Are you in a spot in life where you are starting to think of how life would have been like if you did not have a child or children at a young age? I know that I am, and believe me you, it is not fun.

At the age of 17, I did not just meet my husband to be, but I met the man who would become the father of our two beautiful children. At the age of 18 and the beginning of my senior year, we had gotten pregnant with our first child, Elizabeth (4). Before I had gotten pregnant, I had wanted to go away to college like any other teenager who was getting ready to graduate high school. I wanted to be able to go out and enjoy all of the free-time that I would have had after high school graduation. Sadly, that dream was crushed the moment I received that positive test result confirming that I was, in fact, pregnant.

In 2013, I graduated high school and I was still pregnant. On July 19th, our daughter was born. I had decided that since I could not go away to college and have a dorm and dorm mate, that I would go to college online. It seemed like a good compromise to me as I could stay home with my husband and our daughter and still earn a college degree. Cool, right? Wrong. I found out that I could not learn like I needed to with an online college. I stuck with it anyway because my family deserved and still deserves the best future that I could possibly give them.

In 2014, I earned my certificate in Business from Rasmussen College, my daughter turned one, and I had turned 19. Once our daughter was born, my life as I had once known it was over. My friends stopped coming around as often, besides two. I was not able to go out whenever I wanted like a normal teenager with no true responsibilities. I was stuck home all of the time cooking, cleaning, taking care of my husband and our daughter. At the age of 19, I became a stay at home mother and wife. At first, it was not a huge deal to me because I LOVED spending as much time with my family that I could, but as I got older and my time out was non-existent, I began to hate it.

I am now 23-years-old and I often find myself wondering what my life would have been like if I did not become a mother at the age of 18. I wonder what it feels like to go out to a bar with my friends and enjoy a few drinks. I wonder what my life would have been like if I did not meet my husband to be at the age of 17. Would I have had a better life, per say, if I was able to go off to college and live the life of a teenager who is becoming an adult and having the time to find out just exactly who she was? Maybe, maybe not. Instead, I am a stay at home wife and mother of two who has no idea who she is or who she is meant to me.

To all of those younger mothers who are still trying to figure out who they are, you are not alone in this lonely battle. You WILL figure out who you are supposed to be and what you are supposed to do. Keep pushing on!