Positively Mine by Christine Duval Page B

in the center of the room.
    “Hello everyone,” she begins. “I’m glad you all could make it tonight. I know judging by the looks of a few of you, we won’t be seeing you here too much longer. You’ll be coming to my new mothers’ support group instead.” Laughter fills the room.
    “When is your due date again, Jill?” she asks a girl to my right, who is so big her shirt doesn’t cover her stomach entirely. Skin is popping out over her pants.
    “Yesterday.” Jill smiles. We all laugh again.
    “Babies are on their own schedule.” Then she turns to me. “Since you are new here tonight, I think we should go around and give our names, our ages, and due dates, plus a little bit about ourselves if we care to. I’ll start…I’m Alison Kelly, and I am the proud mom to a fifteen-year-old son named Ryan, a ten-year-old daughter named Kendall and a black lab who thinks he’s my third child.
    “I started this group about six years ago after I got out of nursing school because I was a teen mother and I understand firsthand what it is like to go through what you are all going through. I got pregnant when I was sixteen, and it was a nightmare, at first. But with the support of the baby’s father, who is now my husband, and some good people, I was able to have my son and still realize my dreams. I would have appreciated a group like this, though, which is why I formed it. And I’m happy to say it’s been a success.
    “Not only do we support one another here, we laugh, we cry, we have fun. It is my hope that together we can help each of you get through one of the most difficult times of your young lives and empower you to go forward and make something of yourselves because that is what your babies are going to need – strong, loving mothers who also have lives of their own.”
    Her eyes focus on me as she talks. “Okay. Enough about me. Yolanda, you’re up.”
    The girls take turns telling their stories. Yolanda is sixteen, due in December and considering dropping out of high school and trying for her GED later on. Jill is seventeen, knows she is having a girl and she’s living with the baby’s father and his family for now. They hope to get married when they graduate high school. Kyle is due in February and a sophomore at the University of Rochester. She doesn’t want to marry the baby’s father although he’s asked. Elisa is the youngest at fourteen. She doesn’t share much about herself just her age and her April 15th due date. And Janet will turn eighteen in March with her baby joining her that same month. She’s living at home with her parents and doesn’t talk to the baby’s father anymore because he has a new girlfriend.
    When it’s my turn, I take a deep breath and hold it for a while. “I’m Laurel Harris. I’m a freshman at Colman, and I’m twelve weeks along.”
    “Wow, that’s a long drive,” Kyle says.
    “I know. There might have been something closer, but my doctor recommended this group, and I wanted some privacy too. Milton isn’t a big town.”
    “Everyone will find out eventually, don’t you worry.” Jill laughs while rubbing her belly.
    I nod. “I know. I just haven’t found a way to tell people yet.”
    Alison claps her hands together. “Okay, well, this might be a good place for us to begin tonight because we have all been through what Laurel is experiencing now.”
    As she’s talking, a door opens in the back of the room and a red-haired girl comes in, grabs a folding chair from a stack against the wall and slips into the circle. “Sorry, I had a seminar that went late.” I immediately recognize the girl from the party at Eastman.
    “Not a problem,” Alison says. “Audrey, this is Laurel, a potential new member. She’s a freshman at Colman College and three months pregnant. We’ve been telling her about ourselves.”
    “Oh, okay.” Audrey takes off her coat. “I’m Audrey…obviously. I’m a junior at Eastman, where I live with my soon-to-be-husband in a