A Little About Me

When people learn my name is India before meeting me, they get this m

ental image of a Middle Eastern girl with dark hair and tan skin. That couldn't be more wrong! I am very pale and I have blonde hair [though I've had many other colors]. I was born in Virgina on Cinco de Mayo in 1992. After that, I moved all over Texas and finally settled in with my family south of Fort Worth the summer I turned 10. I went through my freshmen and sophmore years with no issues at all; I made straight A's, was almost obsessively involved with choir and had no interest in the drinking and smoking my peers seemed to be tapping into. I found out I was pregnant at the beginning of my junior year. I contemplated an abortion along with adoption. Neither seemed to feel like the right choice. So gradually everyone at my high school found out, and I received a wide range of responses. From physical threats to anonymous gifts, I was never really sure where I stood with most of my class. This was 2008, and no one else at the high school was pregnant;

it was only me. Now, I almost always know someone my age that is pregnant. I don't want to talk about increasing young pregnancy rates... Anyway, when my third

trimester rolled around, I was transferred

to AEC [pronounced 'ace'] for the rest of my pregnancy and six weeks after the delivery. My

classroom had four other girls, all from diff

erent high schools. My teacher, Mrs. Brownell, was a very sweet, kind, nurturing woman who was extremely protective and motherly towards "her girls." Thanks to her, I felt almost immediately at home. Of course, in that classroom, it was hard not to. We had a couch and several rocking chairs for the girls to nurse or rock their newborns in. At the end of my 7th month of pregnancy, my best friend, Megan, threw me the baby shower of the century. The color scheme was pink and green; pink for my baby girl and green for my due date in March. Of course with my luck, Athena decided she wasn't ready to make an appearance until April 2, when I was induced. With my epidural and constant ingestion of ice, the birth went flawlessly. Athena weighed 7lbs 6oz and was 19in long.

I went back to AEC a week after Athena's birth and then back to my high school 6 weeks after that. The school system made it extremely easy for me to finish my junior year by setting up a bus that, in the mornings, picked Athena and I up, dropped her off at daycare, then me off at school, and the opposite after school. Someone would have to go com

pletely out of their way to drop out with that kind of assistance.I decided to go to AEC for my senior year and graduate early. Within 9 weeks, I was done with high school a

nd enrolling i

n college.

The rest is pretty simple. I watched Athena learn new things, start to walk, start t

o talk. I knocked out class after class, and now I'm only 2 semesters short of my Associate degree. I'm extremely proud of myself and I hope I'll always have the motivation I have

now.