Since the day she found out she was pregnant, Alyssa Richards has been writing letters to her son. Her first one started simple:
“Hello, I have never written to someone I have never met,” she wrote back in the summer of 2013. “You are not born yet. I am 15 years old, and that is not a good time for you to be having kids. I have so many things to tell you.”
The summer before starting her junior year in high school, Richards noticed that her swimsuit did not fit just a short two weeks after buying it. How? She was pregnant with her boyfriend of only two months. With her options laid out in front of her, Richards decided she was going to keep the baby. She explained,“Just because it is scary and you are young does not mean you cannot love the child with everything you have. If you have a strong support system, you are going to be okay, and that is how it was for me.”
Her parents allowed her to have as normal of a high school experience as possible. She was still able to hang out with friends, sit in the student section at football games, and attend her classes. With all the extra help from her family, Richards was able to focus on her goal of attending college, and she did exactly that. She’s the first in her family to attend a four year college. And even though it’s hard to manage classes, work, and raising a toddler, Richards has made it work.
Being away from her son Thomas has been the hardest part, but Richards knows that her education will benefit them both tremendously. In a journal entry, she writes one of the many things she needed to tell that unborn baby:
“Remember to call your mother because I might be missing you.”
Love, Mom