Miss Teddy

The first time Miss Teddy slept in a bed, she was 14 – it was the night she ran away from home to live with her boyfriend. After enduring years of abuse and neglect from her father, she couldn’t take it anymore.

“He never showed me the love he showed the other kids,” Miss Teddy remembers. Though she slept on the floor, her father allowed her brother to sleep in a bed. While she was punished by starvation, her brother enjoyed every meal. “He just stopped caring about me.”

But life didn’t get any easier when Miss Teddy ran to her boyfriend. She soon became the victim of his pushes and punches, the victim of unwanted attention from his friends.

And then she got pregnant – at 15. It didn’t stop her unborn baby’s father from continuing the abuse, threatening her each time she tried to escape.

Before long, though, her boyfriend was arrested; she could finally leave. Certain she couldn’t return home, Miss Teddy asked to be placed into foster care and soon joined the “family” at CHS’ home for teenage mothers and mothers-to-be.

“I felt like it was a new beginning for me,” she says.

Not only did Miss Teddy finally have a safe home, but she also learned how to stay healthy during her pregnancy, how to prepare for motherhood and independence. “I didn’t know I had to go to doctor appointments or take vitamins when I was pregnant,” Miss Teddy explains. “CHS taught me so much.”

After her son was born, Miss Teddy learned even more, such as how to properly hold her newborn, safely put him to bed and console him when he cried.

“I learned the baby could feel my anger and frustration,” she says. “They taught me how to calm myself down so I could calm him down.”

Because of the guidance and stability Miss Teddy found with CHS, she was able to secure her own apartment and now looks forward to graduating from high school so she can attend college to become a radiologist. Each step, she explains, brings her closer to providing the life she believes her son deserves.

“I want him to have the life I never had,” Miss Teddy says.” I want to give him all the love I never got.”