I had been with my boyfriend less than a year and we realized in January of 2005 that I was pregnant. I was 2 months short of 17 and he was 20. We got married in May of that year. When our daughter arrived in October, everything fell into place. Our first year of marraige was rough, but now we are well over 3 years married and things have never been better. Our daughter is amazing and fun and loving and she has 2 devoted parents. It's tough being a young parent with all the negativity associated to youth parenting, but we are definitely the exception, not the rule. Not every teenager my age would have been ready to marry or parent a child. Bristol Palin will know what kind of person she is once she has gone through that experience. Either she's strong enough to face life, grow up, and make it work, or she won't. You can no longer just jump at an invitation to go have fun with friends, you have to get a sitter or trade nights where you go out with friends and your husband stays home and vice versa. That was the hardest part for both of us. Growing up and not being able to just leave the house at every whim even then, when we were out of both our parents' houses. I'm in my third year of college and my husband is a local truck driver. The key to happiness and prosperity, even as it should be in older couples, is balance. We are still young and like to have fun, but we can have fun with our little girl just as much as we can have fun with our friends. We have to be responsible and work and study, but with her, we get to be young and silly too. I'm not saying that our life is without struggles, but our only regret is we wish we could have waited, just so we could offer her more. Money is always a struggle, but we have made it work, like any other adult would have. I'm now almost 21, we are getting a house very soon, we both have steady jobs and our daughter is in preschool and loving it! Our experience has been amazing and we've learned from all our mistakes and are still learning how to be great parents every day. We hope that young teenagers know what they will be giving up if they become parents and we hope to inspire those who are already in that situation. We always do what's best for our child, just as any other parent should. Our saying for this whole experience is if you're not mature enough to raise a child, you're not mature enough to have sex. Don't have sex unless you're ready to deal with the consequences.