Brad and Morgan "Our New Chapter"

Photography by Randy Bacon

BRAD: "Honestly, when we first found out she was pregnant… You have so many emotions, so many thoughts running through your head. You don’t really know what to think. You don’t think it’s real yet. And the first few months, that’s what it was, it was like 'This isn’t reality yet; it’s not something we have to face yet.' And then time kept moving on and on, and we knew we were going to have to do something. I think one reason why I was so scared to tell anyone is because I have 3 older brothers who are married, have graduated college, one has a kid on the way… And they all did it how you’re supposed to—in the right order.And so when it was my turn, things were a little flip-flopped. I was so nervous to tell my parents, and even more nervous to tell Morgan's parents. The night we told them was absolutely something else. 

MORGAN: I think we knew that we would have support from our parents, but we felt like we were disappointing them so much. We knew our parents weren’t going to kick us to the curb because they’ve always said they’d love us no matter what. But we still felt really guilty. There were so many times we planned on telling them and then we backed out. If I have one regret, it’s that we didn’t tell anyone soon enough. Once we told and saw the way everyone reacted so well, we wondered why we even worried about it. 

BRAD: That’s the thing. We had these preconceived notions that we’re going to tell these people that we have a baby on the way, we’re not married, and they’re gonna be absolutely disappointed… But really it surprises you how people gather around you and support you. Everyone I’ve talked to is so excited for us to have a kid.

MORGAN: I think part of it, too, is that we are so involved with our church. That was one of the biggest things--I didn’t want to go to church and know people were thinking it while they’re staring at me. Especially once my belly started growing, I was worried about people’s reactions. But I remember one lady at church told us that it doesn’t matter how you start something, what matters is how you finish it. And to me, that made sense. Now it matters what kind of parents we are, and it’s not going to matter in a few years that we did things a little out of order. Marriage was always in our plan, just maybe not this soon or this way. But I think that made it a little bit easier, that we knew that maybe in a couple years we would get engaged or married. And maybe in four or five years we would be having a kid…

BRAD: But things never really go the way you plan, so you’ve just gotta take it and run with it. I’d say my biggest piece of advice for anyone going through something like this and has a big decision to make is don’t do it alone. Don’t think, “Ok this is on me. I’m in this situation, I have to make this decision myself.” The people that care about you and the people that support you, they want to be there with you to make that decision. No one needs to have that big of a burden on themselves alone. There’s people that care about you and want to be there for you, and give you that support.