I’m 25 now, and I never planned on becoming a dad at 18 — especially not to twin newborns.
Back then, I was just a high school senior, living in a rundown two-bedroom apartment with my mom, Lorraine. She’d always been unpredictable — one of those people who felt like a gust of wind, constantly changing direction.
…I never planned on becoming a dad at 18…
On some days, my mom was sweet and nurturing. On others, she acted as if the world owed her a favor, and I was the one who’d collected the debt.
One day, she came home pregnant, and I thought maybe — just maybe — it would ground her. Give her something to hold on to.
But she was furious! At everything. The world, the man who left her, and mostly the fact that pregnancy didn’t give her the attention she thought it would.
She was furious!
She never told me who the father was.
I stopped asking after the second time she screamed at me to “mind my own business.”
I still remember the way she slammed the fridge door that night, muttering something about how men always vanished and left the women to deal with the mess.
When she gave birth to twin girls — Ava and Ellen — I was there.
She never told me who the father was.
For two weeks, she pretended to be a mom. That’s the best way I can put it.
She’d change a diaper and then vanish for hours, then warm a bottle and collapse on the couch and sleep through the crying.
I tried to step in where I could, but I didn’t know anything.
I was a kid myself, sneaking homework in between night feedings and wondering if any of this was normal.
She’d change a diaper…
And then she just disappeared.
She left no note. There was no phone call — nothing. I woke up at 3 a.m. to a screaming baby and an empty apartment.
My mother’s coat was gone, but everything else — her mess, scent, and chaos — remained.
I stood there in the kitchen holding Ellen while Ava screamed from her bassinet, and I felt a cold, sharp panic settle into my bones.
“If I fail them, they die,” I realized.
She left no note.
It sounds dramatic now, but it was the truest thought I ever had.
I didn’t get to decide whether to step up. It was never really a choice. I dropped the idea of joining the pre-med program. I’d wanted to become a surgeon since I was 11.
The dream began when I watched a documentary with my grandpa about heart transplants.
Now I was a father of two, with discarded college brochures on my desk.
It was never really a choice.
I stayed.
I worked whatever shifts I could get. Warehouse by night, food delivery by day. I stacked boxes, drove in snowstorms, and picked up every extra shift I could because diapers and formula weren’t cheap.
But rent also needed to be paid.
I learned how to ration groceries so that a $30 cart could last through the week. I became good at applying for programs and finding secondhand clothes that looked new.
I gave up my teenage years to become someone’s anchor.
I stayed.
I learned how to warm bottles at 3 a.m. with shaking hands. How to bounce one baby on my hip while the other screamed herself hoarse.
People kept telling me to let the system handle it. But I couldn’t stand the thought of my half-sisters growing up in some stranger’s house, wondering why no one fought for them.
The girls started calling me “Bubba” before they ever said “brother.” It stuck. Even their preschool teachers used it.
I learned how to warm bottles at 3 a.m….
I’d carry them around the grocery store, one in each arm, and people would whisper behind me like I was some cautionary tale.
But none of that mattered when they curled up on my chest during movie nights or drew stick-figure pictures of “me, my sister, Bubba, and our house” as if we were the luckiest family in the world.
They’d fall asleep on my chest, and I’d vow to myself: they will never feel abandoned.
I’d carry them around the grocery store…
For a while, I even believed that we were going to be okay, that we’d made it through the worst part.
And then — seven years later — Lorraine came back!
I remember it so clearly. It was a Thursday. We’d just gotten back from school when there was a knock on the door. I wiped my hands on my jeans and opened it without thinking.
At first, I didn’t recognize her.
And then my stomach dropped.
Lorraine came back!
Lorraine used to look like she’d barely survived a storm — unwashed hair, cracked lips, thrift-store jackets. But the stranger wearing my mother’s face at my door? She looked polished.
Her coat was designer, makeup flawless, jewelry on point, and her shoes probably cost more than a month’s rent!
My mom tilted her chin as if smelling something bad and barely made eye contact.
“Nathan,” she said, like she wasn’t even sure it was my name.
She looked polished.
But then she heard the girls’ voices down the hall, and her whole demeanor shifted.
She softened. Her lips curled into a fake smile. Her voice became sweet with fake warmth, and she pulled out shopping bags from a luxury store I’d only ever seen in YouTube vlogs.
The twins stopped in their tracks, staring at her with wide eyes like they’d seen a ghost.
She softened.
Lorraine crouched down and called their names, sugary sweet.
“Girls, it’s me… your mom…! Look what I brought, babies!”
Inside the bags were things I could never afford: a tablet, a necklace Ava couldn’t stop staring at, and an expensive stuffed toy Ellen had pointed at on the TV back in October.
Things that had felt like pipe dreams to them — and outright impossibilities to me.
“Girls, it’s me… your mom!”
The girls’ eyes widened.
I watched them blink and look at each other, confused and hopeful in the same breath. Because kids — no matter how much they’ve been hurt — still want their parents to be good.
Still want to believe in the version of the story where they come back, and everything makes sense.
I didn’t say much that night. I just watched. Smiled weakly.
The girls’ eyes widened.
Lorraine returned a few days later. Then again, after that. She was always giving gifts and showing exaggerated warmth.
She’d take the girls for ice cream, ask about school as if she hadn’t missed several years of it, and laugh too hard at their jokes like she was auditioning for a role she barely remembered.
For a second, I was numb, hoping maybe she wanted to mend things with the twins.
But every time she left, I’d feel this sour twist in my gut, like the walls of the apartment were closing in on me.
Lorraine returned a few days later.
But it quickly became clear what her real motives were — and why she had reappeared.
The other shoe dropped when the letter came.
It was in a thick white envelope with gold trim, which should’ve been my first warning. Inside was a letter from an attorney.
It had legal language and custody terms. Cold phrases like “petition for legal guardianship” and “best interests of the minors.”
I couldn’t feel my hands when I finished reading it.
It had legal language and custody terms.
She wasn’t here to reconnect. Lorraine wasn’t back because she missed her daughters. She wanted full custody!
I confronted her the next time she came by, when she arrived early, before the girls were home from school. She walked in without asking and sat on the couch like she still lived there.
I held the letter out to her, my hands trembling.
“What’s this?”
She wanted full custody!
She didn’t even flinch. She looked at me like I’d just asked her to pass the salt.
“It’s time I did what’s best for them,” she said. “You’ve done enough.”
“What’s best for them?” I could barely get the words out. “You left them. I raised them. I gave up everything for them!”
She rolled her eyes.
“Don’t be dramatic. They’re fine. You managed. But I have opportunities now. Connections. They deserve more than this life.”
“You’ve done enough.”
Then she said it — the thing that broke something in me.
“I need them.”
That’s what she said. Not “I love them” or “I miss them.” Just that. As if they were possessions she’d left behind and now wanted to reclaim. Her tone was cold, businesslike.
I stared at her, the room spinning. “You need them? For what, exactly?”
She didn’t answer immediately. Just adjusted her coat as if the conversation bored her.
“I need them.”
“You wouldn’t understand. I’m building a new life, Nathan. People want to see the comeback. The mother who beat the odds and reunited with her daughters. It’s inspiring. Sympathetic.”
I blinked. “So this isn’t about them. It’s about your image.”
“Call it what you want,” she said, standing up. “You can’t give them what I can.”
The front door closed just then.
We both turned to see the girls dropping their backpacks on the floor.
Lorraine froze. I did too.
“It’s about your image.”
Ava’s eyes darted between us, and Ellen instinctively stepped behind her, as if she could hide from whatever tension she’d just walked into.
“Hi, babies!” Lorraine said, her voice flipping into that sickly sweet tone again.
But it was too late.
They’d heard enough.
Ava’s face crumpled first. She started crying — not loud at first, just this low, shaking sound like something had cracked inside her. Ellen didn’t cry, not immediately. She just stared at Lorraine, her little hands balled into fists.
“Hi, babies!”
“You don’t want us,” Ellen said, her voice quiet but shaking. “You left us.”
Lorraine blinked. “Honey, that was a long time ago. I had to. But now I—”
“No,” Ava interrupted through tears. “You left. Bubba stayed. Bubba takes care of us. You just bring stuff. That’s not the same!”
They were both crying now, talking over each other — saying things I hadn’t known they’d even been holding in.
“You didn’t come to my school play.”
“You missed it when I got glasses!”
“You don’t know us!”
“Please don’t make us go with her!”
“You left us.”
And then the part that shattered me.
They ran to me and wrapped their arms around my waist as if, if they held on tight enough, they’d never have to let go. Ava buried her face in my shirt and sobbed, “You’re our real parent.”
Lorraine’s face shifted.
The warmth drained out of it. What was left looked… annoyed. Embarrassed. Like we’d ruined her scene.
Lorraine’s face shifted.
She straightened her coat and glanced around the apartment as if it offended her now. Then she looked me dead in the eye and said, “You’ll regret this.”
And just like that, she walked out.
The door slammed so hard that one of the picture frames fell off the wall!
That night, after the girls finally fell asleep — still clinging to me like their lives depended on it — I sat at the kitchen table and made a decision.
“You’ll regret this.”
I wasn’t going to react or fight.
She had a lawyer. Fine. I’d get one too.
Now I had her full name, address, and information. She wanted custody? Then she was going to get the responsibility, too — legal, financial, and public.
I filed a case. Not to spite her, but because I knew the truth.
She had a lawyer.
I had raised these girls since the day they were born. I didn’t just want to keep custody — I wanted her to be held accountable. So, I filed for full legal guardianship and retroactive child support.
The courtroom part was hell. Her attorneys arrived in slick suits and with smug faces.
They tried to spin the story, saying I was emotionally manipulating the girls. That I was too young, that I’d deprived them of a relationship with their mother. That I was unstable, controlling — even jealous.
The courtroom part was hell.
It took everything in me not to yell. But I stayed calm.
I brought evidence. School forms, medical records, and emergency room receipts from the time Ellen had a febrile seizure at 2 a.m. I presented statements from neighbors, teachers, even the elderly daycare manager, Miss Carol, who told the judge I was “the most devoted single parent she’d ever met.”
When the judge asked the girls what they wanted — carefully, in private — they told him. There was no hesitation. No confusion.
They chose me.
I brought evidence.
Ultimately, the judge ruled against Lorraine.
The twins were mine — legally, emotionally, completely.
And here’s the part that still stuns me.
Lorraine had to pay!
The judge ordered monthly child support. Real support. No more surprise visits or conditional affection. No more appearances for her benefit.
Just a monthly check from her new, shiny life to help provide for the kids she abandoned.
Lorraine had to pay!
After that, something inside me finally loosened.
I wasn’t white-knuckling everything anymore. I dropped one of my jobs. I slept. I ate real meals again. I laughed more.
And then, something strange started to happen.
The dream I’d buried started whispering again.
Late at night, after the girls were asleep and the apartment was quiet, I found myself scrolling college websites on my phone.
I laughed more.
I looked at nursing programs and part-time pre-med tracks — not because I thought it was possible, but because I still wanted it.
One night, Ellen caught me.
She climbed into my lap, still in her pajamas, and looked at my screen.
“Is that doctor school?”
I laughed. “Kinda. It’s just a ‘maybe.'”
She looked at me, serious. “You’re gonna do it. You always do what you say.”
Ava came into the room behind her. “We’ll help. You helped us. Now we help you.”
“Is that doctor school?”
I didn’t even try to hide the tears. I turned my face into Ellen’s shoulder and just let them fall.
So that’s where we are now.
I’m 25. I’m a dad to two incredible girls who’ve taught me more about love and resilience than any book ever could.
I’m working part-time and taking night classes. I’m clawing my way back toward that old dream with tired hands — but a full heart.
So that’s where we are now.
Lorraine hasn’t shown up since the court order.
Occasionally, a check comes in the mail with no note, just a signature. I don’t say anything to the girls about it. I cash it, pay the bills, and move on. Her name isn’t mentioned anymore. When it is, it’s in passing.
And I don’t feel angry. Not anymore.
She wanted to use them as props in her perfect little redemption arc.
But instead, she gave me the one thing I didn’t have before — proof that I was enough. That I had built something real. That even when it felt impossible, I never let go.
And I don’t feel angry.