baby's no baby anymore

Keeping in touch with my 16 year old daughter Christie back east has not been easy since I moved out here. She's been living with her dad at a beach house on Lake Erie where the cell reception is horrible and internet signal intermittent. In another couple weeks she'll move out here with me, but until then I have to take a huge leap of faith that all is well.

Our best form of communication, unfortunately, has been Facebook. I rarely hear from her since I left, so when I received a message from her the other day asking me when I thought her last period was, I got concerned. I racked my brain to remember the approx date and made my best guess. I sent her my response to which she replied "I'm scared."

A little back and forth ensued till I got her to admit exactly what she was scared of. Maybe I'm pregnant or something. Which means that she and her boyfriend have had sex of some sort. Deep breath....

I didn't freak, but clearly I had concerns. Why did she break golden rule #2 (don't get near a penis without a condom)? How long had she been wondering, and is it too late to fix? What happened, when and where? How will I deal with this 'situation' from 2500 miles away??

I had always wished she would feel comfortable enough to talk me when she was thinking about having sex. Just a few weeks ago I'd broached the subject while we were driving in the car and she'd had such a shocked reaction that I erased that idea for another little while. But apparently it was just a cover. Oh well, the important thing is that she came to me with the problem.

As she was pretty panicked over the possibility of being pregnant at 16, we discussed her getting a preg test from the store as soon as possible. She said she'd take care of it. The day became night and I still hadn't heard back from her. The next morning I messaged her again I need to hear from you.

It seemed that her 19 year old sister Maria had told her it was probably nothing to worry about since 'he wasn't in her very long'. I gasped to myself. Unfortunately I had to raise the concern level with Christie again. Not that I wanted to panic her, I mostly wanted her to ACT. She/we needed to alleviate all fear as soon as possible.

So Maria was nice enough to go buy a test kit for her sister. After a few torturous hours (for me) it turned out negative, thank God. In the end, Maria told Christie she was an idiot for being so careless and gave her a couple condoms. I thanked her. Let's hope a huge lesson was learned here.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not angry or disappointed that my 16 year old daughter has lost her virginity. In fact, if I'd been around I would have had a little private celebration with her. Sex is a beautiful thing, and one of life's greatest joys, especially if it's with someone you love. Cripe, I lost my viriginity at 14, so I'm damn happy she waited this long.

I am happy that she felt close enough to her boyfriend to want to experience sex with him, I just wish they hadn't been irresponsible about it. We'll be talking more about this when she arrives in a couple weeks. But for now I am breathing a big sigh of relief.