Gaby Rodriguez - The Pregnancy Project

GABY RODRIGUEZ
made national headlines in 2011 when, as a seventeen-year-old high school senior from Toppenish, Washington, she revealed she had faked a pregnancy for a class project. Her grades were in the top 5 percent of her graduating class, and she was a commencement speaker. She was also in the ASB Leadership group and president of the schools chapter of M.E.Ch.A (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztln: Chicano Student Movement of Aztln). She was raised by her single mom, has seven brothers and sisters, and has been dating her boyfriend, Jorge, since 2008. She is currently attending college.

JENNA GLATZER
is the author or ghostwriter of twenty books, including The Marilyn Monroe Treasures, My Stolen Son with Susan Markowitz, Bullyproof Your Child for Life with Joel Haber, Ph.D., and the authorized biography Celine Dion: For Keeps . She has written hundreds of articles for publications such as Womans World, Salon, AOL, and MSN and is a frequent contributor to Writers Digest . She lives in New York with her daughter. Visit her at jennaglatzer.com .

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Jacket photograph copyright 2012 by Ali Smith
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IT STARTED AS A SCHOOL PROJECT... BUT TURNED INTO SO MUCH MORE.

Growing up, Gaby Rodriguez was often told she would end up a teen mom. After all, her mother and her older sisters had gotten pregnant as teenagers; from an outsiders perspective, it was practically a family tradition. Gaby had ambitions that didnt include teen motherhood. But she wondered: how would she be treated if she lived down to others expectations? Would everyone ignore the years she put into being a good student and see her as just another pregnant teen statistic with no future? These questions sparked Gabys school project: faking her own pregnancy as a high school senior to see how her family, friends, and community would react. What she learned changed her life forever, and made international headlines in the process.

In The Pregnancy Project , Gaby details how she was able to fake her own pregnancyhiding the truth from even her siblings and her boyfriends parentsand reveals all that she learned from the experience. But more than that, Gabys story is about fighting stereotypes, and how one girl found the strength to come out from the shadow of low expectations to forge a bright future for herself.

0112

THE PREGNANCY PROJECT

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Childrens Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This work is a memoir. It reflects the authors present recollections of her
experiences over a period of years.

Copyright 2012 by Gaby Rodriguez
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Book design by Hilary Zarycky

The text for this book is set in Electra.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rodriguez, Gaby.

The pregnancy project : a memoir / Gaby Rodriguez with Jenna Glatzer.

p. cm.

Summary: The true story of a high school senior whose faked pregnancy rocked her community and made international headlines. Growing up, Gaby Rodriguez was often told she would end up a teen mom. After all, her mother and her older sisters had gotten pregnant as teenagers... from an outsiders perspective, it was practically a family tradition. Gaby had ambitions that didnt include teen motherhood. But she wondered: How would she be treated if she lived down to others expectations? Would everyone ignore the years she put into being a good student and see her as just another pregnant teen statistic with no future? These questions sparked Gabys school project: faking her own pregnancy as a high school senior to see how her family, friends, and community would react. What she learned changed her life forever, and made international headlines in the process. In The Pregnancy Project, Gaby details how she was able to fake her own pregnancyhiding the truth from even her siblings and boyfriends parentsand what it was like to become an accidental overnight media sensation, trying to navigate a new world of film and book offers and talk show invitations while getting ready for the prom. But more than that, Gabys story is about the power of stereotypes, and how one girl found the strength to come out from the shadow of low expectations to forge a bright future for herself Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-1-4424-4622-9 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-4424-4624-3 (ebk)
ISBN-13: 978-1-44244-624-3 (eBook)

1. Teenage pregnancyUnited States. 2. Stereotypes (Social psychology) 3. Rodriguez, Gaby.

I. Glatzer, Jenna. II. Title.

LB3433.R63 2012

306.8743dc23

2011038862

To my mother, Juana Rodriguez, who means everything to me. And to all the teen moms who didnt have the support they needed to follow their dreams, youre in my heart.

G. R.

For a moment, I understood just what it must be like to be a celebrity caught in the middle of a scandal. There I was, on a senior class field trip, in disguise , and running away from a reporter and cameraman who had followed me, trying to sneak a quote out of me for their story. Thats because Im The Girl Who Faked Her Own Pregnancy as a Senior Project. Okay, its not an official title, but it might as well be. Overnight I went from being just another unknown seventeen-year-old girl in small-town Washington State to an international media sensation. It was weird.

Weird and scary.

I sure hadnt planned on any of it. When Good Morning America called my school looking for me while I was in the midst of juggling four other interviews, I ran out the back door crying. Who was I to be on national television? And it wasnt just Good Morning America all the major television networks in the United States, plus some international ones, wanted to send film crews out to my little hometown to talk to me. Three of them came to my school to give presentations and try to woo me for my first exclusive. And in addition to the news programs, there were also movie producers, talk-show hosts, radio producers, newspaper and magazine editors, book publishers.... My principal nearly went out of his mind trying to keep up with the calls that had resulted from my project.

They all wanted to ask the same questions: Why did you do it? You really didnt tell your boyfriends parents? What do you think of shows like Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant? Whats your message?