Corrie Rowland has become one of Britain's youngest grandmothers at 33
At 15 she had shocked her respectable parents by falling pregnant in 1997
She gave birth to her daughter Bethany, who at 17 has just had a baby son
Corrie feared she'd been to blame but has since spoken of her excitement
The spare crib sits at the end of my bed, with the pale-blue romper suits neatly folded nearby. My parenting advice has (I hope) been gratefully received; my suggestion for a baby name politely rebuffed. I am exhausted and besotted in equal measure because last week I became a grandmother and I couldn't be happier.
My feelings of pride will be much the same as those of any other woman whose child has just given birth for the first time, my decision to hold my daughter Bethany's hand as she welcomed her baby boy Elijah into the world nothing out of the ordinary.
While my situation may sound familiar, the circumstances surrounding it are anything but, because I am only 33 an age at which most women are still in the early stages of motherhood themselves.
While they grapple with nappy changing and toddler tantrums I am getting my head around my altogether grander sounding title of ‘grandmother' not least because at 17 my daughter Bethany is still a child herself.
By now you will have done the maths and realised that I, too, was a teenage mum. I defied my respectable upbringing to fall pregnant at 15, while I was still an ambitious schoolgirl who harboured visions of a career and a conventional family later down the line.
Of course, my dreams were shattered; my own parents bitterly disappointed. And at first young motherhood seemed unutterably bleak, as I suspect it will at times to Bethany, who is nonetheless coping gallantly at the moment on two hours' sleep at a time. Nobody knows better than me the sacrifices she will have to make but nobody understands better the joy she will experience, too.
For all its hardships teenage motherhood has brought with it undoubted benefits, and as surprising and controversial as this will sound to many, I don't believe it need necessarily be a bad thing.
Having a baby so young has made me more focused and tenacious, and, now that the most demanding years of bringing up a baby are behind me, I have the freedom to enjoy the rest of my life, and, of course, my grandchild. In fact, I would go so far as to say being a teenage mum has been my greatest achievement as I hope it will be my daughter's, too.
Not that I felt quite so optimistic about my situation at the time. I was halfway through my first year of GCSEs when I lost my virginity to a boy in the same class as me at school.
We'd been together for over a year and I remember telling my mother, Linda, now 60, a retired railway crossing keeper, that I was ready to take our relationship further.
With hindsight, I was hoping for advice, but she simply said: ‘OK', and carried on with her housework. Perhaps she was too embarrassed to talk to me about contraception, but the upshot was that I was woefully naive and didn't even know I could get pregnant as I sneaked my boyfriend into my bedroom after school behind my parents' back so we could have sex.
Fenwick, the small Yorkshire village where I grew up, wasn't exactly filled with teenage mothers. We'd had scant sex education at school and, in my mind, pregnancy was something that happened to grown women, not girls.
But almost a year later, in September 1997, I realised my period was late. Confused, I confided in an older girl in our village, who told me I might be pregnant. She recommended I visit a family planning clinic where I could take a free pregnancy test. I felt numb with panic as the kindly nurse there told me I was eight weeks pregnant. I blurted out the news to my elder brother, Nigel, who told my father Keith, a railway engineer.
He and my mum were horrified. Dad marched me into the living room and said he would pay for me to have a termination. Mum sat silently, unable to meet my eyes. I was expected to excel at my GCSEs the following summer, before going to college and becoming a nurse.
But abortion was never an option to me despite my boyfriend, who was terrified at the prospect of becoming a teenage dad, also pressuring me into having one. I'd already begun to sense the new life growing inside me and I couldn't stand to end it.
Besides, I had absolutely no idea how tough raising a baby would be. Even as my pregnancy progressed, my growing bump straining the seams of my school uniform, I barely dwelled on the hardships ahead.
It was only after Bethany was born in March 1998 at Doncaster Royal Infirmary, with my mother who had reluctantly accepted my decision by my side that the reality of my situation sunk in. My traumatic three-day labour was nothing compared with the challenge of trying to juggle exam revision with a newborn.
My mum baby-sat Bethany as I sat my exams that May, but tiredness and lack of preparation meant my grades suffered. Meanwhile, I split up with Bethany's father when she was two months, the strain too great for our relationship to stand.
Stubbornly determined to forge my own future, I moved out of my parents' home and into an empty house my aunt owned nearby. I survived on benefits as life unraveled.
While friends spent their Saturday nights partying, I was trying to soothe a screaming baby. They were supportive but understandably found shopping for clothes more fun than spending time with a teary-eyed new mum stuck at home.
In public, I was terrified of being judged on account of my age, convinced I could hear the disapproving tuts of passers-by as they saw me pushing Bethany round the shops.
As months passed I plummeted into despair, feeling out of my depth and frequently bursting into tears. Looking back, I had post-natal depression, although it never occurred to me to see my GP. I saw my parents every week, but our relationship still felt strained. They didn't criticize, but I could sense their disapproval.
My lifeline was provided by a school friend called Lee, now 34, whom I have since married. We became a couple when Bethany was a baby and went on to have two other children together, Indiana, ten, and Bernadette, six. Most men would have balked at committing to a teenage mum, but Lee, an engineer, simply viewed Bethany as his own.
Underneath the drudgery of new motherhood, my ambition remained and, at 17, I went back to college to study for a sociology and psychology GCSE to improve my career prospects, putting Bethany into the college creche while I studied.
At 18, I applied for a job as a youth worker with the local council. Asked at the interview what my greatest achievement was, I said ‘having my little girl' and burst into tears. I suddenly realised bringing her up was something to be proud of and that the sacrifices I'd made were worth it.
Earning my own money while my mother looked after Bethany gave me a further sense of achievement and, as I entered my 20s, the stigma of being a young mother faded.
I stopped hankering after a wild social life and learned to love reading and going for walks in the countryside with my daughter instead.
I marvelled at every milestone in her life, from her first steps to her nervous excitement at her first day of school. As she grew up, Bethany became a confident, engaging girl.
I was determined she wouldn't be held back by the same mistakes I'd made, so when she was 14 and found her first boyfriend, I sat her down to talk about sex.
She blushed and fidgeted uncomfortably, but I persisted. ‘Please don't get pregnant when you're as young as I was,' I said. I marched her to the family planning clinic, where I put her on the Pill. I picked up condoms, which I explained would protect her from STIs and forbade her from having sex in the house.
I had done everything possible to ensure she didn't make my mistake or so I thought. Like me, she assumed her body was impervious to nature and last November, during a row with Lee over the housework, she blurted out that she was pregnant.
I laughed and cried, hysterical with disbelief that history was repeating itself. ‘Is it true?' I asked when I came home from work that evening. She nodded silently, her nerves palpable.
I sat in stunned silence as Bethany who had split up with that first boyfriend a couple of months earlier explained that she had started sleeping with a college friend.
She had regularly ‘forgotten' to take her contraceptive pill and had taken a pregnancy test which had proved positive. I bought her another one, just to be sure.
Underneath my shock and anger was a flicker of guilt. Was Bethany subconsciously trying to mimic my own life by falling pregnant? I liked to think not, but she insisted that, like me, she wasn't prepared to have an abortion.
Of course, I was in no position to judge. I told her it was entirely her decision and that I would support her no matter what.
I can't pretend it was easy. I had hoped that Bethany who was studying art at college but dropped out shortly after discovering she was pregnant would go on to have a successful career.
I hoped she would travel and discover a world outside Askern, the small Yorkshire town where we live. I felt a period of grief for the life that she had lost.
Meanwhile, I circumvented my friends' shock at my impending grandmother status by being defensive. ‘It's her decision . . . there's not a lot we can do about it now,' I'd retort before they had a chance to pass judgment.
My OWN mother seemed more resigned than annoyed. She has come to view Bethany as much as a daughter as her granddaughter and, perhaps keen to avoid any further family rifts, was quick to pledge her support.
In the past five years the two of us have rebuilt our bridges. I realised that, as disappointed as they were I gave birth so young, my parents never stopped supporting me. The father of Bethany's baby has said he wants to be involved, but his words have yet to materialise into actions.
I harbour no resentment Bethany is as responsible as he is and we will be able to cope on our own.
As I accompanied Bethany to hospital scans, my shock gave way to excitement. Holding my daughter's hand this February as the ultrasound revealed she was expecting a boy, we both burst into tears of happiness.
Bethany vetoed my suggestion of Bear in favour of the name Elijah, and plans for his arrival progressed apace. Both Bethany and I were in tears when Elijah was born last Wednesday, weighing 5lb 1oz.
The look of overwhelming love on her face as she laid eyes on her baby for the first time brought back the precious feelings I'd had for her.
Yes, Bethany will have to put her own ambitions to one side and may feel as emotionally fragile at becoming a mother as I did.
But she is better able to cope physically with the demands of new motherhood as a teenager, as will I be, in my 30s, with the rigours of grandparenthood. Whereas older grandmothers may tire easily, I will have the energy to run around after my grandson, from his first days until his boisterous teenage years.
I can't pretend it won't be a financial strain accommodating another member of our family. I'm halfway through a nursing degree and our stretched household budget is the main reason Lee, who I married in July 2012, and I haven't had any more children of our own.
But we will survive. We plan to extend our three-bedroom home with a loft conversion, but for now, Elijah shares a room with Bethany.
I feel no shame at either of us giving birth in our adolescence. A baby, no matter at what age their mother, signifies hope and new beginnings. Having mine as a teenager was the making of me as I am sure it will be for my daughter.
