Monica Follow Up

OVERCOMING S T A T I S T I C S

Former BV West senior gives update on life as a teen mom Natalie Lindmark editor-in-chief

In the winter of 2019, The Spotlight wrote about a senior who faced teen pregnancy. As the months went on writing this piece, the story blossomed as Monica Curtright had baby, Porter Curtright. Now Curtright has come back to share her story since giving birth on her journey being a teen mom.

The journey began Dec. 19 2019, where she gave her birth to her little boy. The process didn’t go as smoothly as she would have wished. “Porter had to be in the NICU because he had issues regulating his blood sugars and struggled with feeding and had an unknown infection as a result of that. It was very traumatic for me to not be able to help my newborn baby as he was hurting and it broke me that he had to go through so much in such little time he had been here. He started showing signs of improvement and he got to come home after 7 days, but unfortunately he had to stay in the NICU over our first Christmas together,” Curtright said. Curtright was determined to start off as the best mom as she could by putting Porter first. “I had the option to stay at the hospital with him overnight or to come home but I refused to come home without my baby in my arms, so I slept on the hospital couch while recovering myself.” After those seven days, Curtright expresses she was ecstatic to finally bring him home. She spent the next months learning, growing and cherishing memories and milestones. “With being able to stay with my baby each and every day I’ve been able to witness every milestone he’s achieved from learning how to crawl, take his first steps, and say his first word which was mama!” Four months later, between a newborn and COVID-19, Curtright still chose to fight and come out victorious, being able to graduate and walk at graduation. “I was able to walk at graduation! Unfortunately, due to COVID, I wasn’t able to carry him across the stage with me, but it was still just as special for me to know that I finished something a lot of girls in my position aren’t able to finish.”

Curtright spent the summer passing more milestones and preparing for a new chapter for her. “I started college at JCCC and now am going to be going to Mizzou in the spring to get my degree in Sociology! I am on track to graduate with the rest of my class thankfully. I am currently able to work from home with Porter, so that helps me to be able to be a full time mom, student, and worker,” Curtright said. While balancing these crazy components, Curtright was also able to keep up her social life. “I met my new boyfriend Brady earlier this year and he has been my rock ever since he’s been around me and helping with Porter. He may not be Porter’s biological father but he treats him as such and I couldn’t be more grateful for the role he now plays in Porter’s life. I stood on my own two feet taking care of Porter before I met Brady, and I will always be able to divert to that, but I still couldn’t imagine my life without Brady in it.” As the Spotlight left off in December, Curtright proved to be “more than a statistic”. “It still holds true to me that I’m more than just a statistic. Only 40% of teen moms graduate high school, and less than 2% finish college before age 30. While I still haven’t finished college yet, I have worked hard to have amazing grades and work towards my career goals, that I see no reason why it would not work out in my favor. Statistics are statistics, but I knew I didn’t have to be one of them.”