Junior Melissa Coolbaugh feeds her 4-month-old daughter, Peyton. Coolbaugh, 17, decided to leave Conestoga at the end of last school year in order to focus her time on being a mother, and now takes classes with an online charter school. Henry Rome/The SPOKE

In this special report, The Spoke takes an inside look at the life of one 17-year-old mother and explores how the issue of teen pregnancy plays a role within the Conestoga community.

By Seth Zweifler
News Editor

Morning has just broken, but it is all the same for Melissa Coolbaugh, 17. Her 4-month-old daughter, Peyton, had been growing restless throughout the night, though she now seems finally to have settled down for a nap in the living room of their modest Berwyn apartment.

Coolbaugh, whose dark bags under her eyes indicate a series of recent sleepless nights, decides to use this break as an opportunity to catch up on her schoolwork. She lifts the cover of her laptop and quietly begins an essay for her Language & Composition class. Her typing, steady and deliberate, continues for a few minutes without interruption. Soon, though, Peyton’s fussing returns. It is 8:30 a.m. — time to fix the first bottle of the day.

Slowly, Coolbaugh pushes the laptop aside on the navy blue couch, which she is using as her workspace for the time being. She rises, walking over to the pink-and-purple swing where Peyton is sitting, the baby’s tiny hands groping outward for attention. As she reaches down to pick up her daughter, she sighs and says, “I’ll have to finish the essay later. This comes first.”

Coolbaugh, now a junior, once lived a very different life than she does today. She was a national cheerleading champion back in the sixth grade, competing against some of the highest ranking teams from around the country. She had a close, lasting relationship with her boyfriend, one that she said has been a major factor in shaping who she is today. She was part of a tightly knit group of friends at Conestoga, never having to worry about spending a Saturday night at home.

Now, all of that has changed.

This past November, she gave birth to a 7-pound baby girl, Peyton Elizabeth Coolbaugh.

Motherhood at such a young age was never in the plans for Coolbaugh. She said

Henry Rome/The SPOKE

she started dating Peyton’s father during her freshman year at Conestoga. What once started as a casual relationship between the two, however, turned much more serious — quickly.

“We really hit it off soon after meeting,” she said. “Looking back, I think the two of us rushed the whole process of forming a meaningful relationship.”

At one point, Coolbaugh was taking no chances. She said that she took birth control pills every morning during a nine-month interval in which she and her boyfriend were sexually active.

“We were being extremely careful,” she said. “We took all the precautions we thought necessary to prevent anything from happening.”

Soon, however, Coolbaugh discovered some unexpected news. She first learned of her pregnancy in February 2008, midway through her sophomore year at Conestoga. For a brief time before that, Coolbaugh said she and her boyfriend grew distant, having very little contact with each other for a few months. So, when the two unexpectedly resumed their relationship in the beginning of January that year, she was not taking her birth control pills on a regular basis, a fact that she attributes as the cause of her unexpected pregnancy.

“I think it goes to show that one choice can have a lot of life-changing consequences,” she said.

Soon, Coolbaugh and her boyfriend had to make a difficult decision: whether they would go through with having the child. While this can often take teenagers in similar situations weeks to decide, Coolbaugh said the choice for her was relatively easy.

“I never even considered having an abortion,” she said. “I understand and respect that [having an abortion is] an individual decision that varies with the situation, but I couldn’t have lived with myself years from now if I had chosen to take that course.”

Then came the hardest part yet for Coolbaugh: how to relay the news to her parents.
Experts say that telling one’s immediate relatives of an unplanned pregnancy at such a young age can often be the most difficult part of the process, as it is a step into the unknown that can result in serious consequences.

“It’s an incredibly hard thing for a teenager to do,” said Lisa Fraser, the director of education and training with Planned Parenthood of Chester County. “Gauging what sort of reaction they might get can be next to impossible and having the support of their parents is essential.”

Coolbaugh said she waited a few weeks before telling her mother about the pregnancy. Then, one day in April, the news “just kind of came out in conversation.”

“I had the feeling that my mom already suspected something at the time, so telling her wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be,” she said.

A few weeks later, she approached her dad with the same news. This conversation, however, stirred up more fear for Coolbaugh, whose father had been the steadiest, most supportive figure for her over the past few years.

“I didn’t ever want to let him down,” Coolbaugh said, explaining how she battled with feelings of shame leading up to the conversation. “I knew that it would affect him just as much as everyone involved.”

Coolbaugh’s father, who himself had been a parent at the age of 19, said that he was upset with his daughter upon first learning of the situation directly from her.

“I was disappointed at the fact that it had happened,” he said. “I knew from experience that she had a long road ahead.”

Despite his immediate reaction, however, Coolbaugh’s father remained supportive throughout his daughter’s pregnancy and is now the closest family member she has.

Henry Rome/The SPOKE

The nine months during her pregnancy were trying times for Coolbaugh. She and her boyfriend went through an unpleasant breakup, reaching a point where communication between the two became virtually nonexistent. As a pregnant teen looking to all avenues for support, she said that the absence of her baby’s father, who could not be reached for comment for this story, was particularly difficult to accept.

“I think we were both scared, emotional people,” she said. “I needed him to be more than he could be at the time, and we grew very distant.”

Health teacher Marcia Mariani said she has seen the absence of the baby’s father during a teen pregnancy become a growing trend, both at Conestoga and across the country.

“There seems to be a double standard when it comes to the level of responsibility for the male in the relationship,” she said. “It’s not just the girl’s problem — both of them are involved, and both of them need to play an equal role throughout the process.”

On top of her rocky relationship with her boyfriend, Coolbaugh also had to make the decision at the end of her sophomore year to leave Conestoga.

“There was no way that I could raise a baby and continue going to school at the same time,” she said.

Coolbaugh also said that she experienced a long period of uncertainty about her future during the pregnancy, stemming from the fact that she did not fully comprehend what was about to happen.

“During those first few months, I knew that I was pregnant, but my grasp on what that truly meant was very limited,” she said.

“It’s hard for somebody at such a young age to wrap their mind around the fact that, in a few months, they’ll be a parent,” said Tristin Ruby, the director of adolescent services with the Family Planning Council in southeastern Pennsylvania. “It takes time.”

A fresh start

When Coolbaugh gave birth at Paoli Hospital on Nov. 21, 2008, however,

Henry Rome/The SPOKE

reality sank in. Not only did her more than 17 hours of labor result in a new baby girl, but she and her boyfriend were able to start repairing their relationship, something they are still working on today.

“That day was like the start of a new life for me,” Coolbaugh said. “I think it really took that to bring everyone together and put things in perspective.”

Still, Coolbaugh said that she faces challenges on an everyday basis. Because her parents are divorced and she lives solely with her father, it has been difficult for her to develop her own personality as a mother without a female role model to look up to.

While she said her father has been helpful throughout the entire process — providing her with whatever she needs to look after the baby — she said she often feels very much alone, having nobody with whom she can confide her thoughts and feelings.

“Not having somebody there who I can look up to or talk with on a regular basis is tough,” she said. “I’ve had to fend for myself a lot.”

The most notable change, though, is the fact that Coolbaugh must now live every aspect of her life with her child in mind.

“With whatever I do, I have to think of [Peyton] before I think of anything else,” she said. “It’s taken some getting used to.”

Because she has to be available for Peyton around the clock, Coolbaugh can no longer socialize with her friends who still go to Conestoga, many of whom she has lost contact with over the past few months. Ever since she first learned of her pregnancy, trying to make her friends fully comprehend the reality of her situation has been “a major challenge.”

“Nobody at Conestoga could relate to being 16 and having a baby,” she said. “A lot of my friends still don’t understand today, and that’s been frustrating at times.”

Despite these changes, however, Coolbaugh is still looking to graduate from high school in 2010, the same time when current juniors at school will do so. She is enrolled in an online program, the Agora Cyber Charter School.

Although having a baby has caused an irregular schedule for schoolwork, earning her high school diploma is a goal she has had for years. She feels that while some aspects of her life have changed, many of her former aspirations are things she still must work to achieve, out of respect to herself and her daughter.

“My goals haven’t really changed,” she said. “I know that I’ll have to go about achieving them in a different way now that I’m a mother, but I want to finish up in the same place as I once thought. I’ve learned to deal with that sort of uncertainty, and I think I’m all the better for it.”

A growing perception

Coolbaugh’s optimism aside, the realities of teenage pregnancy are sobering.

In Chester County alone, the reported yearly pregnancy rate currently stands at 13.8 per 1,000 for women age 15-17 and 49.7 per 1,000 for women age 18-19, according to a demographic analysis conducted by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. According to the U.S. CDC’s final numbers for 2006, which were just released at the beginning of this year, the teenage birth rate has increased 3 percent, putting a stop to the 14-year decline that took place from 1991-2005.

Experts attribute this rise, in part, to what seems to be a lessening of the social stigma that once went hand-in-hand with teen pregnancy.

“It seems as if barriers associated with the issue are slowly going away,” said Ruby, of the Family Planning Council.

While Conestoga’s collective curriculum stresses tolerance and acceptance, students who had to make a similar decision to Coolbaugh’s in the past say they have not felt this level of comfort at the school.

A Spoke investigation into teen pregnancy at Conestoga revealed that at least three students have elected to have an abortion in the past year. Apart from the fact that motherhood at such a young age is a daunting task, all of these students reported that their fear of a negative social perception played a major role in influencing their decision.

“I was scared of what my friends would think, what my teachers would think if I went through with it,” said junior Mary Jones, whose name was changed in this story to protect her identity. “Just from my knowledge about the school atmosphere, I definitely feared [...] a prevailing negative perception if I chose to keep the baby.”

“I didn’t want to be labeled as ‘that pregnant girl,’” said senior Sharon White, whose name was also changed for this story. “In an atmosphere like this, there’s a strong chance you’ll be singled out if you revealed something that wasn’t socially acceptable.”

While Coolbaugh only attended Conestoga during the first few months of her pregnancy, others have experienced what it is like to be a student throughout the entire nine-month period.

Michele McCloskey, a member of the Conestoga Class of 2007, became

Michele McCloskey, a recent Conestoga graduate, became pregnant during her senior year at school. She ultimately decided to give the baby up for adoption. Henry Rome/The SPOKE

pregnant during her senior year at school. While her immediate reaction to the news was to have an abortion, she soon discovered that it was too late to follow through with such a decision.

McCloskey, who eventually decided to give the baby up for adoption, experienced firsthand the various perceptions that come with the territory of being a pregnant teenager at Conestoga. She said that, though her immediate friends and family were supportive of her, she sensed an underlying disapproval of her situation throughout the school.

“Whether people say it or not, it’s frowned upon here,” she said. “You’re pretty much expected to have an abortion. Getting pregnant is not supposed to happen at Conestoga.”

Teen pregnancy, Hollywood style

In addition to changing perceptions surrounding teen pregnancy, experts also cite the issue’s portrayal in pop culture as a cause of its rising rates across the country.

“Its appearance in Hollywood definitely has an influence on some students,” said Ruby, of the Family Planning Council. “They see what’s on TV and try to imitate what they view as a social norm.”

Teen pregnancy has been a hot plot topic lately for such movies like the 2007 box-office hit “Juno” and ABC Family’s growing TV attraction of “The Secret Life of the American Teenager.”

Adding to a growing discussion, the same fascination with teen pregnancy has begun to enter the realm of real life. Headlines and photos of young, pregnant celebrities — such as Jamie Lynn Spears and Bristol Palin — have been splashed across the tabloids are often the main topic of conversation in the school hallway.

This fact in mind, health teacher Marcia Mariani said that recent revisions to the high school health curriculum, which she described as “abstinence based,” have been aimed at trying to make such topics like teenage pregnancy and sex education more accessible and open for discussion.

“We have to acknowledge reality when we talk to students,” she said. “It’s a fact of life that high schoolers have sex, and that needs to be expressed in the classroom as well.”

Despite how teen pregnancy has been portrayed in pop culture, Coolbaugh doesn’t seem to be letting others define how she lives her life.

“I can’t say that I could have seen myself where I am today a few years ago, but I think I’m stronger because of everything that happened,” Coolbaugh said. “I love [Peyton], and that’s really all that matters.”

Coolbaugh, now cradling her 4-month-old daughter in her arms, begins to give her the bottle of formula, the first of many to come that day. She pauses, using her sleeve to clean off the residue that the bottle has left on Peyton’s smooth, glossy cheek.

Henry Rome/The SPOKE

“This is the worst part,” she says with a laugh.

As she’s done so many times before, however, she manages to finish the motherly task. Nearing the end of the bottle, Coolbaugh looks up. She stands, gives a wide smile and says, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Seth Zweifler can be reached at szweifler@stoganews.com.

Printed originally on pages 1, 4, 5 and 6 of the March 27, 2009 issue of The Spoke.

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