“I was scared to tell people I was pregnant.”

Lucy sits comfortably beside Evie who is asleep, nestled against her hip. The blonde-haired toddler will be two in June. Lucy contentedly strokes her daughter’s hair and begins to share candidly about how she came to be a mother at the age of 16.

“I was finishing year 10 at Queechy High School,” she says.

That’s when she first had suspicions that her expanding belly was more than a bit of bloating. Still, the softly spoken teen stayed tight-lipped until her stepfather noticed the changes and bought her a pregnancy test.

“I already knew what the result would be – I was 19 weeks pregnant!” Lucy laughs.