This Could Be the Biggest and Scariest Thing You Ever Do

You just took a pregnancy test.

Time seems to move slowly as you wait for the results. When you look down and see those positive lines, your mind starts racing. Your first instinct might be to think of all the things that could go wrong or how your unplanned pregnancy will ruin your life.

Whether it’s doubts about being able to graduate from high school and go to college, finish your degree, concerns about being able to advance in your new career, if you will be able to afford to care for your child or questioning the impact to your new relationship, your unplanned pregnancy can cause a torrent of concerns.

This is the moment when you need to stop and take a deep breath. You don’t need to borrow worry from tomorrow when you are living in today. After taking time to slow your racing heart, you will be able to think through everything with a clearer mind.

Will having a baby make completing school take a little longer? Potentially, but that doesn’t mean you cannot finish. Will the times ahead be financially difficult? Probably, but even if you feel like you’re all alone, I assure there is someone—a family member, a local church—who wants to help you.

I’m not going to lie: Having a child is the biggest and potentially scariest thing you may ever do. But it will be 100 percent worth it. For every hard moment, you will have five beautiful ones; for every moment you feel like you want to quit, you will have a million more where you couldn’t imagine a second without your little one.

Ask anyone who has walked through more of life than you, and they will tell you that the hardest things in life always are the sweetest and the most rewarding. President Theodore Roosevelt put it best:

“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty … I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”

Having a child will take sacrifice and work … you might have to work a little harder in school to finish, put in some extra time to get that promotion, or work even harder to make your relationship work, but in the end, when everything works out you will be able to look back and see that you succeeded against all odds.

And this little human, whom you’ve loved so dearly and sacrificed so much for, will look at you throughout it all and know his or her mom is truly their hero.

Leanne Jamieson is the director of Prestonwood Pregnancy Center.