Paula

My name is Paula, and we’re in Brownsville, Texas. I am a community health worker instructor. I do trainings and presentations for community health workers and residents in my community. So anybody that calls me to do a presentation on reproductive issues, I go out there and do those presentations and trainings.

“I had options and they educated me on my options.”

I have a wonderful husband and I have wonderful children that help me. I have four children. The oldest is 19, and he is also at the university and I was able to put him in the university. He wants to be a history teacher, so his major is history. I have a 12-year-old girl, she’s currently in middle school. She is an activist also at heart and then I have a seven-year-old, she is also an activist, a girl, and my two-year-old, he is the one that keeps us busy.

I had my first child when I was 16. I was a teenage mother. I found out through Planned Parenthood. I went in for a pregnancy test and I burst out in tears, and I remember very clearly that the nurse told me, “You know you have options; okay, these are your options.”

And she talked to me about the pros and the cons of keeping it and then she showed me pamphlets on adoption, and she told me this and this; these are the agencies, and I remember that I felt overwhelmed, and she talked about abortion and she said, “And you don’t have to make a decision right now.”

She said, “You take this home but remember time is important for you to make the decision fast; take this home, study it and you come back and you tell us what you want to do.”

So I did that, I talked to my mom about it. My mom said, “I’ll support you.” My mom has always been like that and I decided to stay with him. So I went back to Planned Parenthood and I told them, “I’m gonna keep it.”

So she said that, “Okay, we’re gonna give you a referral for pre-natal care and we have a program for teenage mothers; are you interested?”

Thanks to that I feel that I’m here. I’m almost there; having to put pauses throughout my life on school but I’m almost there. I broke that cycle. My son did not continue with that teenage cycle. He doesn’t have any kids. I have my girls, I serve as an example for them and I think it’s all because they gave me options. I had options and they educated me on my options.

Paula is a community promotora and activist and leader with the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, Texas Latina Advocacy Network.