THE SECRET TEEN MOM (PT. 1) W/ AHDEHROH

I've known Ahdehroh Lambert since we were kids so there are parts of her journey to becoming a mother that I vaguely remember in my own way. Admittedly too naive and uninformed to understand, Ahdehroh was oblivious to the signs of the cells splitting and expanding inside of her body. When she realized what was going on she was already between two to three months pregnant and limited options made her sure her best bet was to hide the pregnancy until she could deliver the baby, bring it to a safe haven and move on with her life. The plan set her out on a journey that lasted well over six months. It was a school assembly, an unlocked bathroom stall and a glass of orange juice that would bring the heavy secret she was carrying crashing down.

From the traumatic and tear-filled way her mother would eventually find out, her "hiding out" in Texas to have her baby, and an adoption plan that almost happened (as in the day before papers were signed!) Ahdehroh shares her story with me (and us!) about how she reasoned with herself and decided to hide her pregnancy. Find inspiration and perspective for your journey as you read the story of a teenage mother and the secret that changed her life and perspective forever.

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While speaking to Ahdehroh there was a part of our conversation where I remember stopping to tell her, excitedly "now, this is the part I remember." It was neither in the beginning and nowhere near the end. In fact, it was just a small part of time I recognized and found humility in, knowing that there is so much more to her journey than anyone could ever know. She remembers with ease, as someone retracing their steps. From telling me about wanting to ride her bike, play double dutch with her cousins and the clarinet in the school band to hiding a pregnancy she didn't even know about even when constant morning sickness took over her body.

Over twenty-two years ago I remembered seeing her belly appear slightly and then all at once over the weekends at the church we attended together, me with my parents and she with her grandmother and aunt. I was in awe and nervous, seeing one of our own infiltrate an adult space, prepared at all times to say "I unno" if anyone asked me what I knew and very much aware she was keeping the secret too. Though we've remained friends over the years, although distant at times, I never knew the complete story of what she went through but seeing her live out her life and knowing there was (and always is) one made me call her up one summer and ask her if for TheRootsAndTheVines, and for the purpose of honesty, understanding and inspiration, for teen moms, moms, for all of us, would she be willing to share and she said:

"You know, it's funny you're asking me this now because I was just telling someone that I'm ready to start talking about this."

YOUNG AHDEHROH

Was shy and didn't make friends easily but liked to play with the kids in her neighborhood and had a house full of cousins that she spent her time with.

Raised primarily by her mother, at one point she lived in a house with 11 other women "and one bathroom" she yelled out and laughed as if making sure to note that she'd made it through that too - because one bathroom for 11 women is a certified war story, ain't it?

Her grandmother and aunt were on her father's side, so her dad's family although he wasn't around was very much involved in her life and in raising her and she doesn't believe she missed out on anything not being raised in a two-parent home especially a home filled with so many people where there was always something going on.

AHDEHROH ("WHEN I GROWN UP...")

When she grew up she envisioned herself being an OB-GYN saying that her Caribbean upbringing limited her to choosing a career out of three boxes. The doctor box, the nurse box, and the lawyer box.

“I don’t really know if that’s fair for me to say that’s really what I wanted to be.” Ahdehroh said. “When I had to pick what I wanted to be I didn’t really think outside of those three boxes. But, if I didn’t get placed into those three boxes and have to make a choice between the three, I would have wanted to be an actress or a performer.”  

AHDEHROH (ON "THE BOY")

When she was about thirteen her cousin Debbie moved to America from Jamaica with her sister after their mother unfortunately passed away. The family pulled together and adopted the girls and Ahdehroh already spending the weekends with her grandmother now had a cousin only four days apart from her she could and did become very close with. She now had company at her grandmother's house and someone with her at church, a place she was no longer interested in because going meant she'd have to miss out on cheerleading and playing with friends over the weekend.

When Debbie started talking to a young man at church named Germaine who was also new in the city from Jamaica, the two became good friends and then by default, so did Ahdehroh who laugh at the memory and says "So, it's kind of all Debbie's fault."

Ahdehroh remembers not really paying him much attention, or being that interested in him saying there was nothing quite special that attracted her to him and not to be mean she notes but at that age says she didn't have a preference or a particular interest in boys in general. “He was just a nice friend. He would talk to me everyday. He was nice, then – let’s just say that. Eventually over time I said, maybe I do like him.”

AHDEHROH (ON BECOMING A WOMAN)

Ahdehroh remembers being eleven years old when she got her period but says she never had a conversation with her mother about pregnancy and her period and when I asked if she knew the connection having her period had to being able to become a mother one day she responded. “No. I had no idea, no clue. I was so naïve."

“My mother never talked to me about guys at all and it caused so much confusion for me. It took time for me to learn on my own. I had to make these terrible horrible mistakes. I wish some of these things I could have avoided on my own. But I also feel like that’s just a part of my story. Even having my period, my mom never talked to me about my period, my aunt spoke to me about my period and I wondered; why didn’t she talk to us about it. When I got it I had to tell her, my aunt told me, but I never heard about it from her.”

She'd been spending a lot of time talking to Germaine over the phone, every day in fact and says “He was the first guy I’d ever really even spoke to on the phone, so I got sucked in.”

AHDEHROH (ON HER FIRST TIME)

Ahdehroh spent every day talking to the young man she began to feel so comfortable with and they formed a bond, then one summer she says they had sex for the very first time and recalls not really enjoying it. "I don't know what happened in my head I just knew I didn't want to do this again.”

“I had sex with [him] because truthfully I thought I loved him at that time. That definitely was not what it was. I wasn’t really thinking I could get pregnant. I really didn’t think I could. I wasn’t thinking about that, I just wasn’t thinking about that. I just didn’t know.”

"What people don't really know is that I was a virgin when I got pregnant. I had sex with [him] that one time and I didn't have sex again. I didn't like it."

Two months go by since Ahdehroh lost her viriginity and she was gearing up for school in September where she'd start the ninth grade. She'd speak to the nice boy who'd eventually become her child's father as usual but was fully invested in the upcoming school year and her plans to start a new school, join the step team and the marching band.

She didn't notice that her period never came.

"I think I forgot about my period. I just remember late September coming. I remember it being the middle to late September and I ate a BLT and I threw up. I remember my sister was in the bathroom sick too so I had to throw up in the garbage and thought 'Oh I must have what she had' because we were all throwing up.”

That was the start of her constant bouts with morning sickness and she says she'd eventually go to her cousin and mention that she was throwing up and feeling sick all the time and didn't know what was wrong. She remembers her cousin saying, 'Oh you had sex with Germaine! When's the last time you got your period?' and that's when it hit her. "I was like 'Oh shoot!' I didn't realize it didn't even come. I wasn't even thinking about that, all I was thinking about going back to school. I was going to join the step team... and I did."

"I was so confused at that point."

Her cousin coming from a different environment than she did was a little more mature than she and led her through the thought process of possible next steps which started out with having an abortion. At that time she understood what an abortion was but the two couldn't think of a realistic means of finding the money to pay for one. "I think they may have been about $500 at that time, I don't remember but there was no one we could confide in and you can't just go to your parents and ask for that kind of money."

When the last option included an "accidental" fall down the stairs Ahdehroh said she drew the line right about there and says she decided at that moment...

"Then I guess I'm just going to have the baby."

*brake*

AHDEHROH (ON THE DECISION)

Then I guess I'm just going to have the baby?

I had to stop Ahdehroh there because she'd really in conversation went from saying she didn't know she was pregnant, maneuvering through hair brain schemes that ended with an "accidental" fall to deciding once and for all that she'd have a baby. A baby. It seemed to be such an extreme jump without a plan and without the details. Ahdehroh was indeed deciding that she was going to have the baby, but also deciding that she wouldn't keep it. Instead she would hide the entire thing.

The summer she became pregnant was the very summer her mom moved her and her younger sister into their own with apartment in Uniondale so now she only had to hide it from two people instead of eleven.

"The thing was it would have been easy because my mom use to work 7 am to 7 pm shifts. She used to work for 911. And then back then we had the baggy clothes, so that was easy. This is basically my mind frame. And I was just like, when I have the baby, because they use to advertise it all the time if you the have a baby and you can't take care of the baby, you could, I think [ you could bring the baby] to a fireman's box, because a lot of women were throwing their babies in the dumpster. And I said, I'm not throwing my baby in no dumpster. So either I'm going to the Catholic church and drop her off or I'll drop her in the fireman slot and then go on with my life."

Silence.

I guess sometimes, or maybe just for me this is the part you linger. It was like turning a page and finding nothing on the other side. I laughed and said "Oh no, you not just going to jump over that!" It was hard for me to see such a large cross road being so "easy"

After talking to her more her perspective was clear. I said, "You just said 'Ok, I'm going to do this? That was your plan!?' and matter of factly she kept talking and the words reappeared on the page. Words that proved the singularity of perspective.

"Yeah" she said, "They had safe spaces for the baby, because a lot of women were throwing their baby in the dumpster or flushing them down the toilet... And I said I'm not throwing my baby in a dumpster. Around ninety-four, ninety-five, ninety-six a lot of that was going on so they created like these safe havens for like if you had a baby and you don't want to keep the baby to either drop them of at the Catholic church or to the fire station." Then she continues...

"And I lived across the street from a fire station."

"So it all made sense to you." I said. "Yup. It all made sense to me." she says.

And that's how it started. She decided that she was not going to keep the baby but she was going to have it and the phenomenon of unwanted pregnancies happening at that time defined desperate measures and gave her a perspective to work off of. She didn't want to go that route, so she thought of another. And so it started, six and a half months of carrying the biggest secret of her life, one that kept growing inside of her every single day.

Ahdehroh (On The Truth)

At fourteen years old and 110 pounds, carrying small was an advantage for her secret. She gained only fourteen pounds throughout her pregnancy and six months in she had never been to a doctor. Baggy clothes hid her growing belly and her single mother's busy work schedule combined with Ahdehroh's after school extracurricular activities made it possible to miss Ahdehroh's morning sickness and to not find it unusual for her to already be in bed by the time she got home. And of course there was the step team performance her mother watched her perform in two weeks earlier that did nothing to set off any alarms.

But, It was Suzy. Ahdehroh remembers her name.

And it's not what you think. Suzy isn't a disloyal friend who spoke out of turn. Suzy was a student at Ahdehroh's school. Suzy sitting in the bathroom stall in white (the dress code for a school assembly earlier that day) forgot to lock the door behind her and had no idea that a pregnant Ahdehroh was about to barrel into the stall and vomit up the orange juice she'd had for breakfast all over Suzy. The rumors, started before Suzy could leave the nurse's office questioning why she would be throwing up eventually made their way home to her mother who'd come home from work and call Ahdehroh into the bathroom to meet her.

"I walked into the bathroom and she pulled down my shirt and squeezed my nipple and milk came out."

My mouth dropped and I gasped "What? Why? Did she not have a conversation with you first?" and at the same time I understood and expressed how traumatic it must have been for Ahdehroh, for both of them. We spoke about her mother not handling it the coziest of ways but how it must have been the worst day ever - for them both. But it's clear Ahdehroh has no choice but to carry the memory in the most personal way.

Her mother then lifted up her shirt and looked at her belly. And then she says...

"She said some really really mean things to me. Some really mean things." She asked her about who the father was and when she explained to her mother that it had only happened once, she didn't believe her. "Maybe if I was older and had been more experienced I would have handled it better, I would have known what to say but it was really just a different thing for me." Her little sister who was also home and could hear the commotion added to her embarrassment and after things settled down her mother called her god mother in Texas and the two made plans for Ahdehroh who was already making new plans for herself.

Ahdehroh (ON Rerouted Destiny)

"They were trying to get me an abortion but she figured I had to be about six months at the time and they wouldn't do it in New York State [so late]. I didn't want to have an abortion, I thought I would figure it out. I figured since she knew, I could have the baby. But she had a whole different plan, because now she decided she wanted to hide it from the family."

Ahdehroh says her mother "wrapped it in a nice little bow" and suggested a temporary move to Texas saying she'd be much more comfortable away from everyone's stares and questions and could move in with her aunt and attend a nearby school with other girls who were also pregnant.

"I was like yeah! I'll do it, I'll go to San Antonio, this will be great! I can finish up this year of school and I can have the baby and then I can come back. I thought that was the plan. That was not the plan, Kim. That was not the plan. [My mother] and god-mother had made a plan to put [the baby] up for adoption."

Ahdehroh got on a plane flying for the very first time in her life by herself, baby aside.

Finish reading Part 2 of Ahdehroh's story here and find out what happened when she went to Texas that almost rerouted her destiny and created a history for her and her child they'll both never forget.

Don't forget to share and comment below and thank Ahdehroh for sharing her story with us!