Young and pregnant in Pettis County

There is no one story for teen parents and pregnant teens in Pettis County.

Some are married; some don’t speak with their child’s other parent. Some have strong family support; some rely on public assistance.

James and Monica Billingsley
James, 18, and Monica, 19, credit their 17-month-old daughter Alexis with their plans for a future.

They are the only married couple attending Whittier High School in Sedalia. He works full-time while attending school, and will finish his credits this month.

When they found out Monica was pregnant, there was no question that she would have the baby, but there were other uncertainties.

“I really didn’t know what to say” when he learned of the pregnancy, James said.

“I was scared a little bit,” he said, of “having a kid. I was only 16.”

Monica said the pregnancy was unplanned, and the couple did not use contraception.

“We didn’t think it would happen as quick, and it did,” she said.

The couple did not consider abortion — Monica described it as murder — and James said as an adoptee he did not want his daughter to go through that.

“We were responsible enough to make her, then we knew the chances of it whenever we done that,” she said.
The two dropped out of school for a tºime, and tried to live independently. The expenses, such as rent and car payments, were too much.

“It didn’t work,” James said, and now the couple lives with his family.

Next time — the two are planning on either one or two more children — they will plan and save money, they said.
Part of those plans include completing their education.

“I talked to a lot of family and frineds and stuff, and they really influenced us to go back to school ... with not being able to get a job anywhere, hardly, unless you want to go to fast food. And we didn’t want that kind of life for Lexi,” said Monica.

James, who said before his daughter was born he “was headed toward jail, pretty much,” plans to spend two years in the Army, then get a four-year college degree. Monica plans to get her child-care certification after she completes high school and wants to open a daycare.

“Looking at us, I think ... she has been a lifesaver, really. I’m glad we kept her. I’m glad we didn’t abort her. I’m glad we didn’t set her up for adoption, because I don’t even know what we’d be doing,” she said.

Latara Buckner
Latara’s daughter, Keyonna, is 3 years old.

She is usually asleep when the 18-year-old leaves for school in the morning. When she returns from school, Latara makes her something to eat.

“Then we’d watch cartoons together for a couple of hours, then I’d give her a bath, read her a story, watch some TV and go to sleep,” Latara said.

Her mom and brother help out with child-care, she said, and she still lives with her mother.

Keyonna’s father “is in the picture when he wants to be,” she said.

Keyonna was born in August, and Latara went back to school when the year started.

“It was kinda hard going back after the summer, because I didn’t want to leave her,” she said.

Latara, a Sedalia resident, said having a baby at 14 encouraged her to to stay in school, but attending was difficult after Keyonna was born.

“I couldn’t do homework. My mind was just not on school at the time,” she said, and she transferred to and finished her high school education at Whittier.

Keyonna was unplanned, and Latara said others encouraged her to put the baby up for adoption.

“She was my first baby; I couldn’t get rid of her. I figured, did the crime, gotta do the time,” she said. “It was worth it. If I would have gotten rid of her ... I would have just had an emptiness.”

Maria Ubaldo
Maria Ubaldo, 16, describes her 16-month-old son as “a daddy’s boy.”

She and her boyfriend, 18-year-old Agustin Matacua, were happy when she found out she was pregnant, she said.
The two weren’t trying to have a baby, she said, but it didn’t matter.

“My boyfriend would have been happy if I was or if I couldn’t,” she said. The two lived together before Juan Miguel Ubaldo was born.

Her parents were happy as well, and were supportive, she said.

Agustin supports her and Juan, she said. He works the night shift at Tyson.

“I had a job, but he told me to quit, he didn’t want me working,” she said. Maria was a waitress at El Tapatio.

“He’s the one working now, and he pays all the bills,” she said.

Juan Miguel goes to daycare several days a week, she said, and she worried this year about missing school to take care of him while he is sick.

Still, the Whittier student said she wants to finish school.

“I’m not thinking about dropping out, I’m thinking about graduating and going to college,” she said. She wants to be a hairstylist.

She never expected to attend Whittier, but she likes the school.

“I really didn’t see myself in a school like this, because I was more involved with school stuff. Now I can do none of that stuff, because I have to take care of him after school,” she said.

Jessaray Merriott
Jessaray Merriott’s daughter, Chrislynn, has never met her father.

The 18-year-old said she has been with her current boyfriend since she was three months pregnant with her daughter.

Finding out she was pregnant at 16 was not a happy occasion.

“I was with my mom, and we went to Birthright in Sedalia,” she said. “She came out and she told me, and I just started crying. My mom kept telling me, ‘We’ll get through it, we’ll work it out,’ ” she said.

She wasn’t planning to have a child.

“I was really scared, wondering if I could do right by her,” she said.

She said Chrislynn’s father was afraid when he found out, and had his own plans, to graduate and join the military.

“I thought a little bit about my parents being her guardians until I got a little older, more stable,” but she decided to raise her daughter herself.

Having a baby has changed her life. She has dropped out of school twice, and is now finishing her high school education through Whittier’s night school program.

“It makes me more independent, because I know I have to. It makes me live a little more grown up. I had a job for a really long time, because I knew I had to. I made a job and school a priority,” she said.

She moved out and found that raising a child is difficult on a single income. She is on Medicaid and receives food stamps. She doesn’t know if she can get any scholarships to pay for college, and will not be able to attend if she does not.

“I thought it would all go a little slower, and it’s not. I thought I would stay with my parents until I got through school, maybe college. Then I had to deal with moving out, paying bills, going to school,” she said.

She was on the birth control pill prior to becoming pregnant, but did not take it correctly and eventually stopped.
She is not planning to have any more children, she said. After Chrislynn was born, she received a five-year birth control implant.

“I wish I would have taken things a lot slower,” she said.

Victoria Curd
Victoria Curd’s daughter is due on April 21, just two days before she turns 17.

When she found out she was pregnant, she was afraid to tell her family.

“At first, I didn’t know what to think. I was frightened to tell my family,” she said. She told someone else, and the news got back to her family.

“Some of them were mad, some of them were understanding. But now they’re understanding,” she said.

Though she is not with the baby’s father, they still talk, she said.

“I really wasn’t the type of person to sleep with a whole bunch of people, or really sleep with anyone. This was the first person I slept with,” she said. “It just happened.”

“I want a better life for my daughter than what I had for myself ... I want my daughter to have a mom and a dad,” she said. Victoria grew up primarily with her grandmother.

She wants to finish school, and said it was hard for her to go to school while she was pregnant.

“I was going to quit,” she said. “I was missing so many days.”

She started attending Whittier’s night school program in October. It was hard for her to get up and go to Smith-Cotton High School in the morning and get sick, she said, but usually she feels better in the afternoons.

“I can’t quit, because I have to make a good life for me and my daughter,” she said. Her goal is to become a nurse.

She doesn’t hang out with her old friends as much, because now they do different things, she said.

She has not been treated differently by her peers, she said, and she is happy the baby is on its way.

“It gets you down at first, especially being such a young age. It gets you down. Now I’m all happy. I can’t wait,” she said.