FAQ

When & why did you start calling your son “Henry”?

In the summer of 2012 my family and I went to Mexico City for a family reunion with my dad’s side of the family. We were the only people who didn’t speak Spanish (aside from my dad and Jairo). So everyone tried to speak to us in English. My dad and Jairo would tell people in Spanish that my son’s name was Enrique but since they were speaking to us in English everyone there called him Henry since that is the English translation of Enrique. Some of them assumed that we called him Henry since we spoke English and others just gradually caught on and called him Henry as well. Enrique wasn’t quite two at the time so he really didn’t call himself anything. He never referred to himself as Enrique. But after people kept calling him Henry he began to refer to himself as Henry. When we eventually returned home from the trip he would point to himself and say “Henry” even though we continued to call him Enrique. So the name just stuck. Henry basically chose it for himself after he was given the choice of being called Enrique or Henry. Still to this day Henry calls himself Henry. He tells us he hates the name Enrique. I’m not sure why but he chose it and we respect that. We fell in love with the name Henry after our son wanted to be called that. So now he is just Henry. We don’t refer to him as Enrique anymore because he asks us not to.

Is Enrique’s name legally changed to Henry?

No. 

Why aren’t you and Jairo married?

I was never one of those girls growing up that dreamt of her wedding day. In fact I am not a huge fan of weddings in general. It was never a big dream of mine to have a big wedding. I think planning a big wedding would be stressful. Honestly I am perfectly comfortable with mine and Jairo’s relationship. I am confident in our love for each other. We live like a married couple anyways. To me getting married is more of a formality at this point. That being said we probably will get married at some point just to make it official. It is just not a big priority for us at this point in our lives.

Why do the kids’ not have Jairo’s last name?

Both Henry and Anastazia have Tovar as their last name. There are several reasons for this. First of all when I had Henry I was 15 years old. Jairo and I were not going to get married anytime soon, we had a bit of a rocky relationship, and my parents were providing for my son, my boyfriend, and me. So it was only appropriate for Henry to take my last name since my family was providing for him and it wasn’t a for sure thing that Jairo and I would stay together. Then when Anastazia was born Jairo and I decided that we wanted our kids to have the same last name.

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Henry's Birth Story

Four years and four months later I figured it's probably time to write Henry's birth story. Better late than never right?

My pregnancy went by smoothly, I didn't have any issues. It wasn't until around 36 weeks when my blood pressure began increasing. Nothing too high but higher than normal. It continued to increase at my 37 week appointment and was even higher at my 38 week appointment.

My MTV crew had arrived in town on Friday September 10th to film my baby shower. I was going to be put on "labor watch"the following week. (This means that a camera person would be stationed in my town at all times incase I went into labor). I had my baby shower on Saturday September 11, 2010. I was big and swollen but it was fun. Little did I know that was my last weekend without a baby.

On Monday September 13th I had my 38 week appointment and my camera crew accompanied me. The crew was planning on leaving that night since they had already been in town for three days. Well my blood pressure was high so my doctor wanted me to come back the next day to check it again. So I did. We knew this could mean the baby would be coming soon so the crew couldn't risk leaving but they had only been scheduled to stay until Monday. So the crew left, except for my director and one camera operator. I went in to the doctor again on Tuesday September 14th accompanied by my little crew and my blood pressure was still high so my doctor decided to induce me that Friday, September 17th.

Since I knew my birth was going to be filmed by two camera operators I was very specific that I wanted two women to film my birth. I was also specific about who I wanted there. There names were Jen and Carrie. Well luckily Carrie was already with me because she had come to film my baby shower and she was the camera operator that stayed when the rest of the crew left. So then we just had to get Jen. Well Jen was out on another shoot for a different 16 & Pregnant girl at the time so my director, Phil, said that it would have to be someone else. I refused because these were the two people I felt most comfortable with and labor and delivery is a personal moment. So they made it work. They pulled Jen off of her shoot and she came to Utah.

My doctor put me on bed rest for two days in hopes that my blood pressure would not get any higher before I was induced on Friday. I remember those days dragged by. I was so excited to meet my baby boy! On Thursday night my mom helped me create my belly cast and painted my toe nails. I synced my iPhone to my computer to put music on it to listen to during labor (which never happened by the way). Somehow this sync didn't transfer my pictures to my computer, instead it deleted all of my pictures on my phone. This was all of my pregnancy pictures because I hadn't transferred them to the computer in awhile. I was so mad. So to this day I only have a handful of pictures of my pregnant belly.

Finally it was Friday. My MTV crew (which consisted of Jen and Carrie thank goodness) showed up at my house around 5:45 am because I had been instructed to call Labor & Delivery at 6:00 am. My mom called in and we were told to be at the hospital at 7 am. So we finished gathering our stuff. I helped Jairo do his hair. (This can be seen in my episode and I think a lot of people find this humorous). Then my mom, Jairo and I drove to the hospital. We stopped at McDonalds on the way so my mom and Jairo could get breakfast. This was torturous because I hadn't been allowed to eat or drink anything since midnight the night before since I was being induced, and I had loved McDonalds breakfast while I was pregnant.

We arrived at the hospital at 7 am and I was hooked up to an IV and filled out paperwork. My hospital was very supportive of MTV filming. They even set them up in a room next to mine so the crew had a place to be while I was laboring. (Thank goodness they did because it was a long day). It was also nice because they had a monitor set up in there that was basically a live feed of the cameras so my dad was able to watch my delivery from there in a very modest way.

My pitocin was started just before 9 am. I was about 2 cm dilated at the time. The first half of the day was relatively uneventful. It took me the longest to get to 4 cm. During this time MTV brought in food for my family and, sometimes the nurses. They brought in Starbucks and Cafe Rio. If you know me you know this was torture because these are two of my favorite places and all I could eat was nasty flavored ice chips, but everyone else sure did enjoy it!

I labored pretty slowly. I was having pretty heavy contractions but I wasn't dilating hardly at all. I finally made it to 4 cm around 5 pm and this is when I got the epidural. It was so painful. I remember the anesthesiologist telling me that I should feel equal amounts of pain in both sides of my body. When I told her I only felt it on the right side she was slightly concerned but she told me it would correct itself. Well it didn't. At first my epidural wasn't even working. I was still feeling the contractions. So my nurse called in the anesthesiologist but apparently she had gone home so this time it was a guy anesthesiologist who came in. He fiddled with my epidural a bit and upped the flow of the medicine. It still took awhile to kick in. Then around 7 pm I was 5 cm. My doctor came in to break my water around 7:40. They thought I was progressing really slowly. But after my doctor broke my water the contractions came on even stronger.

The next 50 minutes were killer. At 8:30 pm I was 9 cm dilated. I went from a 5 to a 9 in less than an hour. The anesthesiologist had to come in again during that 50 minutes to try to get my epidural to help. Finally it kicked in when I was a 9. But then it was awful. My whole right leg went numb, from my pelvis down. Yet I still felt everything in my left side. It was the most awkward, awful sensation I have ever felt. It took me another hour to get from a 9 to a 10 because the baby was facing the wrong way. (They are supposed to be face down and he was face up). I finally made it to a 10 around 9:30 pm. That's when I started pushing.

The baby's face was still posterior instead of anterior and my doctor said it needed to be anterior (face towards my spine) in order to deliver. So he manually tried to turn the baby around with each push. I can't even tell you how painful this was. My right leg was completely immobile but I had a sensation like my hip was popped out of place. (I kept complaining to my mom because she was holding that leg.) I felt every contraction in my upper abdomen and through my entire left side. With every contraction I would push and the doctor would manually spin the baby's head around.

Two and a half hours passed this way. I am convinced that if the cameras weren't there filming my doctor wouldn't have been trying so hard to turn the baby. He even told me afterwards that I was so close to having a c-section. But the cameras were there and my doctor worked very hard to spin the baby's head around to the anterior position (face towards my spine) in order to deliver him vaginally.

Finally at 11:56 pm on September 17, 2010 I pushed for the last time and my sweet baby boy was born. He barely made it on the 17th. If we would have waited one more contraction he would have been born on the 18th! That moment was pure bliss. I had spent 17 hours in that hospital bed before my baby was handed to me, but it was so worth it.

Our precious Enrique (now called Henry which is the English version of Enrique) was 6 pounds 12 ounces and 19 inches long. Poor guy had the worst cone head I have ever seen since he spent over two hours in the birth canal being twisted around.

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My key to a healthy relationship

I think it's important for people to know that no relationship is perfect. Mine included. I personally am not one to post negative things on social media. This doesn't mean that I am trying to pretend my life is perfect. I just happen to be an optimist and prefer to share happy moments.

But I want you to know that I too have unhappy moments. Mine and Jairo's relationship is far from perfect, like most relationships are. Yes we are together and yes we love each other but we have had our fair share of arguments and disagreements. When we first got together we were 14 and 17 years old. On top of being immature, we got pregnant. This is a terrible mix.

The summer of 2010 was hard for us. I was pregnant and sitting at home because I hadn't told any of my friends I was pregnant. But Jairo still had friends. He was a teenage guy. He didn't want to sit at home with his pregnant girlfriend all the time. So he would go out with his friends, who didn't like me by the way. It was frustrating. We fought a lot. He even had the audacity to tell one of his friends I was pregnant. I hadn't told any of mine and we agreed to keep it a secret but he did it anyways.

That summer he did so many things that frustrated me. I cried a lot. But I truly did love him. So I just kept forgiving him. That doesn't mean I forgot what he did. I kept those issues with me for a long time. Then we fought some more and at one point I didn't think we were going to last. That's when my parents sat us down and gave us a lesson in making a relationship work. The secret to my parents healthy, loving, 25 year relationship is that they communicate. So this is what they taught us to do.

We talk about our problems. Yes it is frustrating and we argue. But the reason we are still together today is because we talk to each other. My parents taught us to communicate. This is our saving grace in our relationship. Our secret to staying together is communication. When people in a relationship keep their feelings bottled up it isn't healthy for either of them.

When Jairo does something that irritates me I tell him that it irritated me. Because if I tell him then he knows what I'm feeling and he can change it. He does the same for me. Because if we never tell each other then we won't change anything and we will keep fighting over the same things.

So we talk to each other, a lot, all the time. If you know me you know I talk a lot. Jairo is the opposite, he's very shy. This is why our relationship was rocky at first. I never knew what he was thinking or feeling. But now that he talks to me, we are golden. We make it a point to talk every night before we go to bed. About anything, the weather, our days, the kids, and especially how we are feeling about each other. We honestly tell each other if the other person did something irritating or something nice.

My advice about having a healthy relationship is to communicate.

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Getting Engaged

Fun fact: Jairo proposed to me twice. And it wasn't because I said no the first time. 

Rewind back to late July 2010. Jairo came on vacation with me, my parents, and my brother to Puerto Rico. While we were there sitting by the pool one day my mom got a phone call on her cell phone from MTV. They had chosen us to be on 16 and Pregnant. Apparently they had been trying to contact us for about 3 days but we weren't home and weren't checking emails. Plus all of our phones were off so we wouldn't get charged for roaming. It just happened that my mom had turned her phone on for a minute to check her voicemail and discovered that our director and producer had left messages. Oops. So we called back immediately and told them we were on vacation. Luckily it wasn't too late and they scheduled to start filming us the day after we got home from vacation. So exciting.

While on the phone, Jairo had informed the director that he was planning to propose to me while in Puerto Rico but my director asked him to wait and do it when they were filming since it was just a few days later and it was a big life event. (I wasn't aware of any of this until later).

Well since Jairo knew me so well he knew I would be sad if he passed up the opportunity to propose to me on the beach by moonlight because that was always my dream proposal. So he decided to still propose to me in Puerto Rico.

On the night of Saturday, July 31 2010 Jairo and I were walking on the beach after dinner and he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. It was magical. (As magical as getting engaged at 8 months pregnant while 15 and 17 years old can be, but magical nonetheless). But he told me that he had promised MTV he would wait to propose.

Since he still wanted me to be genuinely surprised on camera he decided to not give me my engagement ring on the beach, so I just wore my promise ring.

Following a nightmarish airport scenario that caused us to be stuck overnight in an airport and not able to get home until one day after we were supposed to, we began filming with MTV on Tuesday August 3, 2010. (We felt terrible for this because the whole MTV crew was in Utah waiting for us on Monday and we weren't there to film until Tuesday.) 

Then on Friday August 6, 2010 Jairo and I went to dinner at La Caille (a very nice French restaurant here in Utah). Jairo proposed to me there for the cameras. That was also the first time I saw the engagement ring that he and his mom had picked out. That time was magical as well. We had so much fun at that dinner. We were teenagers being served sophisticated French food and we were so out of our league. It was cute. It's such a good memory looking back. We got to spend time with my director and one of our favorite camera operators as well. It was wonderful.

Can you believe Jairo and I have been engaged for 4 1/2 years already? I promise we will get married one day. Maybe. ;)

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