would be, 'I don't know'. Maybe it was because I lived through an...