My Story | Part 1

TRIGGER WARNING! PLEASE NOTE THAT CERTAIN TOPICS DISCUSSED MAY BE SENSITIVE TO THE LISTENER/VIEWER. 

Pull up a seat. Heather opens a new season by stepping into the hardest rooms of her past. Thirty-three homes, twelve schools, a preacher’s kid childhood wrapped in Sunday routines and constant moves, and the night a quiet family image was shattered. What follows is not a highlight reel, but a field guide to surviving rupture: the ache for stability in Tulsa’s band halls, the jolt of a living room divorce announcement, and the way neglected teens look for love in any face that looks back.

The story doesn’t tidy the messy parts; it is a candid, unvarnished telling about trauma, teen pregnancy, spiritual upbringing, and recovery that refuses easy morals. Heather shares her story to prove something tender and true: freedom isn’t granted by circumstances, it’s claimed, breath by breath, decision by decision.

If this story resonates, send it to someone who needs courage tonight, subscribe for part two, and leave a review with the moment that moved you most. Your words help others find their way to this conversation.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome To A New Season
• 1:03 Deciding How To Tell My Story
• 2:39 PK Childhood And Constant Moving
• 5:12 Longing For Stability In High School
• 7:26 Tulsa, Community, And Band Life
• 8:30 The “Rebellious” Summer And Identity
• 10:55 Parents’ Divorce And Aftermath
• 14:10 Drifting From School And Support
• 17:10 Boundary Crossed: Teacher And Party Scene
• 20:05 The Older Boyfriend And Escape
• 23:05 Dropping Out And First Love
• 26:08 Pregnant, Legalities, And Courthouse Wedding
• 29:10 Shock Of New York And Isolation
• 32:20 Returning South And Choosing Support
• 34:18 Labor Crisis And Emergency Surgery
• 37:35 Waking Up, Holding Austin, New Life
• 40:20 Closing Reflections And Part Two Tease

Transcript

Heather: 0:02

Hello friends and welcome back to the Free Advantage. I'm your host, Heather Davis, and I want to invite you into a new season of real stories, real recovery, and real freedom. This show has always been about self-discovery, authenticity, and recovering a life of freedom. And this year, we are taking that journey together in a deeper way. You're gonna hear raw, honest conversations with people walking this path in real time. Stories of growth, healing, purpose, and becoming whole. You'll also hear from me as I reflect on these themes that rise from the stories, answer your questions, and offer small, meaningful takeaways that you can carry back into your week. This is not just a podcast you listen to. It's a place you belong where you are part of the conversation. I'm Heather Davis, host of the Free Advantage Podcast. Well, folks, today is the day. I know last week I started to touch base a little bit on this, but I want to welcome you all to the beginning of my story. So pull up a seat, get yourself something to drink, and settle in. So where do I begin? And leading up to the days up to this moment here, I have literally asked myself what feels like a million times, how do I do this? How do I tell my story without boring you or going off on to tangents or getting lost on one thing for too long? I really was like, How do I do this? Now, don't get me wrong, I've told tons and tons of people my story. Um, a lot of people know about my life, but I think just kind of doing it here, it feels a little different, right? Because I'm not in front of somebody else having that back and forth. So this feels different. But I think, I think I finally came to the conclusion that yeah, I don't. I don't tell my story without some of those things happening. And um, so my story is a lot, it's messy, it's long, and sometimes parts of my story lead to other thoughts and memories that pop up during that. And so, in sharing here with you, I want it to be just like we're sitting together on the couch and that you were getting the complete, raw, and unveiled version. So um, I will be sharing it in three parts this month. Um, and without further ado, welcome to my life story. So, long ago, I think I'd mentioned it last week. I grew up in church. My parents were pastors, there, my dad's parents were pastors, so I was what they considered a PK, which is a preacher's kid. I grew up in Sunday school. I really didn't know anything other than church when I was little. Um, you know, I I really have come to the understanding that I really never knew a life without God in it. Um, it was just something that was ingrained in me and it was always a part of me. So I didn't really know much different. And outside, um, to the outside perspective, our life, our family looked like the quintessential American family. Um, it looked like we had everything that people would ask for. We were this perfect, beautiful little four-person family. There was my mom and my dad, and my brother and me. You know, we had a boy and a girl, and everything just always seemed to fit. And it seemed like it was just this perfect little thing. And for a long time growing up, it felt that way. Um, it definitely felt that way. You know, I did all of the fun things. I was in school, uh, I was on the drill team, I was in bands, I played the flute, my brother was in, you know, Boy Scouts, and my parents were involved, and so it seemed like a very normal life. Except for the few things that didn't. Now, to me, they always seemed that way. They all seemed always seemed normal until I got older and realized, oh, this is not so normal for most people. But for us, there was a lot of moving, a lot of moving around. And for some kids who weren't in the military, or what I consider the witness protection program, you uh normally you didn't move around. You you most of my friends I knew stayed in one place, but for me, we always moved. We were always in and out of different homes, we were in and out of different schools. So to me, that was the normal. The change became my stability. And we changed a lot. I think by the time I get done with part one, I will have done 33 homes and 12 schools. So it was a lot. And I think over the years I've realized through that like how much that particular like theme in my life really shaped who I was and how I maneuvered. But yeah, we we moved a lot, and it was either my dad was changing jobs or we just were moving to a different place. Um, or we moved churches because my parents were were pastoring and they would go back and forth. There was where was a lot of that, and things seemed, you know, normal as far as that was concerned. I didn't have a lot of friends. I didn't, I didn't really there was no really securing the kind of like core childhood things that you would normally do when you're up and you're moving so much. There's just there just we didn't have a lot of that. So I I got used to it just being with my brother. I think him and I really spent all most of our time together and we really connected in a different way because he he was my best friend because that's who we had. And not that he's not my best friend, but we didn't have outside sources who were really friendships and things like that. They were more just those friendship acquaintances and like I'm here today and I'm gone tomorrow. Um, you know, I think that crossed over like our moves, it probably crossed over three different, three or four different states at the time, um two countries, like there was a lot, it was a lot of a lot of moving on and around the the United States for sure. But as I got older and like high school became a thing, it started to feel a lot different. I wanted more stability in where school was because I was looking for those kind of those milestone moments, the the going to school, having your friends, graduating, going to prom, you know, having all of those kinds of things that you normally have as a kid, I didn't I wasn't getting. And when high school rolled around, I was really looking forward to that. And at the time, we were being homeschooled. So, you know, I was either in and out of public school. It's either being in public school or being homeschooled. It was one or the other, and whatever kind of suited our lifestyle at the time is kind of what ended up happening. And once high school rolled around, I was like, I really want to be in school. I wanted friends, I wanted to do the fun things, I wanted to be in like extracurricular activities. And so my parents decided to put us back in school. And at this time, we were living in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And I went to a school there. I went to Union High School, and it was a very exciting time for me. I was nervous because I hadn't been in school in a while, but I was excited to get back into like some type of community. There's some type of community there. And I made lots of friends there, and I found my first boyfriend. He was the love of my life at the time. And in I had fun. I was in band. I joined marching band and I got to travel with them. We went to regionals, we went to nationals, and I got to do a bunch of things that I just never would have been able to do had I not been in school, obviously, right? Um my brother was on the wrestling team. It was a lot of good stuff, right? For us, it felt like a really good time. But in that, in that time, things were were good for us in some ways. And then what we didn't know at the time was that behind the scenes, our life as we knew it was starting to fall apart. And we would go on vacation in the summers to come back to Texas to where our family was, and we would visit for about a month or so. We got to spend time with our grandparents and our friends. And one summer I had, I guess I I my parents were called it my rebellious summer because I had come back home and I had decided that I was going to shave my head. I this I always like to say, I shaved my head before Britney made it cool, right? And um, or you know, before at least she made it popular. But I had fallen in love with this woman. I don't know if anybody out there remembers her. Her name is Susan Powder. She was the Stop the Insanity woman, and she had shaved bleach blonde hair. And when I saw her, I thought, wow, that is so cool. She's so beautiful. I just love that. And I wanted to have her hair so bad. And my parents were like, no, that's never gonna happen. So when I came home for the summer, I said, you know what? I'm gonna do it. And actually, my grandmother took me to get my hair cut and she let me get my hair shaved. Now I did it legit, right? I had a hairdresser do it. I didn't just like go in there and buzz my hair off. So um I got my hair cut, and then my uncle, my favorite uncle, Uncle Brian, he's who we actually live with now, he had decided he's gonna help me bleach it. So I think after seven trips to Sally's and enough bleach, he finally got my hair platinum, almost white blonde. And I loved it. I thought it was beautiful. I thought it was one of the most amazing things I'd ever done. And lo and behold, of course, when I got home and I stepped off the airplane, my family felt, or my parents felt very different about that than I did. Um, my mom was like, okay, it's hair, it grows back, but my dad, I think that he was not feeling quite so much the same way. I think he was very upset with me. Um, definitely leaning into that whole, oh, that rebellious vibe. But I mean, come on, man, I was 16. I'm like, if the worst I'm doing is shaving my head, then, you know, why not? But um But it was uh it was a fun time in my life at, you know, at least I so I thought. So not long after we had gotten back from that trip, my rebellious summer trip, I was brought into the living room and was sat down and I was informed that my parents were going to be getting divorced. Now, this was such a shock. I I remember them telling me, like, don't tell your brother. We're not talking telling him yet, but we wanted to let you know that this was happening. And I was like, Oh, you gotta be kidding me. I think I I don't even remember exactly how I felt in that moment because it was really just pure shock. I was just like, Oh, well, I'm not gonna do this by myself. So I remember running back to his bedroom and knocking on the door, and I'm like, get out here. Mom and dad are getting divorced. And he was like, What? And you know, that's kind of how the news got broken to him. And, you know, it was kind of maybe not a good thing, maybe not in the best way. But of course, I'm a kid at the time and uh he was younger than me. But I was like, there's no way I'm doing this by myself. You're not gonna dump this kind of news on me and then just expect me to deal with it by myself. I'm definitely gonna bring my like partner in crime in here because at that point it felt like it was just him and I against the world and we had to stick together because we we didn't know what was going on. Oh, excuse me. Um, you know, and what is going on? We didn't know. We didn't know what's going on. Uh, why? Why was this happening? I think the thing was is that we never really saw them fight. Like they hadn't the normal couple like things, right? There was no major upset. It just seemed kind of like life was normal and then it wasn't. And it wasn't long after that that for me, everything for me just came came crashing down. Um, the world as I knew it and how I knew it was going to be, and how my future looked was that was it. It just it just like went away. Um, you know, my parents were no longer living together, my mom moved out, uh, she was pretty much non-existent at that time. Um, and we were left there with him and my dad, and it was pretty much we just felt left to our own devices. You know, I remember I remember staying up till all hours of the night and having to get up at 4 30 in the morning to be um on the field to march every night every day at school. And I remember just him stopping, my dad taking me to school and him stopping at the corner store and us getting, I used to get like a some like chocolate donuts and a jolt. I don't know if anybody out there remembers jolt drinks, but they were like one of the highest caffeine content, um, just like sodas you could get at the time. And I remember I was just living on those to just try to keep myself awake because I wasn't sleeping at night. I was on the phone all night with friends or I was watching television. It was just uh definitely going through an era of insomnia, I think, because I just was searching for whatever straws I could grasp at at the time. There was um definitely a huge void that I started to fill with other things. And so as we moved on, you know, high school, I was in my junior year. And as time went on through that year, I became less and less interested in school and more interested in just whatever. Like I school was boring. Um, you know, I didn't really know what I was doing it all for anymore, I think. I I mean, I didn't know I was doing it for anything other than like, oh, you have to go to school and graduate. And but, you know, I remember going to football games and looking for my family and them not being in the stands anymore. I I remember asking for like I needed some paperwork signed for something for school and it just not happening. I remember needing to be picked up from school, and then it was like find a ride from your friends. And so then it was hunting down people who would bring me home every day and and things like that, and then you know, spending the majority of your time alone. I was either hanging out with a friend of mine or I was hanging out with my brother, or we were just, or I was by myself at home. My parents were just went from being this happy family to being completely non-existent in our lives. And it was a huge change, and it was a huge transformation in my life to undergo not understanding or knowing why any of it was happening. Um, my relationship with my mom took a drastic hit. Like she was never around anymore. She was not there, she didn't even live in our home. And at the time when she first left, we weren't even allowed to visit her. I didn't know where she lived, I didn't know anything about it. So I remember, I remember one time I had my car, I was or borrowed my dad's car, and she had been there at the house and she left. And I remember I followed her home. And this may be news to her, I don't know if she knows this, but I had followed her home so I would know where she lived. And then I was like, oh, okay, she lives here. And then I remember over a period of like two or three weeks, getting up enough nerve that I was just gonna, I was gonna go over there, I was gonna show up. And I did, I did do that. Uh eventually I had driven over and I showed up um one afternoon and I knocked on her door. And I remember her answering and just being, wow. I think she was really shocked that I was there. She's like, she's like, what are you doing here? And I remember, well, I'm like, well, I wanted to see you. Excuse me. And she was like, Well, you can't be here right now. And I was like, What do you mean I can't be here right now? Like in my mind, I'm like, I'm at my mom's house. Like, why can't I be here? And she's like, You need to leave, you can't be here right now. And uh, she had had company over. So um, you know, now looking back that all that makes sense that she didn't want me to see her with somebody else at the time. And we didn't know that there was anybody else at the time. And so it was uh, I know I kind of got shut out. She told me to leave and she shut the door and that was it. And I remember being completely devastated and turning around and walking back, crying, getting in my car, thinking, why, why doesn't my mom want me? And why does she want want me here? It it just didn't make any sense. And, you know, I realize now that my mom at the time was she was moving on, you know, her and my dad did not work out, and so she was looking for different things. She was devastated in her own way and trying to find her way through navigating that time in her life, but you know, as a kid, that none of that made sense to me. And not wanting me to be a part of all of that and know all of the ins and outs of what was going on with them, and and so there I was, you know. I think after a couple of weeks, I think my mom came and she let me come over, and I came and I went back to visit her. And it was uh I was so excited to see her because I missed her so much. And when I got to go back, when I got to go over there and see her, like I stayed the night, and at that point I decided I was never leaving. I was like, I'm not going back. I'm not going back to dad's. I want to be here with you. I miss you. You're my mom. I and so she let me stay. And you know thinking about all the things that happened after that moment I guess I really shouldn't have stayed. She really shouldn't have let me stay, um, because she was not in a place to be a parent right then. Um, I don't really know that either one of them were, but I think the place with her was a little bit different. Like she was really, I think, just lost a whole sense of herself and who she was and what she was doing. So my time there turned into really a free-for-all. I I was going out with my friends, I was staying out late, I was getting up, I was missing school, going to school, I was cutting school, and then um I remember eventually, like halfway through the year, I ended up starting, um, I got invited to a party um from one of my teachers. He was my uh American lit teacher. He was an intern and he was going through um his graduate school. So I remember he had written something to me on one of the papers that I had turned in, an essay, and he had invited me to go to his graduation party. And so I asked him if I could bring a friend, and he was like, sure. So my my best friend and I ended up at that that night, it was like a Friday night, and we ended up driving like all the way to downtown Tulsa where we did not belong, um, in a bad part of town by ourselves late at night and to a college graduation party, you know, at 16 years old. And I ended up going out there and hanging out. And I for me back not just back then, I was never like a party girl. I I didn't drink, I didn't do drugs, I was I was not into those kinds of things, but I definitely was not one to say no to doing fun stuff. I was definitely more of the like, I like this guy, he's really cute, I want to hang out and do fun things, but I was definitely not in a place where um I I I did drugs or drank and things like that. It was wasn't for me. I didn't really need it to feel comfortable with myself. So, especially back there, and I think the the worst thing I did is I smoked. I smoked cigarettes, and that's pretty much what I did the whole time. I would smoke a pack of cigarettes and drink my Dr. Pepper and and so but anyway, we rented up that party, and I remember my friend was not so much that girl. She definitely was the party girl. She drank a lot. And I remember her being really, really drunk that night on the way home, and it was like 4 30 in the morning and she couldn't drive. And she's like, You're gonna have to drive the car. And I remember she had a truck at the time and it was uh standard, and I had never driven a stick in my life, and I was like, I have no idea what I'm doing. And I remember her laying in my lap, her head's in my lap, I'm trying to like do the clutch and the gas, and she's like, I will, she's like trying to shift for me in her drunken state while I'm just trying not to like kill the car. And Lord knows I did. Like, I I felt like I I must have killed the car like a hundred times before we got home, and then pulling into the the the driveway at my mom's apartment thinking, oh my god, my mom's gonna kill us. And then when I got there, she wasn't even home. So I was like, Oh, okay. And it was like not like, oh, I guess I like not gonna get in trouble, but it felt like, oh, I guess, you know, she doesn't even know where I'm at. And and that just became this idea where Where people didn't weren't checking on me. They didn't know where I was at. They didn't really care where I was at because they were wrapped up in their own, their own stuff. So in um eventually, I, you know, I at this point, I'm 16, I'm dating a school teacher. Um, I remember that I dated him until it became more serious, where he was like, oh, okay, where it was starting to be like more physical. And then I was like, no, I'm not doing that. And I remember bailing out of that situation fast. And as I'm I'm trying to get out of that situation, I remember um this guy my mom had been friends with. And he was the guy she was dating at the time, it was his best friend. And my mom had been hanging out with him for on and off for a little while too. And she was scheduled to go to some concert. They were supposed to be going to a concert together, and she was kind of like, I'm not meaning to like put my mom under the bus, but she was scheduled to go to a concert with him, and she was doing this kind of behind her boyfriend's back. So he had come to pick her up, and at the time, just like miraculously, her boyfriend showed up um unannounced. And so it was kind of awkward that they're both there at the same time because it was a little weird. And my mom was like, Oh, well, she's here to take, he's here to take Heather to the to the concert. And he was like, Oh, I didn't know that. And she's like, Yeah, I introduced them and he's gonna take her to the concert. And my mom's like, Well, you can just go. And so I was like, Oh, okay. That sounds fun. I love concerts, I'd love to go to a concert. And I remember, um, you know, the only concert I had been to up to that point was like DC Talk at church. I had seen the newsboys in DC Talk at church, and so I had never been to like um, you know, like a secular concert at that point, but it was Primus. And at that time, you know, in the 90s, the alternative rock grunge bands were a big deal, but they were going to a Primus concert. So this guy who I had just known like barely 10 minutes, um him and I jumped into his car and we went and had dinner, and then before you know it, we're at this Primus concert downtown. And it was it was a fun time. I had a great time, had a great night. It was a fun concert. And, you know, on the way home, you know, I was like, wow, like he's an older guy. I'm at this concert, and you know, and of course, at 16 years old, you're just kind of getting swept up, and that's exactly what happened. I got swept up. And I think that I got swept up in the the romanticism of it in my mind and the I the I this idealate idealation, I don't even know how to say that word right now, um, of it. And him and I ended up dating. And he was six years older than me at the time. Well, at the time, he's still six years older than me. Um, but you know, after one long makeout session on the way home from this concert, it was just kind of like a sealed deal. I was like, oh, that's it. I'm seeing him and we're together, and he's this older guy, and he's gonna be here. And he's got a car and he has a good job, he makes money, he can take care of me, and he likes me and he wants to be around me. And that was as much as I could say right now for anybody else important in my life. My parents weren't there, they didn't care, they didn't want to do it, and he was a constant, like he was checking on me, calling me, and telling me that he loved me and he wanted to be be with me, and he was taking me to dinner and buying me clothes, and um and that's just kind of at that point was history. The rest was history after that. I dropped out of high school. I didn't even make it through high school after that. Um, I think I think it was in October, I think is when we went, maybe, maybe October. I think it was October, I think, when we went to the concert. And um, we were together ever since I pretty much because I had already ended kind of things with this but the school teacher. Um I'm sorry, I keep playing with things in my hands. So if you see me like hold weird stuff, I'm like pens and lip gloss as I'm talking. But um I had already, because I was having to see him every day at school, I kind of started like skipping that class specifically. And then before you know it, I skid skipped enough class that I was not able to graduate and move on, well, not graduate, but I was not able to move on to my senior year until I completed certain things or until like I had like the specific, like I had notes and stuff that I needed for my parents. Um, but nobody, nobody at the time would do that. There was no not enough attention being had that when I needed a note or something from school, that they would do that for me. So it just didn't happen. Then I stopped going altogether. And so I think I probably went back, I think the last week of school, and I visited some of my friends and said goodbye to them. And I remember my very last day of school. I was like, yeah, today's the day. Today's today's gonna be a big day. It's my last day of school. I knew then that I was not going back for my senior year, you know, and I was pretty much like, yeah, I'm a grown-up now. And I remember coming home from school and my boyfriend at the time um picking me up, and uh, we went somewhere, I'm not sure where, but we went, we went to go do something, and then I remember on the way back, I was like, Yeah, today's the day. And that was the day that I lost my virginity. I was like, Yeah, right, today's today's how we're gonna do it. I was gonna go out of school, go out of this old life of mine and into a new one with a big bang. And I was like, Yeah, that's the thing. And so that was in May. Uh May, I remember the day very well. It was May 31st. And um by uh August, I was pregnant. I was pregnant with my first son. And um, after that happened, um, I had I had actually moved a few times in between because I there was this moment where I was like, oh no, I think I had actually broke up with him um before I got pregnant. Um I'm kind of missing some things, but it's just kind of the way the story goes. Um, I had broken up with him at one point, and my mom had moved. She had decided to move out of Oklahoma and move back to Texas to be closer to her brother. And when she moved, I went with her. And I probably was gone for about two weeks before I called him. I had broke up with him, moved with her, called him later and was like, hey, I hate it here. Please come get me. So he came and picked me up, and then after that, we were together ever since, and then I ended up pregnant. And I remember I was living with my dad at the time when I found out, and I I you talk about a surreal moment. I know that I used to think about like, oh, one day I'll have kids, but nothing prepared me for going to the doctor wh when I thought I had a UTI, and then them coming back and being like, Well, we definitely know what's going on. And they just they're like, Do you because my stepmom, or not my stepmom, but my dad's girlfriend at the time had taken me to the doctor and he's like, Do you want your mom in here? And I'm like, Well, no, because she's not my mom. And he said, Okay. He's like, Well, um, I just want to prepare you. He goes, because I don't know if you know. He goes, but he goes, but you're pregnant. And I was like, Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. So, and I think I just kind of said okay for like I don't know, probably for the next few hours. And then I was like, How do I tell my dad that? I remember uh having to tell my dad and then having to tell my boyfriend at the time, and it w was, I don't know, probably just uh a few weeks after that that him and I got our own apartment and moved in together. And we were together for a while for a few months. I think I was in August and then and late October, his job at the time had transferred him to New York, and so I was gonna go with him, but but me being underage because so here's the thing, I'm he's six years older than me, but I'm underage, and now I'm pregnant. Um now I'm 17, right? I have my birthday had come back around so uh in the February of that year, so I'm 17. And you know, I don't know if I was 17 yet. No, I was still 16. I was still sixteen, but I any it doesn't matter. The the age doesn't necessarily matter. But anyway, so I'm very young at the time, I was underage, it was a minor, so when he left to move to New York and I was supposed to go with him, because I was pregnant, there were all of these kind of like legalities with the fact that I couldn't get medical help during that time by myself because I was underage, so I couldn't sign for myself. So the best idea, of course, if any of you know, the best idea is for you to be married so he can take care of me and he can sign for me. And I remember walking down into the courthouse with my dad, and it's these it's kind of these weird mixed emotions because I'm in a place where I want these things. Like I want to get married, I want to be with this man, I want to go to New York, I want to do all of these things. But then having this weird contradiction of feelings inside me when we went to the courthouse and I watched my dad sign me over to him. There were a lot of mixed emotions in that. And I remember watching him sign over, and then us going from there into this little room where some justice of the peace was going to marry us, and it was real weird. I remember it wasn't like it normally is in like a normal courthouse, and it like it wasn't just like you go into a courtroom. There was this weird it felt dark and it felt shady, and maybe it's just because of the way I was feeling at the time, but it was it was odd, I thought. I thought it was odd then, I still think it's odd now, but uh, it was just kind of a weird feeling, and I remember like it felt real like shady and sleazy and dark, and and they just you know, they they said the things, and then you know you're married and you're gone, and then it was just like okay, now he owns you. You know, the transfer of ownership has been made, and um literally two days later, I was on a plane to New York City and I think I was going at the time it was going f from shock to shock. I I guess that's the best way to put it for me, uh thinking back on it now, is I remember being uh shocked that my parents were getting divorced, shocked that my mom, you know, lit was living the life that she was living. I was shocked nobody cared. I was shocked that I ended up with this older man. I was shocked that I didn't go to school, I didn't finish school, I got shocked that I was pregnant, and now I wake up in New York City and I'm shocked about this. Like this was a huge change. I have now, granted, we've moved a lot and I've seen a lot of places, but they've kind of been in just like these same kinds of types of places. Like I've lived out in Texas in the country, I lived in Oklahoma, which is, I mean, you're still in the city, but it's still kind of like the country. And then we had moved to Georgia. So there, and it was all kind of the same types of places in the South. I had never been to like a big metropolitan city before, um, outside of Houston. So I had no idea what to expect. And wow, like I get there and it is, it is, it is everything you would think it is for an 18-year-old to just walk into New York City. I the the noise, the cars, the people, the buildings, it's so overstimulating and overwhelming that I remember I was being left alone during the day because he goes to work, right? I mean, that's how it is. And it was it, I remember I used to be so scared. Like I would hear people out in the hallway because we're in the apartments, and you can hear people talking across buildings. Like I look out my window and I see brick building. There's no trees, you don't see really see the sky. And so I would hear people screaming and yelling and traffic and horns. And I remember I would sleep all day long, and I would stay up all night long while he was home because I was so scared during the day to be by myself that I would just sleep it away. If I just slept, and then by the time he got home, I would wake up and we would hang out and go do whatever we were gonna do in the evening, and then I would he would go to sleep and I would stay up because he was awake and I felt safer then, and then he would leave and I would I would go to sleep so I couldn't hear it all. It was, you know, I remember I loved New York. There were so many cool things that I saw and I got to experience while I was there, and that was pretty much the gist of it. But eventually I I got tired. I was I was pregnant, I was a few months pregnant by this point, and I was I was getting scared and tired and and not feeling well, and my body was changing, and so I was like, I want to go home, right? Like playing, playing house was starting to get old, and I really just was like, I need to go home. So at the time, it was right before Christmas. I remember he put me on a plane, sent me back home. I went actually back to Texas and stayed with my best friend for a while and kind of went between her and and where my mom was staying. And at that point, she had moved on to San Antonio where her uh where her brother was living. So I I did some time visiting before he came back. And he came back at Christmas and we spent Christmas with my family, and then we went back home to Oklahoma where our apartment was. And at that point, I had already made the decision, like, I'm not living here. I'm not living here. I don't want to have this baby here. I don't want to have this baby without my mom close. And so I was he he agreed that that was a good idea, and we left. We picked up and we moved to San Antonio to be close to my mom, and that's where we lived. And we stayed there and we lived there until um my first son was born. And what a day that was. What a day that was. Austin was born at the end of May. That's my oldest, and if y'all have heard me talking about him, he's the one that was in the Navy and he just finished his service term. Um he is my pride and joy, and he's been with me uh what I feel like my whole life. I I had him, I gave birth to him when I was 18 years old, and he was just the most overwhelmingly precious thing in my life, and I know that he basically saved me. And I know a lot of women out there say that about their children, but and it is, but it's true. And if you say that, I believe you because it's true he he did that for me, he did that for me. Um But when I had him, it was a you know it was a very traumatic event. Up until that point, my pregnancy had been really, really good. I loved being pregnant. Not a lot of women say that. I I struggle hormonally normally. So when I actually got pregnant, it just seemed like everything leveled out and I felt really good and everything was going really well in my pregnancy. But when I woke up the morning, the morning I he was due on the 30th. And so in the 30th, that was my due date when I had been, I had thought, at least if I can get it out of my mouth, I had thought I was gonna have him like throughout the whole month. I'd ended up in the emergency room thinking I was in labor and I wasn't. And then eventually I woke up on his due date at like six o'clock in the morning and I was in labor and I knew it. I'm like, this is not pretend. I know the difference now, and was like, okay, so the whole day we kind of spent walking around, you know, doing all the normal things to try to like further labor along. And towards the end of the evening that day, like it just wasn't happening. They were like, don't come in, it's not too, it's too soon. And so we went home, it's probably around six o'clock, and I laid down and I took a nap. And uh I woke up. Man, I remember I woke up and I was like, oh no, I was in a lot of pain. And I was like, I felt like something was wrong. I was like, oh, I'm having like one contraction, one long contraction, and it's not stopping. And I remember calling my mom all frantic and being like, oh my God, I don't know what's going on. She's like, you need to get to the hospital. She's like, just go to the hospital. And so I remember actually it'd probably been a little bit earlier than six when we had gone home because we now the hospital is about 45 minutes away. So we lived um not close to the to the hospital. So when we got in the car, I was like, oh, the traffic and like we're never gonna get there. I remember we had to have a parking ticket. Like when you lot when you like pull in, it gives you a ticket with the timestamp on it. And it was uh, I'll never forget it, it was 7 24 p.m. And we pulled in, and by the time that we pulled in, parked, got in the front door, got moved up to labor and delivery, get me in a room, get me in a gown, get monitors on me to check me. I was in between between that and the time that Austin was born, it was like just like 45 minutes, something like that. He was born at 8.05 p.m. that night, and we pulled into the parking garage at 7.24. And I remember laying there in a lot of pain. I remember the doctor coming in and checking me, and not before that, the nurse had come in and put the monitor on me. And I remember looking up at the the little monitor, like the can't the you know, where they have the heartbeats and stuff, and looking up there in his heart rate, it was really low. So it was going about 30 beats a minute, and I remember like having other times where I've been checked and ultrasounds and stuff, like his heartbeat's like 150 beats a minute. So I was like, that seems like something's wrong. So she she left and then she came back and then she removed the monitor again and it wasn't working, and then then the doctor comes in and he checks me. And now uh the next part of the story, um I'm gonna put a trigger warning in the front of this video, but this is a trigger warning too for some people. So if there's stuff you don't want to hear about it, like skip over it or don't listen to it, please. But um, he he got on, he came in, he came in and checked me, and uh he could feel Austin's head, and he kind of like pushed his head up or whatever, and Austin's heart rate went right right through the roof and it went really high, and he was like, Oh, he was like, Okay, everything's okay. And then when he kind of like stopped checking me and like let off Austin's head, Austin's heart rate went down again, and he just looked at me, and the next thing you know, I hear the word stat, and it's like all I remember. I remember them being like stat and then like a hundred people around me. And people were yanking my gown off, they're pulling, I got jewelry on, they're pulling my ear, trying to get my earrings out, they're um pulling my rings off, and they're trying to get an IV in, and they can't. I'm crying and screaming. My mom's just walked in the room, and all of this stuff is going on, and then I have a doctor sitting up on the bed in between my legs, literally holding Austin's head out of my birth canal. So come to find out later on is that my body was not dilating, but Austin was trying to come. So he's trying to be born. I'm not dilating, I'm basically suffocat, he's suffocating, is basically what started happening. And so I've literally have a doctor holding his head up out of my birth canal, so his heart rate's up while everybody preps me for what now is going to be an emergency surgery. And I remember them trying to the anesthesiologist coming in. He's trying to, like they're trying to get an IV in and they can't, well, probably because I'm freaking out. And um, I could not calm down. I remember they tied my arms to the bed and the anesthesiologist came over and he had this really long like syringe. Now it's not a needle, but it was just like a syringe full of this dark brown goo looking stuff. And he was like, You're going to have to drink your anesthetic. And I was like, What? And uh, and then he goes, You're gonna have to drink this. And I said, Oh, just give me a minute, just give me a minute. And he looks at me in my face and he put his hand on my forehead and he goes, You don't have a minute. And I it was in that moment, I was like, I I I think I just is in that moment I realized, oh no, my life's in danger. And so I just like immediately this calm came over me, and I just drank this anesthetic down. And then I felt like this overwhelming like stillness. I wouldn't say calm, but compared to the hysteria I had been in, I just felt this overwhelming, like frightful stillness come over me. And I just was like, okay. And the next thing you know, they're wheeling me out of this labor and delivery room. So it was kind of like uh triage for labor and delivery. So you had like what looked like little um ER. Rooms with like little curtains and stuff, and then they wheeled me out into the OR. And I was I remember being wheeled down into the hallway and my mom standing there watching me, and my husband, God only knows where he was because he's squeamish, so he passed out during all of this. And I remember the nurse up above me, and I remember just looking at her and I said, Please, please don't let me die. Please don't let me die. Please don't let me die. And she looked down at me and she's like, You're gonna be just fine. Everything's gonna be just fine. And she's like, I need you to count. And I remember counting. And then I was like, please don't let me die. And she's like, Keep counting, you're gonna be fine. I'm gonna be right here when you wake up. And I remember them hitting the doors, and I'm just that was all I remember. And I think at some point I do remember like this. I must have opened my eyes at some point in there because I remember it's like really bright light. And after that, um, well, like that's a lot even for me to just to keep to like talk about, but um after that I woke up about four and a half hours later because I was under had been under general anesthesia. So I was knocked out for a while, and I remember coming to in the recovery room. Now this was um this was an interesting moment for me because I had up to this point had never experienced any real medical situation ever. I think the most is when I slammed my pinky in a car door. Um, I got an x-ray of my elbow or my wrist one time. That's the most like medical things that had ever really happened to me. So this was just like super traumatic. It was super traumatic. And I remember coming out of uh out from under the anesthesia, and I can't open my eyes, but I remember hearing the nurse just say, press the button, press the button. And I remember like shaking my head and I'm like, in my mind, I'm like, what button? Like, what is she saying to me? And like faintly feeling a lot of pain. So I must have been expressing to her how much pain I was in, and she was like, press the button because I was on a drip and not knowing what that meant. And I remember like uh she grabbed my hand and she took my thumb and she like pressed this button. I heard this beep and whatever. And then after I started kind of fluttering my eyes open and seeing her and then rolling my head over and then seeing my mom. And I remember seeing her and like kind of really started to open my eyes with her, and then she's like, Do you want to see the baby? And I'm like, baby, I'm like, I'm so disoriented. I'm like, baby, no, I don't want to have anything to do with a baby. I was like, oh. And I remember looking back at the uh nurse, you know, the swapping back and forth, being like, what is going on? And mom's like, Are you sure you don't want to see the baby? And so I'm slowly coming awake, slowly coming awake. And when I wake up enough and I look down and my stomach is gone. Like right after I had him, it was like I had never been pregnant. It was such a weird thing. And I look down and I'm not pregnant anymore. And then I like immediately like just woke up and was like, oh my God, where's my baby? And I started freaking out and I started yelling, and I'm like, Where's my baby? Where's my baby? And uh the nurse was like, You you can't see the baby until you get out of recovery. And then I start crying and I'm like, where is he? And freaking out. And then my mom, my mom had to uh, she had some choice words for the nurse and the people there about me not being able to see my baby. And so they they did bring him to me um immediately after that, and I got to hold him and be with him while I was in recovery um until they moved me to my uh my room. And so, you know, there I was 18 years old. I had just gone through an extremely traumatic event for me. Um I had just given birth to my brand new baby. And, you know, laying in the hospital bed going, Wow, this is the first day of the rest of my life. I when they laid Austin in my arms, there's definitely something that takes over with you as a mother. There, it's an indescribable thing that happens. And it's not just like a feeling or an emotion, that it is something that viscerally takes over your entire person inside and out. And from that point forward, it changed the trajectory of my entire life. I think I'm gonna stop there. And y'all come back next week for part two. Um, I thank you for being here with me and walking through my journey. Um, it I know I talk about some stuff that's not easy for a lot of people, and there are some triggers triggering events. I hope that I have made that well known before you have clicked the button to watch this. And if you are able to watch it, thank you for joining me. Thank you for staying with me. Thank you for letting me be vulnerable, and thank you for letting me share. Um, no matter what I've walked through, no matter how much life I've lived, um, no matter what you've walked through or what you have lived and experienced, no matter what's happened, I want you all to remember that freedom is the advantage that you already own and that you can walk into it, take a hold of it at any time. I'll see you guys next week.