‘You really don’t want a baby at this age; you don’t know how stressful it is’

“This is a joke,” Juliette told herself. “Like, I’m dreaming; this is a total dream; I can wake up now.” 

Juliette was 13 years old when she started feeling pains in her stomach and intense nausea. 

Concerned and feeling dreadful, the teenager spent two days out of school as she battled her mysterious sickness. 

A few days later, her boyfriend suggested she take a pregnancy test.

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“Two minutes goes by, and the line gets stronger and stronger”

“I was like, ‘What? No, I’m not pregnant, there’s no way’,” she said. Motherhood wasn’t something she ever thought about; the Year 8 girl even believed herself to be "infertile”. 

“I just thought I was infertile, and I feel like that’s what every pregnant teenager says.”  

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But after ordering a pregnancy test in March 2023, she sat on the floor of her bathroom and anxiously waited for the result. 

“So two minutes goes by, and the line gets stronger and stronger and stronger,” she said, explaining the baby's father was back at school, waiting for the 13yo to send a message confirming the news.

When the second line on the test started to develop, Juliette began to panic. 

“This is a joke,” she told herself. “Like, I’m dreaming; this is a total dream; I can wake up now.” 

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But the second line appeared, the result undeniable. 

“It [was] the darkest red line I’ve ever seen,” she recalled. “It was, like, screaming at me, ‘You’re pregnant!’”

The teenager was “mortified” and “terrified” at the thought of being pregnant at only 13, so she made a visit to the doctor. However, due to her age, she couldn’t make an appointment without her mum’s permission, so she had to convince her mum nothing was wrong; she just needed the doctor. 

After undergoing a blood test, medical staff confirmed the 13yo was expecting a baby. She and her boyfriend then decided it was time to tell her mother the news. 

When her mum, Krista, learned her 13yo was expecting a baby, she wasn’t sure if she even wanted to come home.

“When she found out she was pregnant, Juliette told me a few days later, and my initial reaction was that I didn’t want to come home,” she recalled. 

“But within a few minutes, I realised it wasn’t the end of the world as something beautiful was going to come out of it and I ended up being supportive.”

When the 13yo returned to her room, she had a big decision to make. Unsure if she wanted to keep her baby, she also had to decide if she wanted to raise it herself or give it up for adoption.

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Juliette fell pregnant at 13 years old. Picture: Juliette Ackerman/Caters News

“I’m never going to have kids; I don’t want kids … but I had her anyway”

The Year 8 student admitted she didn’t “have a motherly bone in her body”, but the thought of having an abortion didn’t sit right for her. 

“I thought, ‘I’m never going to have kids; I don’t want kids’,” she said. “But I ended up having her anyway, and it was a good decision.” 

Due to her young age and having a short cervix, Juliette’s pregnancy was no picnic. 

She was informed there was a risk she would suffer from hyperemesis gravidarum, AKA severe and uncontrollable vomiting, which can cause serious damage to the mum and baby during pregnancy. 

Aside from weight loss, dehydration, and feeling extremely dizzy, there was a chance the teen would show prodromal labour (false labour contractions).

All the while, the teen was missing out on things that her other friends got to experience for the first time. “Throughout my whole pregnancy, I did feel very left out with most things,” she recalled. 

“I would see my old friends going places for the summer, and I couldn’t even hang out with my friends. But eventually, I learned to cope with it.”

And sure enough, 36 weeks into her pregnancy, the teenager began to experience prodromal labour, resulting in multiple trips to the hospital before finally giving birth a day before her due date. 

It’s been six months since she welcomed her daughter to the world, and despite the challenges the teenager faced during her pregnancy, including separating from her boyfriend, Juliette said she wouldn’t change a thing. 

“It wasn’t a good decision to get pregnant at 14,” she warned. “But it was a good one to keep her for sure, as she’s perfect.”

Originally published as ‘You really don’t want a baby at this age; you don’t know how stressful it is’