When we are children growing up, many of us dream of becoming parents. For a lot of us, having children is part of life… But we can only predict so much. Sometimes you just have no idea what is actually going to happen.
This Baraboo, Wisconsin-based woman by the name of Angela Witczak always wanted children, but she had no idea that she was going to become a single teen mom. And then a twin mom. And then an adoptive mom. And then a stepmom.
“I was 17 years old when I got pregnant for the first time. I was in a quasi-committed relationship with my boyfriend. I was not his first choice, and he certainly was not mine, but we had mutual friends. In fact, I had dated two of his best friends and slept with one of them,” Witczak wrote via Love What Matters.
Witczak went on to admit that when she was younger, she just wanted to be loved. She thought that the only way to do that was to sneak out of her parents’ house to meet up with boys.
She was working as a camp counselor for children with disabilities and seeing her boyfriend for five months when she got pregnant.
“On my four-hour break, I drove to the nearest Walmart and bought a pregnancy test. My friends and I drove to the local McDonald’s where I peed on the stick in the bathroom. I was hoping my fears would be wrong,” she said.
“‘One line. Please one line.’ Three minutes later, two pink lines showed my fate. Pregnant.”
When she broke the news to her then boyfriend, he had the worst response. He basically said, “So, what do you want me to do about it?” Every girl’s nightmare.
“I spent the next month or so puking my guts out every morning at camp, knowing that any day I was going to have to inform my mother. I could not just keep that tiny fact hidden from her. And then one unlucky day for me, I got injured at work. Because I was under 18 years old, I knew that my mother would find out I was pregnant when we had to go for an exam and an x-ray.”
So at the exam, she was straightforward about it. She told her mother that she was pregnant and that she was keeping it.
“When the summer was over, I went back to high school. I was one of five other teen moms in my grade…I had tried to persuade the principal to let me graduate early, however, the rules were that you had to apply a full semester earlier. During a semester that I was not even pregnant, nor had any plans on being pregnant. Go figure.”
Her first son was named Taylor and he was born 11 days after Witczak’s 18th birthday. She was officially a single teen mother at this moment.
“My boyfriend and I tried to ‘play house’ while I lived at home with my parents. However, we knew we were all wrong for each other. He was a volunteer firefighter and worked for a factory, and I still had the dream of going to college and being an amazing teacher. As the next few months wore on, we knew we could not continue in the relationship as most times we did not even like each other,” she said.
“After I graduated high school, I went to college for only half of a semester. I had a new boyfriend and continued to lead a lifestyle that was somewhat destructive and left me longing to be loved. I learned early on that babies do not really love back,” she added.
Witczak continued:
“My son was needy, cried a lot, and certainly didn’t care how lonely his 18-year-old mother was. I was a terrible mom back then, often leaving my son with my parents so I could work, go to college, and see my boyfriend. It was really the last part that made me terrible. Always wanting my own needs met.”
“I am thankful every day my parents were there and able to take care of him the way I could not.”
Then, Witczak completely only a half-semester at college. This is because she made the decision to skip class to see her boyfriend who lived far away. Unfortunately, on her way home, she got into a nasty car accident.
“I blacked out at the wheel and my car crossed the center line. I hit a semi-truck head-on in a collision in my Dodge Neon. Thankfully, after the jaws of life and an ambulance ride, I sustained minor injuries to my leg and a few cuts to my face. Every time I see the pictures of my crumpled-up car, I feel grateful to be alive,” she said.
You would think that this would be the moment she decides to change her ways but it actually isn’t.
“I dropped out of college and became a bit of a drifter while my parents continued to raise my son. It was not until I became pregnant again that I changed my life around,” she said.
See how Angela’s story ends here.
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