Hardly a week into my junior year and I had already passed out on pills during a lecture. Although no charges were filed, I had been arrested a year earlier. One would think that this experience would change my self-destructive behaviors. Instead one year later I sat in a new classroom but in the same drug induced stupor as before. A few weeks later, my positive pregnancy test jolted me awake.

Second chances are complicated gifts and come in many different packages. Each person is given a different second chance and some of these are more dramatic than others. For instance, some people go to jail and others are grounded. Some mistakes are never discovered by others, but they were so close to discovery that one swears to never do it again. Other second chances may be life-altering. Not everyone grabs onto these ropes and pulls themselves out of dangerous waters, even when multiple ropes are thrown their way. However, I held tight to my gift and pulled myself to shore.

Even as I cried in my boyfriends arms the image of the positive test seared in my mind. He hugged me and promised me everything would be okay, but all I could think about was the alcohol I had drunk and the pills I had taken in the last few weeks. This baby had no chance. I felt apathetic when I proceeded to destroy myself and my future, but this test entered me into a huge new league. I destroyed an utterly innocent child’s chances at a normal and successful life. Surely things could not be okay.

After that day I did not drink any more alcohol or even smoke another cigarette. I forbid my boyfriend to smoke his cigars around me. Within me I knew that I had already ruined this baby, but I still could not play games of chance with his flickering hope of health. At first I ate right and took only pre-natal vitamins in replace of my usual pill cocktail for him, but after months of being sober I realized that life is better when I remember the night before.

Nearly three years ago I found out I was pregnant. Since then I have worked with a number of pregnant teenagers. Most of the girls I worked with chose not to take their second chance. Instead they smoke and drink as they did pre-pregnancy, but now their child suffers. It is not just pregnant teenagers who overlook their second chances. Many young men are arrested in my hometown. Most leave jail with the same attitudes as when they were arrested.  My boyfriend’s brother overlooked his many second chances from his overdose, his jail sentences, and his daughter’s birth. He follows the same destructive patterns he has since we were fourteen. After all these windows of opportunity closed, his family has no more help to offer. He had multiple times to try and change for the better, but he ignored them. My son was only a second chance for me because I recognized it.

Soon after I became pregnant, I began living in a new way. My boyfriend, however, took longer to embrace my new life style. A month or so after I discovered my second chance, he was arrested for underage drinking and violation of probation. He spent the majority of my pregnancy in jail, only to be released on two years of house arrest late in my second trimester. I was still seventeen, but we found an apartment and he began a job at Burger King. We had made quite the improvement from my crack-addicted mother’s home to his Burger King position and an empty apartment. However, we still faced problems. In only a few months we were supposed to bring home a baby. We could hardly afford rent, let alone a crib, stroller, diaper bag, diapers, wipes, eventually food, and all the other unaccounted for expenses of a baby. He and I could skip meals, but a baby cannot. He was on house arrest; I had another year of school. For all these and an abundance of other reasons we chose adoption. Through an agency we found a couple with an established home where our son could flourish and go on vacations in the summer. We and his parents work to achieve an open adoption with pictures, letters, and visits. Although some days it is difficult to cope with our decision, we are constantly inspired to make him proud as we watch him grow into a healthy and happy boy.

Often people learn important lessons through their mistakes, especially when one does not have a parent to guide one through the early and intense days of young adulthood. Even so, the true key to second chances is seizing the opportunity whatever that opportunity maybe. This window will not stay open forever and one has to jump while he or she can.

I jumped. While working a full time job, I finished my last year of high school. I graduated eleventh in my class and participated in a variety of extracurricular activities. Now I am attending Cornell College, my dream school, where I am studying to be an elementary teacher. Through my work in schools and one day, social work program writer or director I hope to make the second chance my son gave me worthwhile by helping children and teens through my experiences as a troubled teen.