16 and Pregnant Recap: Home Is Where the Hurt Is

Tuesday’s dismal doubleheader continues with Sabrina. She spent 10 years in Los Angeles with her dad, but right around the time she got pregnant, she decided to come back to Tennessee and live with her mother. Possibly, her sister Rebecca was with her through all this? She doesn’t say this, but it kind of seems like they spent a lot of their lives together. I’m sure there were plenty of pregnant girls in LA, so I don’t think she was hiding, but who knows? Maybe she just wanted to be with her mom for this exclusively female rite of passage.  

Sabrina and Rebecca live with their grandparents, while their mother, Amanda, lives apparently nearby with three younger kids.

Sabrina and Amanda roll baby clothes, and Amanda talks about how she wasn’t stable so Sabrina had to go live with her father. He did the best he could, says Amanda, but he shouldn’t have given Sabrina so much freedom. And he should have done a better job – even any job at all – with the sex talk. Both parents should have done a better job, Sabrina and her mom agree. They didn’t really explain sex so much as just tell her not to do it.

Because that worked so well for my generation.

Sabrina and Rebecca sit on the swingset in the grandparents’ back yard. Rebecca has a kind of droopy eyelid that makes her look like she’s giving a permanent sideye. Possibly she also gives a lot of sideye. Babydaddy Iman calls and we learn that he’s not moving out to Tennessee to be with them until the due date. That hardly seems practical. He says he has family obligations. Rebecca wants to know, what about the family he made? C’mon, let your sister bust her own babydaddy’s balls. He seems to have the normal amount of trepidation about moving. Also, he doesn’t feel good. Maybe he should go lie down and call his girlfriend later. Rebecca says it’s going to be kind of weird when Iman gets there, and he’s not getting her room. 

Dinner with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma, like Mom, is not used to saying Iman’s name. They talk in vague terms about where the new family is going to live. Grandma and Grandpa don’t seem to have a problem with them staying at their house, or possibly they just have a bigger problem seeing them try to live on their own with no money.  

Sabrina and Iman have a rather cranky phone convo about how Iman doesn’t have any money. On one hand, he does seem to be trying. On the other, his short fuse kind of betrays his true comfort level with all this. 

Drinking game… every time a 16 and Pregnant girl says the baby’s almost here, take a healthy swig. 

Sabrina is one of the better planners among our fertile beauties this season. She talks to Rebecca about wanting to put the kid in day care so Mom and/or Grandma doesn’t have to watch it all the time. “Newborns sleep a lot,” she says.

Not aware that they wake up a lot more.

She mentions she has to get fitted for her cap and gown. This would yield all kinds of photo ops, but we never get to see it. 

Sabrina, Rebecca and Amanda go to another of those overpriced looking baby stores. I guess Walmart and the MTV cameras don’t get along. Sabrina says she’s not really mentally prepared yet. Amanda remembers to tell Sabrina she needs boob pads to soak up the milk leaks. Sabrina thinks this is yucky.

Different scene, same look. This is your brain on baby. 

The ladies talk about the baby’s name (Audrey, with Iman’s last name). Amanda doesn’t like that name, and she wants to make sure Iman deserves to have the baby get his name. Stick to boob pads, okay lady? Rebecca gets teary-eyed, which leads to a chain cry-action, because she’s not going to get to see her sister and hang out as much. Not because of the baby, but because of the babydaddy. On the second viewing, this scene makes me uneasy. 

Doctor’s office. Feet swell. Know why? ‘Cause you’re pregnant! Aw, for a second I thought we were going to learn something sciencey. The doctor is very jolly. I can totally see him playing Santa. Amanda notes that Sabrina should get an IUD, or “little anchor,” placed after the baby’s born. The doctor averts disaster by saying there’s not a limit to who can be in the room during the birth, as long as it’s not “a dozen” or “a circus.”

Gelato place. Sabrina calls Iman – apparently returning his call – and he starts off all cursey and gets progressively cursier. That’s one moody dude. Does he have that sympathetic pregnancy thing? Can you get that if you’re not in proximity to the babymommy? I don’t like him here at all. He needs to learn to explain and express himself. Sabrina cries, and her mouth is blue from the gelato. Her Megan does a good job of getting to the heart of the matter and should be some kind of journalist when she grows up. Iman is scared, is the bottom line. Sabrina says in a roundabout way that he needs to man up. What if he doesn’t come out here, asks Megan.

That would be grounds for a new facial expression.