Sandra Lucero was just 13-some would say a baby herself-when she first fantasized about having a child. She got kind of obsessed with the idea, and even started faking it. "I'd tell people, 'I'm pregnant,' and they'd get all excited and say, 'Gosh, how many months are you?'" the 19-year-old from Anaheim Hills, Calif., recalls. She'd bask in the attention-until it was evident her tummy wasn't getting any bigger. Then she'd tell everyone the pregnancy test was wrong.
Three years later, however, Sandra did become pregnant-for real- through unprotected sex with her boyfriend, who was four years older. While getting pregnant wasn't something she'd actually sat down and discussed with him, in the back of her mind Sandra hoped it would happen. "I was feeling so insecure about everything, I thought being pregnant and having a cute little baby to hold would make me feel better," she says.
After dropping out of school, Sandra thought she'd spend her time blissing out, awaiting the child she hoped would give her life meaning. But in reality she moved into a cramped apartment with her boyfriend-and hism om-where she mostly did a whole lot of nothing. Soon, Sandra started to feel fat, ugly and, depsite the close quarters, terribly alone and unloved. "It wasn't the way it was supposed to be," she says.



PLANNED PARENTHOOD
A lot of teens get pregnant by mistake, and they make up the majority of teen moms. Out of the almost 1 million teeage girls who become pregnant each year, 85 percent don't plan their pregnancy, according to The Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit reproductive health corporation in New York that traces teen pregnancy trends. As for the other 15 percent, those pregnancies are intentional.
Most girlds who get pregnant on purpose don't do their research. For one thing, teen moms often receive poor prenantal care and they face higher complications. Babies born to young mothers are prone to low birth weight and other health problems. Plus, about a thrid of teen moms live in povert-and even if they finish high schol, they're less likely to go to college or get a good job.
Yet even if they have a clue that motherhood can be tough, some girls go for it anyway; perhaps their romantic ideas outweigh the real-life rigors. "there are girls motivated by the idea that having a baby will give them the love or sense of hopethey feel is missing," says donna Butts, executive director of the National Organization on Adolescent Pregnancy, Parenting and Prevention (NOAPPP) in Washington, D.C. "And some view having a baby as an insurance policy on keeping their boyfriends."
Although that tactic rarely works-ironically, Butts says, most of the fathers check out shorly after the baby arrives-Sandra bought into the idea.



SWEET 16 AND MARRIED
Teen pregnancy cuts across all cultures and economic lines. Seventy-six percent of teen pregnancies occur outside wedlock, but the other 24 percent of teen moms are married. Often these girls see marriage and babies as their only option in life. Many teens become pregnant to feel validated, says Regina Law, young parents program coordinator for Friends of the Family, a non-profit couseling agency in Van Nuys, Calif., "I see girls 14 or 16 who are either married or living with their boyfriends-they see getting pregnant as the next logical step."
May-who asked that her last name not be used-is one example. She was 16, the daughter of strict Chinese parents, when she feel for a 26-year-old Vietnamese guy. Her parents disapproved not of his age but of his nationality; they wanted May to marry Chinese. So, partly to get her parents to accept him, May and her boyfriend of only five months decided to have a baby.
Their plan worked. Once she was pregnant, May's parents agreed to let her marry her boyfriend (in most states, minors need parental permission to marry). May quit school and moved in with her new husband.



PREGNANCY PERKS
Could it be that girls who want babies feel freer to do so today than in the past? In general, it seems that being an "unwed mother" is less of a taboo in society's eyes than it used to be.
At some schools, it's considered cool to be 16 with a bulging belly. Take the small, middle-class town of Tipton, Ind. "Teen pregnancy is not looked poorly upong by peers here," says William Stone, M.D., an obstetrician who cofounded Teen Pregnancy Coalition to help stem the rising teen pregnancy rate in his town. "In fact, it's greeted with a great deal of excitement."
Schools have become much more teen-mother friendly, too. Some offer on-campus day care centers, lifesavers for teen moms who might otherwise have to drop out of school to care for their children. Some people argue, however, that theses high-school day care centers are sending the wrong message to teens-that they encourage young girls to get pregnant. "There is this mixed message that the community is sending," Stone says. Schools aren't the only institutions providing aid for young moms: If a girls is on welfare, the governemnt also lends a hand. "There are many programs that take good care of teen mother-but the down side is, it makes getting pregnant almost look attractive," says Priscilla Hurley, executive director of Teen Awareness inc./Choices, a Fullerton, Calif.-based sexuality instruction program that exmphasizes personal responsibility and abstinence. One area is Cal-Learn. As long as the girl is getting high school credit, the program pays for day care, mileage for school and job-training travel, books and uniforms. Pama Tavernier, an Orange County social worker with the program, has seen Cal-Learn turn girls' lives around, but even she wonders if the perks may give girls "an incentive to get pregnant."
Suprisingly, the incentive also comes from parents. "Usually the girl's mother is young herself, so she's happy to accept a baby in her life, allowing her daughter to continue her soical and school activities," Stone says.



BABY REALITY BITES
While girls may plan pregnancies with high hopes, reality seldom matches the fantasy. In fact, Sandra felt so isolated that she followed her boyfriend everywhere-even into the bathroom. In her ninth month, "he asked me to leave," Sandra says. She went home to her parents and had her son. At first, Sandra spent her days flipping burgers at a local resturant, and her nights changing diapers and washing bottles. Now she lives in an apartment with a roommate and barely gets by on the meager payments from Aid to Familes with Dependent Children (AFDC). Although she's gone back to school, Sandra wonders if she and her 2-year-old son will survive until she's able to bring home a bigger paycheck.
It's been just slightly easier for May, who now has two sons. She and her husband are still together and they're both attending school and looking forward to the day when they won't have to rely on federal assistance. "It's been a rough time," she says. "If I had to do it over again, I'd take it a lot more slowly."