Profile of a Teenage Mother

By Karissa Martin

A sliver of dancing light peeked out of the curtains of a welcoming, little yellow house on Oak Street in Arthur, Ill., on the chilly evening of Nov. 23. The humming sound of voices spilled even onto the concrete front steps in the dark.

Inside, children’s shoes were strewn along the wall opposite a couch, television, and Marchita Garza, 17, feeding six-week-old daughter, Laila Marie Sanchez. Seven-year-old Alex Garza played on the computer nearby, and Maria Garza, 9, played in the kitchen, straight ahead.

Laila cooed and kicked her little legs in her pink-and-white onesie as Garza attempted to continue feeding her. A smile crept onto Garza’s lips as she looked down at her squirmy daughter, and a sheet of dark brown hair fell into her eyes.  

“I think she does a really good job, and I think she’s a very good mother,” said Elizabeth Garza, mother of Garza, Alex, Maria and Hannah Leal. “At the beginning I helped her out, but I kind of pulled back now,” Garza’s mother said. “I make her do more of it so she realizes what work she has to do and what’s required with taking care of a little one.”

Even with her mother’s help, there is still a lot of work that Garza, a teen mother and high school student, has to put into caring for Laila. Despite the hardships of having to balance school and parenting, she is determined to succeed at being a mother and in life.

“I usually get up around six every morning and I feed her, and then we fall asleep again,” Garza said. She said that the baby sleeps and eats throughout the day, and, “I try to do homework in between.”

“I’ve been getting a lot of it done,” said Garza of her homework. Though she was allowed to stay at home from school six weeks after the day of birth, Oct. 13, Garza was expected to make up all of the work she missed while caring for Laila.

In addition to the new duties added to Garza’s daily regimen, she has had to make sacrifices.

“I haven’t really been hanging out with any friends at all,” Garza said. “And if I want to go to a basketball game or a volleyball game or anything like that, I don’t do that.”

“It’s definitely a big change from what I was doing, hanging out with friends a lot,” she said. “It’s not too bad, but I do miss it.”

Garza isn’t the only one who has had to make a few changes since the arrival of the little one. The whole household dynamic has changed, according to Elizabeth Garza. “It’s changed quite a bit,” she said. “I think it’s calmed down.”

Hannah Leal, 12, agreed with her mother.

“It makes me change because I used to be a roughhouse person,” Hannah said of Laila’s arrival. She said she is “more careful because I know there’s a baby around.”

One person who has not yet been affected by new baby duties is Tyler Sanchez, Laila’s father, who is in the navy and is currently stationed in San Diego. He hasn’t had the chance to meet his daughter yet.

“It has been very hard being away from both Laila and Marchita,” Sanchez said. “With Laila, it’s hard because I haven’t been able to see her or hold her.”

Sanchez said that he is looking forward to seeing his fiancé and daughter when he returns home in mid-March. In the meantime, he thinks that Garza is doing well under the new pressures of raising a child.

“She seems very happy to be a new mother and doesn’t seem to be stressing out as much as I thought she would be,” Sanchez said in an e-mail. “It is such a blessing to have a woman like Marchita in my life; I am very lucky to have her.”

When Sanchez returns home next spring, the couple plans to get married and share the baby duties. He said “things will get a lot better when I am able to come home and help take care of Laila.” 

“I really just hope that all stays well until I am able to come home and share happy times with my family,” Sanchez added.

Until Garza and Sanchez are reunited, Garza still has a lot of hard work ahead of her. She returned to school on Nov. 29, and she was nervous about the coming weeks and leaving Laila at home.

“It’s going to be hard, especially leaving her with the babysitter and coming back and trying to do homework in between feeding her and staying up late nights,” she said. “But I’ll make it,” she said, pausing, then adding, “hopefully,” she laughed.

Dearly, Garza held Laila in the crook of her arm as she settled into the brown recliner. Laila’s eyes began to close as she sucked on her tiny, pink-and-white pacifier and nestled into her mother’s body. Her tiny fists curled up as Garza watched her daughter quiet and relax.

The other members of the household continued on with their activities, while Garza and Laila settled into their quiet moment together as mother and daughter.