Senior Matthew M. sat in a chair next to the hospital bed of his girlfriend of two years, junior Chloe F. Both their moms were in the small white room too, eagerly anticipating the news that they’d waited 16 weeks for.

Finally, the ultrasound results were announced.

It was a boy.

Tears streamed down everyone’s faces. Matt rested his hand gently on Chloe’s belly.

A boy, he thought. I’m having a boy.

•••

Matt, who I’ve known since second grade, never expected to be a teenage father. He and Chloe met through ROTC and both planned to join the military after high school. Matt wanted to be in the Air Force or the Army. Chloe wanted to be a pilot.

But all that changed when Chloe realized she was pregnant.

“I cried,” she says, remembering that time. “I just cried.”

Matt knew he wouldn’t be one of those guys who just leaves once he gets a girl pregnant. He had to stay and raise his son. He wanted to stay.

“Guys who don’t stay with women when they get pregnant are pathetic,” Matt says. “It’s a terrible thing. No girl should have to raise a child without the dad’s help.”

So Matt and Chloe decided to finish high school at the Lewisville Learning Center. Matt graduated in early February, and Chloe is finishing up both her junior and senior classes. She’ll graduate at the end of this school year. Then they’ll find jobs to save money for the baby, whom they’ve named Keane.

“Joining the military is something I could still do because it would support Chloe and the baby,” Matt says. “It’s a job. Plus we’d get housing and the benefits that go along with it.”

But Chloe has had to give up her dream of being a pilot. Instead, she wants to become a neonatal nurse and work with infants.

“That was always the second job [I had in mind], even before I found out I was pregnant,” Chloe says.

Their academic and military pursuits aren’t the only thing they’ve had to give up. The two have already had to alter their everyday lives for their son. Matt’s closet is stuffed with baby supplies – bibs, blankets, clothes, and diapers. He also turned in his Mustang for a more family-friendly Jeep Wrangler that can fit a car seat. Plus he works almost every day at Lowe’s to save money for their son.

Chloe had to give up a lot too. A big portion of her room has been taken over by baby supplies and a crib. But her mother has helped her get used to the changes.

“She was there for me,” Chloe says. “She didn’t scream when she realized [I was pregnant]. She understood and was willing to help.”

When the time is right, the couple hope to get married. But they don’t pretend that getting there will be easy.

“It’ll start off rough because we don’t live together yet and neither of us has a full-time job to make all the money we need,” Matt says. “But as we get older and the years go by, we’ll both be working full-time and get money and have our own place, and it’ll get easier.”

While parts of this process have been extremely overwhelming for the couple, there have also been exciting parts. Every time they left the hospital after a prenatal appointment, Matt and Chloe knew a bit more about their unborn son.

“When I first heard his heartbeat, I was beyond happy and couldn’t stop smiling,” Matt says. “I was so overjoyed to know he had a healthy heartbeat. Same with the ultrasound. I couldn’t stop smiling and couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. I just wanted to look at him all day.”

During the last month of the pregnancy, Chloe was having more aches and pains. They knew that it was almost time for their son to be born.

“You go the whole first eight months and you’re like, ‘Okay, we’re having a baby,’” Matt says. “But then the last month gets here and you’re like, ‘This is real!’”

This realization came to them on Chloe’s birthday, January 16. As Matt was leaving school, he got a call. Chloe didn’t feel well. The pain got worse, and Matt rushed her to the hospital.

“I just tried to be as calm as I could be to keep her calm,” Matt says.

Although it ended up being a false alarm, the two knew that the time was coming. Finally, on February 12, they got to meet Keane.

“It was going really well until the umbilical cord got wrapped around his neck,” Matt says. “So that led to a cesarean section. [But Chloe] handled everything great and was very strong through it all.”

For the past few weeks, they’ve spent a lot of time getting used to being a family. Keane is healthy, and Matt and Chloe are learning how to care for their son.

They know that now they’ll be spending most of their time with Keane. They know that they’ll have to give up even more of their lives. But they said they wouldn’t take back what happened. To them, courage is key for anyone in their situation.

“They have to stay strong,” Matt says. “They can’t separate from
each other. They have to do it for the baby.” F