bianca's Story

“I was selfish and that’s why I didn’t give him up. I was making a selfish decision, so I decided to provide a life for him,” says Bianca, a former pregnant teenager. 

Pregnant at the age of 15, Bianca has overcome obstacles to ensure her and her child’s future. 

Bianca was an honor roll student who participated in her high school Jazz Band, Color Guard, and other extracurricular activities when she discovered she was pregnant. She was a model, Christian student when she found out she was 15 and pregnant. She knew her family was popular in the community and did not want to embarrass them. “I didn’t want to come out with (being pregnant) because I didn’t want them to think my parents were bad,” Bianca says.

Approaching her Sweet 16, she decided to reveal her pregnancy to her family. Her family was immediately disappointed, shocked, and canceled her Sweet 16 celebration. “My dad was irate,” says Bianca. “I was four months along in my pregnancy.” 

The weekend Bianca had decided to terminate her pregnancy, she came across a newspaper article with Barbra Stewart. In the article, Stewart was informing people about her school where pregnant teenagers or teenage moms could go and receive the support and resources they needed. “It happened to come out at a great time,” she said. After reading the article and deciding to keep her baby, Bianca was asked to leave her parent’s home. She packed her things and went to live with her sister (until she was told to come back home). 

While attending the school for teen mothers, the Teenage Incentive Program stepped in, to further help Bianca in becoming a new mother. TIP was a support system for Bianca that taught her how to care for a newborn baby, helped with schoolwork, and counseling and mentorship.

While life may have seemed hard, Bianca remained on the honor roll, continued her extracurricular activities, and got a job. Sleeping only two hours a night and making sure to spend time with her newborn was her new life and nothing could stop her. “He is my child, not anyone else’s, so I worked hard to make sure he was taken care of. I wanted to be financially responsible.” 

Five years after high school, making First Chair in the Houston Symphony and turning it down to be a mother, she became a speaker for TIP. She would speak to teenage girls at her former high school and other local high schools in the Houston area to encourage the teens to be responsible. “I would tell them don’t depend on anybody else but themselves. Don’t depend on a guy because they can be gone.”

A few years went by before Bianca decided she was getting older to where the teenagers would not listen to her. She enjoyed speaking twice a year but remembered when she was younger that older women would come to speak to her school and she could not relate. 

“I told Mattie I didn’t mind speaking, but they would benefit from a younger speaker.” 

Now, Bianca is a Director of Nursing, a mother of two children, 28 and 17-years-old, and a successful Dog Show Breeder. “Thank you for the support,” to the Teenage Incentive Program. 

By: Karisa Norfleet

TIP Writer