Sanna Beygelmakher, class of 2013

Sanna Beygelmakher was a junior in the class of 2013 when she first found out that she was pregnant with her son, Lucas.

According to Beygelmakher, those around her had varying reactions to the news of her pregnancy. However, Beygelmakher said that her father, who she considers to be her best friend, was always accepting of her pregnancy and helped her through the process.

“My dad is the one who was supportive from the start,” Beygelmakher said. “He’s the one who took me to get the pregnancy test. He stood by my side no matter what. My mom was shocked, even though she had a feeling I was pregnant before I even told her.”

Beygelmakher said the experience of obtaining a pregnancy test was very stressful for her.

“Actually the first time I went to get the pregnancy test, I just couldn’t even walk down the aisle,” Beygelmakher said. “I just froze, and I was like, ‘I can’t believe this is happening to me.’”

Beygelmakher said, in the end, she lost some friends due to the change in her lifestyle after she found out that she was pregnant.

“My friends were accepting, but it was hard for them to deal with the fact that one of their closest friends, someone who they used to go out and hang out with, was pregnant,” Beygelmakher said. “They couldn’t comprehend that I was going to be unavailable. I can go out to eat and go on walks, but not much else. I definitely lost a lot of friends because of that.”

However, the same friends who were, at first, supportive of her pregnancy, wound up spreading rumors about her, which has affected how she chooses friends to this day.

“When you’re pregnant it might seem like no one is there for you, but they all want to see your kid,” Beygelmakher said. “Those are real friends. Even when you’re older, when you have kids and a family of your own, and in life in general, you learn that you just can’t trust people. The people who I thought had my back and who I thought were there for me, actually were shady and messed up. They backstabbed me. You have to be careful.”

Some of Beygelmakher’s classmates at the high school said derogatory things about the fact that she was a teen mom.

“I was called every name in the book,” Beygelmakher said. “They would say, ‘Oh, you’re 16 and you’re pregnant? You’re a whore?’”

Ultimately, Beygelmakher said that she chose to drop out of the high school. This decision was a result of negative reactions from some of her classmates, coupled with the fact that she was trying her hardest to make the best health decisions for her future child.

“I said to myself a thousand times,” Beygelmakher said, “‘I’m going to go to school. People are going to look at me. People are going to talk about me. But, I’m going to focus on my education.’ I was young, though, and I wanted to focus on my pregnancy and not what other people thought about me. Education is definitely important to me. When I look back on it, I think I should have stayed at the high school, despite the fact that I was pregnant.”

In addition, Beygelmakher said that she was disappointed in the type of help that the administration at the high school gave her.

“Everybody knew I was pregnant, but no one from the administration reached out to me,” Beygelmakher said. “I wished that they did, especially because I’ve seen them give so much support to other students. It’s like, ‘Yeah, I honestly did mess up.’ I was trying to be a good student, but it didn’t happen. I was a bad student. I did try. They did try to get me to go to class and do whatever I had to do, but the type of support that I actually needed from them when I was pregnant, nobody reached out to me.”

Beygelmakher said that she carried her son to a full term and had a generally healthy pregnancy.

According to Beygelmakher, the times immediately after having a child are very stressful but also fulfilling, regardless of whether one is a teen mother or not.

“You’ll go days without eating or sleeping just because you’re trying to be with the baby and make sure the baby is ok: clean, showered, fed and pampered,” Beygelmakher said. “You want your baby to know that you are their mother and that you are there for them always.”

According to Beygelmakher, the father of Beygelmakher’s son no longer plays an active role in their lives.

“(My son’s father and I) still keep in touch, but just as my son’s father,” Beygelmakher said. “He loved my son, but our relationship got to the point where it was really stressful. So, he decided that if me and him weren’t going to work out, he didn’t need to be here any more. He didn’t understand that his son was here and that’s the reason he should have stayed.”

However, Beygelmakher has since married in Jan. 2014. Beygelmakher’s husband has been in Lucas’ life since his biological father left. He is a great father figure to Lucas and the two have established an incredible bond.

Beygelmakher said that she is thankful to have her mother and her grandmother to care for her son while she is working at Clover in Cambridge, Mass. However, she hopes to enroll him in a program where he can interact with other children regularly.

“I really think that, in order to grow a little bit more and live a little bit more, my son definitely needs to be in school or daycare,” Beygelmakher said. “That’s why I’m looking into it.”

Even though Beygelmakher did not graduate from the high school, she said that education is very important to her. She is currently enrolled in GED classes locally and goes to two classes a week. She hopes to learn phlebotomy, the practice of drawing blood, and eventually become a registered nurse.

According to Beygelmakher, a woman can never be fully prepared to have a child, but, regardless, a mother has to persevere for the sake of her child.

“No one is ready for having a child, but you have process it and say, ‘This is what I have to do for myself and for my child,’” Beyghelmakher said, “You’re never ready no matter what age you get pregnant because it’s always going to be a new thing. “You get frustrated. You get stressed out. But, at the end of the day, you have to think about the baby because that’s the most important thing.”