Felicia Davey is a happy grandma at the age of 35, an age that many people find young to have grandkids at! But what a lot of people didn't know was that the Mississippian network marketer was a mom for the first time when she was only 11.
Samantha, her first daughter, was born 12 days before her 12th birthday and she's now 23 years old.
The whole experience was nothing short of being scary as she recalled what her childhood days were like with Fabulous, "Finding out I was pregnant was the most terrifying news, especially at that age. My parents had taken me to a clinic, where staff immediately went through my 'options.'"
"I think my parents felt shame and worried 'what will people think about us?' But to me, it was bigger than that. It was a decision of life.
"I was so young, but in some senses, I was way more mature than I should have been. I knew having a child would be hard, but I felt this need to protect her."
Felicia, aged 11 then, decided that she wanted to keep the baby despite the challenges and opposing opinions those around her had.
Sharing how she got pregnant, Felicia recalled that it was during a sleepover night when she had just entered sixth grade. She got involved in a romantic relationship with a 14-year-old boy who was her friend's brother. Now an adult, Felicia felt like there was an urge inside her to seek "attention, acceptance and what I thought was love."
While Felicia was a straight-A student at school, she didn't grow up in the best household. She shared, "I didn't grow up in the best home. My mum was in and out of my life, and my dad worked a lot, so I was primarily raised by my paternal great-grandmother, who was in her 80s."
"I was exposed to a lot of things most kids aren't at such a young age. I didn't have a good definition of love, relationships, or inappropriate behavior."
The 14-year-old boy's family moved out of the area when they found out she got pregnant, leaving the baby girl to only Felicia's family's care.
As a 'high school dropout,' Felicia and her family survived on food stamps and government assistance. The hardships she faced during those early years motivated her to grow up into an outstanding woman to break the vicious cycle that runs in the family.
"My dad’s mum was 13 when she had him and he was raised by his grandparents," she shared, noting that it was similar to how she was raised by her grandmother from her father's side as well.
As she stopped returning to school and news of her pregnancy began to spread, rumors followed.
"There were also rumors about me going around. Kids from school would call me derogatory names and say I was sleeping with multiple people, which wasn't true. We lived in a small town, and people liked to gossip. At one point, there was a rumor going around it was my dad who had got me pregnant. That was really difficult because he had never hurt me in any way."
To her, the rumor grew because people felt the need to point fingers at a perpetrator, that it was "abuse." In retrospect, Felicia shared what she learned, "Everyone thinks ‘not my child, it couldn't happen to me’ and the reality is there’s exposure to sex everywhere, whether it’s at home, at school, with friends, even with TV and social media."
"I think it’s really important for parents to be open with their kids, which is why I'm telling my story."
"I take responsibility for what happened, I knew what I was doing but I didn’t understand the consequences of having sex. And I was not emotionally mature enough to handle the fallout."
Social workers were also regularly visiting as Felicia's mother had a history of addiction and then failed the drug test, which sent Felicia and her daughter out of the house and into a foster family.
"I wouldn’t change anything about my life or any experiences I’ve had. But I did miss out a lot," she shared. Felicia managed to finish her studies when she was 17, thanks to her foster family's support. Now, she's a happy mother of five and a grandma at the age of 35.
"When strangers would see me with Samantha, they didn't understand. People just thought we were sisters, and still to this day, when we go out in public, people say ‘there is no way you are mother and daughter.’"
"Nowadays, I feel flattered, but it was super hard going through middle school with a baby. I kept my head down or tried to make people laugh - humor became how I coped. I tried to stay positive because I realized ‘if I don’t laugh right now, I am going to break down and cry.'"
She entered the University of Alabama for nursing, but never got her degree as she got pregnant with her second child to her husband of only five months.
Describing what happened, Felicia kept it short, "I think the nicest way to say is it didn’t work out. It was a very rocky relationship. One of my goals for my kids is to work really hard and not give up on their dreams, even though I gave up on mine. I’m doing pretty well, and I really love what I do now. So it all worked out for the best."
But that wasn't the end of Felicia's journey in finding a partner for life. She eventually got married to Michael, an orphaned man who went through the same independent care program as Felicia did.
They got married in 2013 and have welcomed three children together, with the last one being an unplanned birth.
Brentley her youngest, is five years old.
"When I found out I was pregnant again, I was terrified. The IUD was supposed to last for 10 years. I felt I was too young to have my tubes tied because I was 25 and might still want kids one day," she talked about Brentley's pregnancy. "When I found out, I was crying, thinking ‘how could this happen?’"
"We were struggling financially and were not prepared to add another family member. I thought 'this is going to cost a lot of money. This is going to be very hard.'"
"I didn’t want to take away from my other children - in terms of their happiness, healthiness, and lives overall - but we coped. My last child was the most unexpected but he is the most adorable soul I’ve ever met in my life."
Doctors couldn't find the IUD and believed it may have fallen out.
Samantha became a mom when she was 21 years old and welcomed another son in November this year. There's also Conlee, her stepson from her 27-year-old husband, Blake Nichols.
Like most first-time mothers, Samantha was worried about whether she could be a good parent. Felicia shared, "I said, ‘you’ve always been such a big help with your siblings, and you’re going to be an amazing mother,’ which proved to be true. Samantha is my best friend, and she's always been a really big help."
Felicia started very overprotectively of her own children because of her experiences. She admitted, "I was trying to overcompensate for what I didn’t have in a mother. I was a little overbearing but I just wanted her to be able to chase her dreams."
Samantha has gone to become a beautician and chased after her dreams. She also had her kids after marriage, and in Felicia's words, everything was lining up to build a better family life."
"I missed out on a lot of my childhood. I never lived through Samantha, but it's good she got to experience things I craved. Had I not ended up in foster care, she would have grown up in the same situation I had."
"I’m not saying it was God’s plan for me to get pregnant, but I believe my life could have been way worse. If I’d gone back home, I probably would have quit school for good and had way more kids at a way younger age - whereas I didn’t have my second until I was 20 years old."
"I’m not saying it wasn’t a hard situation, but it wasn’t devastating. I feel like I was given a chance to make something beautiful and to be strong. I want to be an inspiration to other people."
Felicia shared her story on Facebook first, then on TikTok when lockdown happened. Her story went viral and sometimes, people would drop negative comments on her which could be disheartening. When remembering those moments Felicia said, "I would cry and think ‘I’m going to delete this whole account.'"
But she never stopped preaching about what can happen to people through her own experience.
"People never want to think this could happen to your child, but it could."
"And even though there are options for pregnancy, I want people to know shame and fear should never factor how you make a decision about something so serious.
"I also want to encourage people not to judge. Sometimes I respond to the negative comments with humor because I don’t want anyone to feel like they got me. But sometimes it gets overwhelming.
"I have days where I sit and cry and think 'why do I bother?' Ultimately I want to make a positive impact in someone's life."
"I don’t want to just be remembered as the girl who had a baby when she was 11. That’s a part of my life but that’s not who I am."
"I want people to say ‘she was strong and she tried to empower other people’. That’s what I want to be known for."
