Jessica Esparza, 17, breezed past a store window full of sparkling prom dresses without even glancing at them. Instead, she beckoned to her mom to check out the cribs and bouncy chairs for the baby that Jessica will give birth to soon after starting her senior year of high school.
While the unexpected pregnancy initially shocked and saddened the San Jose teen and her family, it has brought Jessica closer to her mother, Stacy Esparza, who struggled through a teen pregnancy two decades ago and is trying to make sure her daughter does not repeat Esparza’s past.
“I don’t want this to cripple her,” said Esparza, who dropped out of school at age 14 and became pregnant a year later. “Just because she’s pregnant doesn’t mean she has to give up her dream.”
But unplanned pregnancies do derail dreams, and they happen in the United States more often than in any other country, according to the National Sexuality Resource Center at San Francisco State University and as reported by the local media. About three out of 10 pregnant U.S. teens in 2000 – or 235,470 girls ages 15 to 19 — turned to abortion, according to U.S. government health statistics. Other teens raise their newborns at the expense of finishing their education.
That happened to Stacy Esparza, 36, when she was a teen. As a girl raised in a tough Mountain View neighborhood, surrounded by gangs and drugs, Esparza was trying to pull herself out of the only life she knew. Along the way, she stumbled several times and wound up having an abortion and two miscarriages. She moved out of the house and lived in a car. To scrape by, Esparza worked as a cashier at Taco Bell.
Jessica and her mom cried when they found out the avid math and science student was pregnant, despite using condoms and birth control pills. But they decided against an abortion.
“If you’re going to have sex,” Jessica said, “you’re going to have to deal with the consequences.”
Months ago, Jessica dreamed of studying engineering at an out-of-state university and saving up her summer job paychecks to purchase a 2006 Pontiac.
Now she’s making some compromises. Because of the pregnancy, Jessica plans to attend a nearby community college. And her job at Great America is going to help pay for baby blankets and infant clothing instead of her fantasy car.
The Downtown College Prep student also will likely skip some of the more treasured teen experiences, like homecoming, prom and even day-to-day socializing.
“I’m not in the mood to hang out or party,” said Jessica, who is about five months pregnant. “I get tired easily, so I hardly see my friends anymore.”
But she is bonding with her mom a lot more.
As a child, Jessica refused to divulge any problems to her parents. There was so much conflict and confusion bottled up inside of her, from frustration over being picked on as the middle child to tumult about her parents’ intended divorce, that she tried to commit suicide twice. First she slit her wrists, and then she swallowed a bottle of pills.
That heart-wrenching history has helped Jessica’s mother find a silver lining.
“Now, because of the pregnancy,” Esparza said, “she looks for me when she needs to talk or when she needs help.”
That was something Esparza couldn’t count on with her own parents.
“My family was ashamed,” Esparza said. “They gave no support.”
Esparza’s first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. A few years later, at ages 17 and 19, she gave birth first to a boy, Antonio, and then a girl, Jessica.
While pregnant with her third child, Esparza returned to school to earn her GED. She rode the bus with her kids to drop them off at daycare. Then she spent all day in class, where she sometimes vomited because of morning sickness.
It was hard, Esparza said, but she stuck with it. Last year she returned to school again, this time to earn her certification in phlebotomy. Now she has a better job in the medical field.
But she wants more for her daughter. Esparza believes that a high school diploma is essential to her daughter’s future, and she insists that Jessica earn a college degree as well.
Jessica wholeheartedly agrees. She is determined to finish high school, wants to earn a bachelor’s degree in mechanical or computer engineering and dreams of landing a job at Intel, the Santa Clara-based semiconductor company.
While the whole family excitedly plans for Jessica’s career, they also are enthusiastically preparing for her baby, due Nov. 29.
Jessica has picked names: April Marie if it’s a girl, Isaac Anthony if it’s a boy.
The family is guessing the gender. Esparza said, with a laugh: “My husband is buying nothing but boy clothes.”
Because Jessica will continue to live at home with her parents and siblings, “we’re not going to need a baby monitor,” Esparza said. “Everybody’s going to want to hold the baby.”
Despite all the support, Jessica knows that staying in school and raising a child will be rough.
“She told me it was very hard,” Jessica said, referring to her mother’s advice and experience. “The only difference between her and me is that she didn’t have anyone to help her.”