Melissa in New Haven, Connecticut: "Teen Mom"
TEENAGE DIARIES
Produced by: Joe Richman All Things Considered (NPR)
12/2/96




ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: This is All Things Considered, I'm Robert Siegel.

NOAH ADAMS, HOST: And I'm Noah Adams. As part of our series, Teenage Diaries, producer Joe Richman has been giving tape recorders to young people around the country to document their lives.

Today we meet Melissa Rodriguez. Melissa is 18 and lives in her own apartment in New Haven, Connecticut. Her rent is paid by the state's Department of Children and Families. She's in a program designed to help young people from group homes and foster care learn to live on their own. As part of the program, Melissa holds a part-time job and attends a community college. In exchange, the state gives her money for basic living expenses, rent, phone bills, food and, now, diapers. This is Melissa's story.


[sound of music cassettes being sorted and put into player]

MELISSA RODRIGUEZ: OK, let's see what old songs I have here. Oh yeah, this is a classic, well, to my generation. Here it is: "Independence" by Salt-n-Pepa.

[music: "Independence" by Salt and Peppa]

MELISSA: Hi, I want to introduce myself. My name is Melissa Rodriguez. My friends call me Missy. I'm Puerto Rican, if no one noticed that yet. I'm 18 years old. I live in New Haven, Connecticut, in a little, tight one-bedroom apartment. Right now I'm in my bedroom. I love being in my bedroom. There's everything here. All my books, my TV, vcr, my baby's crib.

[more music]

MELISSA: I'm eight months pregnant, eight and a half. It's a boy. Everybody asks me, "What are you going to name him, what are you going to name him?" I don't even know what I'm going to name him. I mean I tried everything. I even called the psychic line. [laugh] Talk about crazy, I called the psychic line and I was like, "Can you see who it is?" They didn't even know. And they psychic. [laugh] This is my plan: to have the baby. And I think when I look at the baby, I think I will know.

[music fades with Melissa singing along: "And I don't need you...."]

[sound of tape being stopped]

MELISSA: My baby's father's name is Wayne and we're sort of together. We're not in no serious relationship. And I didn't think that I was going to get pregnant. It just happened. [laugh] It was just like -- I just started my life. I just started to go to school. I just started working. And I just didn't have anything settled yet.

[sound of doctor's office]

DOCTOR: Hey, Melissa.
MELISSA: Hello.
DOCTOR: How are you?

[door closes]

MELISSA: I'm fine.
DOCTOR: Why don't you lay on the table on your left side, ok?
MELISSA: Ok.

Every couple of weeks, I have to go get my checkup.

DOCTOR: We're going to listen to the heartbeat now.

[sound of baby's heatbeat amplified through a speaker]

DOCTOR: That's it.

[sound fades under]

MELISSA: I heard his heartbeat for the first time and I kind of believed I was pregnant and I was still in like this denial stage.

[heatbeat sound stops]

MELISSA: Doctors would ask me questions, like, "Am I depressed," or if I have any problems. And they want to know what I'm eating and how much of it am I eating. I lied a lot and told them that I was eating a lot of vegetables but the only vegetable I was eating was lettuce and tomatoes on my double cheeseburger with extra cheese from McDonald's. [laugh]
DOCTOR: All right, I'll see you next week.
MELISSA: All right.

[sound of doctor's office fades out]

MELISSA: I'll be honest with you. I was kind of thinking about abortion. But I see it as more like killing a human being. And adoption, I don't believe in adoption, either, because I was in foster homes and that's just as good as being adopted. I was in 8 foster homes, 5 residentrals, and 7 group homes. And it's just, you feel so out of place and you would just think, you know, "This family's not even mine."

[walking around house]

MELISSA: Let me get my photo album.

[sound of pages turning]

MELISSA: Well, I'm going through my photo album to see who's in here. Most of my pictures are friends. Family members come up once in a blue moon. Oh, I have a picture right here, the perfect picture, too. This was when I was two years old? One years old. That's my mother. And we was at my little cousin's birthday party. She looks a little fat, 'cause she just had me, still got her roll in her stomach. Other than that, she's really pretty. She has short, curly hair. Thick. She looks like she's trying to dress like a teenager, which I think she was at the time. I look just like her.

[sound of music, car driving around, and teenage voices, laughing]

MELISSA: My friends are really my family. Sometimes we would just go out driving around in New Haven and we have like a little rating system, like we'll take points away if he has an ugly car or if he looks raggedy. And if he doesn't score at least an 8, then no one will talk to him. [laughs]

YOUNG GIRL #1: [shouting] Hey Patty, come here girl. Hey Patty girl, you look cute, I like that.

MELISSA: All my friends have kids, except for one.

YOUNG GIRL #2: [shouting] Oh, you ain't going to ask how my son's doing, though, right?

MELISSA: The good reasons why they, they have kids is 'cause they think they're cute and they feel like they're -- something belongs to them. They know that that person will love them always. As far as I'm concerned, I'm still going to be a party girl. I'm just going to cut that in half. I'll probably just go out once a week, rather than 5 days a week.
YOUNG GIRL #1: Oh, that is the 'bomb', baby...

[sound of music and car fade out]

MELISSA: Well, we did have an excitement event this week. Nurse called me and she says to me, she says, "Miss Rodriguez, we need you to come in as soon as possible to cure two infections that you have." And I'm thinking, "Infections?" I got an ear infection, what kind of infection is this? She's like, "No, no, you have...", what is it, .."Syphilis and whatever else comes with it." And I'm like, "Wait a minute, you get that from having sex.?" She was like, "Yes." I was like, "You must have the wrong chart." [laugh] We don't have that here. We didn't have this here, you know. And I'm just looking over to my left, I look at my baby's father, and I'm like, "I'm going to kill him. I really am." So he gets up, we get off the phone, he -- gets up -- he walks to the bathroom. And I look over at him, and he looks at me like, "What's wrong?" I was like, "Come here. Take a seat." [laugh] "I want to speak to you about something." You know, all calm, not to scare him or nothing. [sniff] Right then and there, I already knew. I said "That's it." I knew he was going to cheat, I had a feeling he had cheated on me. But I never knew that he, if he was going to cheat on me, I mean, that he would at least have been protected. So I'm going off at him and like listen, "I can't -- I can't even look at you right now. Just get out of my face, just take a walk or something. 'Cause I -- I will kill you if you stay around here, OK?" [sigh]

[phone rings]

MELISSA: Yeah, that's probably him calling again. Should we answer that and talk to him? [phone rings more] Nah. [stops ringing] Ahh, he hung up. He hung up.

[sound of hospital, intercom, baby crying]

MELISSA: Today is October the ninth and I have a brand new baby boy, seven pounds. His name is Isaiah Settle. And he was born at 1:30, right, 1:30, right?
HOSPITAL ATTENDANT: 1:17
MELISSA: 1:17. Exactly
YOUNG GIRL #1: He was born an hour ago.
YOUNG GIRL #2: I was watching: 1:17.
MELISSA: And we would have recorded the birth, but it happened so fast. [laugh] You know, so I'm sorry that you couldn't hear all the pain. But it was easy.
HOSPITAL ATTENDANT: He's so adorable.
MELISSA: You're going to be a good baby, too. You see how he doesn't cry. He just came out and was chilling. Gave a little cry to make sure his lungs was right and he just starting chilling. I can't believe this whole think was inside of me. [laugh]

[baby noises]

HOSPITAL ATTENDANT: Congratulations, Missy.
MELISSA: Thank you. [laugh]

[hospital sound fades out]

MELISSA: When I came home, it was -- it was a funny feeling just myself was walking in the house. But he really didn't care, he got so used to the house so fast, you know.

[baby gurgling]

MELISSA: Ooh, I smell something, what's that? Whew!

[diaper being unwrapped]

MELISSA: And how do I like my motherhood here? [diaper changing] The funny thing about having a baby, especially a boy, is that he always pisses on me. Always. Any time I change him, he's always peeing on me. I don't know why. He's marking his territory. Like he says, "This is mine." So, that's kind of cute.

[baby crying softly]

MELISSA: Umm, as far as my own mother, you know I'm debating on if I should call to let her know that her grandson is here. I don't know. I don't think she really will care. She's just that kind of person. But, umm, I'm going to try to call her. So let's see if I can find her number. [sound of pages turning] I haven't talked to her in a while. So, let's see.

[phone dialing]

PHONE MESSAGE: The number you have dialed has been changed to a non-published number. Once again, the number you have dialed...

[phone hangs up]

MELISSA: Well, I guess she won't find out that she has a grandson. I'm the same age as my mother was when she had me. I think it was a mistake that I had the baby so young. I should have waited. I mean, I feel like I'm more like the -- like the keeper, just the keeper, I take care of him and that's my job. That's just it.
I'm not saying I'm sad that I have my son. I hate getting up in the middle of my sleep and walking through the kitchen with my eye closed to try to find a bottle and heat it up. And he's crying and I feel like I'm doing something wrong. I hate it at that time.

[humming softly in background]

MELISSA: But when I'm up and he's up, he smiles at me, I like looking at him and say, "That's me, he looks just like me." It's fun to see somebody who has your blood and looks just like you and is yours. Actually yours. I don't know, it's -- when I hold him, I just feel, you know, important to him.

[humming baby to sleep]

NOAH ADAMS, HOST: Our story was written and recorded by 18-year-old Melissa Rodriguez and produced by Joe Richman for the series Teenage Diaries.



© 1996, Joe Richman