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Unlike many teen moms, Megan Lambert, 17, was already married when she got pregnant.

She met her husband, Jonathan Lambert, 20, when she was 15 and attending Cummings High School. They dated for about nine months before deciding to get married and moving into a trailer.

She had gone to the doctor to get birth control when she found out she was already pregnant.

"No, I'm not," she said. "No, I'm not."

Megan came home from the doctor's office and took six EPTs. All of them came out positive.

"Nope, that one's broken," she said after each test. "Nope, that one's defective."

After the sixth pregnancy test, Jonathan finally spoke the words that they were both afraid to say.

"Honey, you're pregnant."

Megan felt terrified and confused. She had no idea what to do. Jonathan was just as frightened.

But they knew they had to prepare for the baby quickly. Megan signed up for WIC milk and food stamps, and set up Medicaid health insurance for Jonathan, who did not have it at the time.

Telling her friends about the baby was easy for Megan, since most of them were so happy for her. They asked her what felt like millions of questions, and loved to feel her baby kick.

Telling her father was much harder. Megan's three older sisters had all become pregnant at young ages, and all three had dropped out of high school.

As she had expected, her father was shocked and disappointed. He feared that Megan would never be able to complete high school or a GED program with a husband, house and new baby to care for. Nevertheless, he supported the young couple and offered to help in any way he could.

Megan's stepmother and Jonathan's' grandparents also provided a great deal of help, both financially and emotionally, throughout the pregnancy.

But those outside her circle of family and friends often treated her with disdain.

"It was just those small little things -- when people whispered and pointed and gave me those dirty looks -- those are the things that put teen moms down," Megan says. "People look down on us because they don't know ... how hard it is for us."

And staying in school was as big a challenge as her father had feared.

Megan had completed her first three years of high school at three different locations, transferring from Williams to Cummings to Graham High School.

She was four months pregnant when she began school at Graham, and found it difficult to balance her homework and school projects with her new life as a 16-year-old wife and homemaker.

Most of her teachers did not know that she was pregnant, and some would punish her for the bouts of morning sickness, thinking she was faking to miss class.

As the mood swings from her pregnancy grew worse, Megan found herself clashing with her teachers and spending time in detention. After one disagreement with a teacher, she was suspended for a day.

Once her teachers found out that she was pregnant, they became supportive and understanding. Nevertheless, Megan decided to drop out of school at the end of second semester in May when she was six months pregnant.

A month and a half after her due date, Megan gave birth to Alan Paul Lambert. Counting his toes and his fingers in her hospital bed, Megan kept thinking the same thought: that even after all she'd been through, she wouldn't trade him for anything in the world.

Megan found a job working at Paul's Pastry nearby to support her family, but after a few months, she made a big decision.

"Jonathan, we need to get back in school," she told him. "We don't need to let Alan know that we're both dropouts and never went back to get our high school diploma after we had him. That'll just make him feel like he was a mistake."

The pair went to Alamance Community College (ACC) and earned their GEDs in March, to the delight of Megan's father.

"I never thought one of my daughters would be able to have a kid, finish high school and take care of herself and her child and husband like you do," he told her.

Today, Jonathan works at a tire center as a mechanic, and Megan plans to go back to ACC to study teaching or criminal justice. She and Jonathan both want a baby girl, and may start trying for one after Alan gets older.

"It's hard after you have a baby and you're still in school, trying to maintain a house and get a job and everything," Megan says.

"It's hard, but if you really put yourself to it, you can do it."