GLOUCESTER, Mass. – The revelation last week that 18 Gloucester HS teens were part of a “pregnancy pact” may have shocked the nation, but many residents of this seaport city – where having a baby bump at a tender age isn’t uncommon – were less than surprised.
The proof is in one Cape Cod-style home, where four generations of Gloucester gals live, including one of the high-school teens and her newborn daughter.
“She’s a really good baby,” said 17-year-old sophomore Brianne Mackey, mother of the newest member of the household, Kaylee Mitchell. “She doesn’t cry a lot. She sleeps good during the night. So I’m really lucky.”
Mackey has been staying at the home of her boyfriend of two years, Michael Mitchell, a baby-faced 17-year-old who graduated Gloucester HS on June 9, the day after their daughter was born.
Both teens’ families quickly accepted news of the pregnancy last fall, largely because they’ve been caught in similar situations.
“I was shocked and said, ‘All right, we gotta figure out what you guys want to do,’ ” said Donna Mitchell, Michael’s mom, who had him when she was 16. “We left it up to them, and now here [Kaylee] is.”
Donna, 35, and Michael’s father parted ways for a while after Michael’s birth but eventually married and had two more children ages 6 and 8.
“I don’t advise it, but I wouldn’t trade it,” Donna said of having a kid in her teens.
She’s not the only family member who has done that.
Mitchell’s paternal grandmother, Barbara Mitchell, 63, had twins at 19.
Mackey’s mother, Kim, an EMT, had her older sister when she was 20. Her parents are not married, and her father does not live in Gloucester.
The high number of teen pregnancies at the 1,200-student high school – five times the average annual amount – drew public criticism and heated debate over administering contraceptives in this staunchly Catholic city.
But the media firestorm stemmed largely from comments by the school principal, Joseph Sullivan, who said there had been a “pact” among students to get pregnant and raise their babies together.
While the mayor and school superintendent later denied the existence of a pact, Sullivan reaffirmed on Thursday that some teens had intentionally gotten pregnant.
Mackey said her pregnancy wasn’t planned.
Her mom and her mom’s boyfriend first suspected she had a bun in the oven while the three were in Florida and Bermuda last fall.
“They weren’t too surprised,” Mackey recalled. “We were on vacation, and I was throwing up every morning. They kept asking me on the trip, ‘Are you pregnant?’ I said, ‘No, no, no.’ ”
With encouragement from her mom, Mackey took a pregnancy test at home but threw it out because she couldn’t bear to look at the results.
At the end of October, she went to her school’s on-site health clinic for another test. It wasn’t her first time there.
A year earlier, she had taken a test because she had become sexually active with Mitchell and was having irregular periods. The results came back negative, but her mom and the school nurse practitioner, Kim Daly, encouraged her to go on birth control. Mackey says she did but still got pregnant.
When she got a positive result last fall, Mackey’s reaction didn’t match the media descriptions of girls cheering, high-fiving and planning baby showers.
“I had a lot of mixed emotions running through my head,” she said. “I cried. I actually didn’t tell my boyfriend for a couple days.”
After finding out she was pregnant, Mackey first told her mother. Then came meetings with school counselors, her mother and Mitchell’s parents.
Both said they didn’t want an abortion, and Mackey didn’t like the idea of giving up a child for adoption.
“Every time I saw a kid, I’d wonder if she was mine,” the teen said.
Mackey said she does not plan on seeking welfare for support, one alleged reason for the school’s high number of pregnancies. Mitchell has started working at his father’s bait shop and as a lobsterman. Mackey said she plans on taking a course in August to become a certified nurse assistant.
Like some of the other teen moms, she plans on attending school in the fall and has enrolled Karlee at the on-site day-care center, which is now full.
Mackey said she was not part of any pact to raise her child with any of the other teen moms, but she has befriended two who gave birth last month.
“I knew them from before, but I got a lot closer to them once I found out they were pregnant,” Mackey said.
As a mom-to-be, she remembers confiding in one of them about her pregnancy.
“I was telling one of them, and she goes, ‘Really? I just found out I am pregnant, too,’ ” she said.
Like Mackey, all the expecting teens who have been interviewed denied the pact allegation. Most of their Gloucester peers agree that very few teens ever want to get pregnant.
“Every single one of the teenagers wants out of Gloucester,” said Rebecca Harmon, 19, who graduated from the high school last year and works as a substitute teacher at Pathways for Children, a local nonprofit that runs the school’s day-care center.
“None of us wants to be here. None of us wants to get pregnant and stuck in Gloucester.”
Indeed, the close-knit city, nestled on the rugged coastline of Cape Ann, offers few opportunities and little excitement to teenagers on the cusp of adulthood. The town has skidded economically over the last decade, with for-sale signs dotting many of the cedar-shingled Cape Cod-style homes.
Considered the country’s oldest seaport, Gloucester’s fishing and seasonal tourism drives most of the economy.
Many of the men eke out a living in search of lobster and fish like flounder. Their dangerous profession and life in the small city was made famous in 2000 by the book and movie “The Perfect Storm,” which chronicled the ill-fated voyage of one fishing crew.
Capitalizing on that fame and the harbor’s stark beauty, the city touts its lustrous nautical heritage to visitors. The city’s quaint Main Street is lined with antique stores and gift shops hawking anchors and other sea-themed tchotchkes. Adorning many of the stores are pictures of “Perfect Storm” stars George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg posing with local fishermen during filming.
For teenagers, the social scene is glum. The city’s only McDonald’s and its small beaches are their main hangouts. The high school’s 2007 yearbook seems to concur on the lack of constructive pursuits. It lists the class’ favorite pastimes as driving, sex, Wiffle ball and beer pong.
One of the biggest events on the social calendar is the St. Peter’s Fiesta, which began on Wednesday night in the harbor’s main square. The 81-year-old, five-day festival includes a boating race, a fish cookout and a carnival, which draws most of the teens, including Kyla Brown.
The 17-year-old expecting teen enjoyed her waning days as a care-free youth Wednesday, strolling past carnival barkers and vertiginous amusement rides as she nibbled on a candied apple. At one point, she hunched over a friend’s stroller and cooed at the baby, then tenderly rubbed her own baby bump.
When asked to do an interview about her pregnancy, the 17-year-old said, “I have to check with my parents.”
jfanelli@nypost.com