By Taylor Blanchard

When I was a sophomore in high school, I never believed I would ever be having pre- marital sex. I never believed I would be having sex at all to be truthful. The idea of sex frightened me and did not seem to appeal whatsoever. Then I met a boy that to this day is my boyfriend. My emotions changed almost as rapidly as my sex drive and eventually the birds and the bees began to unfold. We had sex quite frequently, at least five times a week. Every time it took place we had no forms of protection at all. No condoms, no birth control, no “pull out” method. We were basically the two typical stupid teenagers having extremely unsafe and frequent sex.

Eventually our care free ways took a turn for the worse. We had multiple pregnancy scares, basically on a monthly basis. The worst we had was when I was two months late and craving very strange things such as milk, a beverage I normally cannot stand. After a million pregnancy scares and a trillion pregnancy tests I finally came to the conclusion. Something had to be done. At this time I was not even legally able to drive, and did not have a job. How would I drive or pay for any form of birth control? I googled planned parenthood, and called them to figure out pricing. They were extremely understanding and explained that it would be free. My relief only lasted a moment when I then realized I would have to find a way downtown. At this point I knew what had to be done. I had to tell my mom.

“Mom.” I began, my voice dripping with nerves, “I am having sex with Mario. We do it a lot and we aren’t protected. I want to go get birth control. But either way I know we will continue having sex.” I had said it. My mom looked at me with disbelief. Then after a few moments of silence she said okay.

I can’t imagine where I would be if I hadn’t been honest with my mom about my sex life and needing birth control. But I guarantee I would not be where I am today. I graduated High School with a accumulative GPA of a 3.5, have had many jobs, and now I attend and have the ability to pay for college. But the thing I know would have changed the most with an unwanted pregnancy, would be the fact that my boyfriend and I are still together. Listen to my story, sex is not wrong if you are doing it safely. It was much easier to tell my mom I was sexually active than it would have been to tell her I was pregnant,