She anxiously paced inside a bathroom stall on Legacy’s second floor. Trembling with fear, she nervously stared at the pregnancy test waiting for the image to fully develop and tell her the answer she wasn’t ready to accept. When the two lines finally appeared, junior Allyson Williams didn’t want to accept she would soon be a teen mom.
“I felt the need to take a pregnancy test because my body started feeling weird. I just didn’t feel normal,” Williams said. “I told my friend after the test, and he helped me keep the secret until I was ready to tell people. I was in denial for so long; I had found out in October but stayed in denial until mid-January.”
Afraid of how her parents would react, Williams managed to keep her pregnancy a secret from them for six months.
“I was most nervous to tell my parents. I never got ‘big’ and it took a long time for me to gain weight, so it wasn’t hard to hide,” Williams said. “When I announced it, my dad and step-mom were super acceptant. My dad hugged me and told me everything will be okay; we are all as close as ever.”
With complications ranging from piling assignments to hormonal imbalances, Williams believes her pregnancy brought forth the most difficult period of her life.
“It was a crazy ride. I had to be home-bound with this amazing teacher from Mansfield named Ms. Pitman. I still had to do my assignments like every other student, but I never got to take my EOCs last year, so I was super behind,” Williams said. “Being at home didn’t really give me the motivation to do school with already having the stress of being pregnant and getting ready to have a baby. I did school work until I went to the hospital, and I started again two days after I got out.”
Despite enduring 11 hours of labor, Williams recounts her experience at Mansfield Methodist Hospital as a memorable one.
“I actually loved my experience at the hospital, they were very accepting of the fact that I was still a teenager,” Williams said. “I had this nurse whose shift ended right before I was in labor, but she still stayed the entire time with me through the birth. The nurses wrote me cards and I just felt very welcomed.”
Williams completed credit recovery throughout the first semester of her junior year. Even though she’s now caught up, Williams tends to both her school and child’s needs.
“It is very hard to try and come home to do homework with an eight-month old. I wake up every morning at 4:45 a.m. so I have time to take her to daycare before I go to school. When I get home, I’m basically a zombie,” Williams said.
Williams is grateful for the support she receives to raise Blakelyn from her parents, friends, and MISD.
“Mansfield ISD actually helps me a lot; the Lake Ridge soccer team does fundraisers and anything that’s ‘baby-related’ is donated to [teen parents]. The program is open to all teen-parents, I just don’t think many know about it,” Williams said. “Other than being a full-time mom, I don’t have a job right now, so my parents help out with everything else.”
Junior Vanessa Krismer, Williams’ best friend, remained supportive throughout her entire pregnancy from helping out with class work to late-night reassurance calls.
“The first time she told me, we were on Facetime. At first, we didn’t know if it was a false positive or if it was actually positive,” Krismer said. “She was very nervous. I was shocked but also nervous for her. With her having to go through a pregnancy [plus] raise a kid at such a young age, I always tried to be there for her because it does get hard and people always need someone to talk to.”
Krismer feels inspired by how motherhood impacted Williams’ life both in the classroom and playroom.
“It seems like now she has this sixth sense. She seems to always know things before I tell her. She has this motherly instinct, and she is always laid back and caring of other people. She’s also always been pretty on top of her school to keep her grades up,” Krismer said. “She’s really good at juggling both school and taking care of a kid; I was supportive and I know she would have done the same thing for me if roles were reversed.”
Planning to graduate high school in 2024, Williams anticipates attending cosmetology school and continuing her education to become a teacher.
“I would like to go to college, but I think that is seen later in my future and not necessarily right out of high school just because [Blakelyn] is so little,” Williams said. “Right after high school, I’m going to cosmetology school just so I can get some financial income coming into my life. I actually want to become a fifth grade science teacher so bad; I’m taking the Education Pathway courses at Ben Barber for that.”
Williams believes her pregnancy taught valuable life lessons she can carry with her beyond high school and to her daughter in the future.
“I would not say Blakelyn is a setback, I’m not using her as a reason why I can’t do things. I’m not proud of getting pregnant in high school, but I had to really work to get myself out, and I am proud of how I overcame this obstacle in life on my own.”
Despite the hardships she faced throughout her journey, Williams feels she is now at a place where she enjoys both the precious moments of motherhood and student life.
“Just the overall atmosphere of school helps me feel so much better. When I was pregnant and first had [Blakelyn], I felt very very isolated. I felt no one understood what I was going through and I couldn’t really talk to anyone about it,” Williams said. “But now at school, I have the freedom to just be my own person. Then when I come home, I can be a mom. I love that I can separate my life into two separate worlds, but also conjoin them at the same time.”
