Tonight MTV’s cameras will take us to Columbus, Ohio to meet Danielle Cunningham, her fiance Jamie Alderman and their son Jamie Paul, Jr. in the fourth episode of the third season of 16 and Pregnant. For those of you wanting to know a little background on Danielle prior to the episode airing or fill in the blanks after the episode airs I’ve compiled the multi-media 411 on her cobbled together from numerous sources online.
Most all of the girls appearing on 16 and Pregnant are social media mavens and Danielle is no exception! She has already built up a rapport with a growing fan base with an official Facebook page, a Twitter account, Formspring, Youtube and a Stickam account – all of which Danielle not only uses but uses often! (I’ll include links at the bottom of the post.) Enough of all that, let’s get on with getting to know Danielle!
First and foremost, Danielle isn’t really Danielle – her actual first name is Jessica and Danielle is her middle name. (We will stick with calling her Danielle – the name she chooses to go by.) Jessica Danielle Cunningham was born January 7, 1994. Her mother was only 16 at the time and her father left when she was only 1 year old. (I’m sure this will be talked about at length at the Reunion with Dr. Drew.)
Danielle moved to Ohio when she was 5 (I think her family was in Arizona before that.) She attended 9th grade at Whetstone High School in Columbus, Ohio before relocating to Pataskala, Ohio to attend Watkins Memorial High School.
It was while she was at Watkins that Danielle discovered she was pregnant by her boyfriend of four months, Jamie Alderman. She was at planned parenthood after deciding to go on birth control for the first time and discovered she was pregnant after taking the required pregnancy test to get her pills. That was on February 8th, 2010. From her web site:
i was so young ; and cause that was my first week of birth control :/ i cried and cried sooo much to the point where i didnt know what the hell i was going to to . i was in school , no job , not driving , and i was SIXTEEN !
Danielle had a very difficult pregnancy that included excessive bleeding and pelvic issues in her third trimester. The troubles continued into her labor and delivery, which she gives a graphic account of:
on october 8th 2010 i went in to the hospital at about 3 pm for bleeding . they let me know they were going to induce me at about 6 . they started my pitocin at around 7 . and i was in bad pain by about 830 . at around 10 i got my epidural . at this point in time everything is very blurry because of some pain meds i got that i totally regret because that made me not remember like any of my labor . i got my epidural nd all the pain stopped . about 15 minutes later jamie jrs heart rate stooped from 152 to 32 because of my epidural ; all the doctors freaked out and they almost had to do an emergency C-section . i was only dialated to 8 cm. so they shoved thier hands in and ripped me open to where i was full dialated . they has to rip jamie out with a suction cup . he came out weighing a whopping 8 pounds 3 ounces and was 19.3 inches long . i had a big & healthy baby boy (:
^ Little Jamie Paul, Jr. poses for an adorable photo
Originally wanting to name her son Gaige Daniel, Danielle eventually gave in to Jamie’s requests to have the boy named after him so little Jamie Paul Jr. was born October 8, 2010. Jamie, Sr. and Danielle would get engaged the next day, but the engagement did little to help Danielle’s sturggle with post-partum depression, which was apparently really difficult:
the first couple months of having a baby wee very rough , i cried ALOT and was going through very bad postartum depression. i would be up in the middle of he night crying to hard not knowing what to do with myself ; wishing i didnt get pregnant and thinking i couldnt handle being a mother so young. it really hit me hard knowing i had lost my teenage years and lost all my friends, and had no one to talk to or relate to me. having people come over to see the baby and leave as soon as he started crying. i thought i was such a terrible mom fo being so selfish , but i talked to my doctor and she said every teen mom goes through it at one point in time .
Danielle has since come to terms with a lot of those issues and is extremely thankful for her little bundle of joy! She even goes so far as to credit him for preventing her from continuing down a path that might have found her in the same place as a number of her friends, who she says “now do heroine constantly.”
^ Jamie Alderman, Danielle Cunningham and Jamie Paul, Jr. in a Christmas photo
As far as Danielle and Jamie’s relationship, it appears to be quite rocky. Reading her Formspring account from over the last few months you will run across numerous “We’re taking a break” and “Everything is good now” statements. From what I can tell the two are no longer engaged, but on good terms. Here are Q&As from the last five days in order:
Are you still with jamie sr?
nope [5 days ago]
what happened with jamie sr? i thought you were working on your relationship?
no , im done
does that mean jamie is back on the market? 😉
yeppp (;
are you and jamie still friends even though your not together
not at all .
what happened between you and jamie
were fine now . [1 day ago]
Danielle comes across as an in-your-face personality who is not afraid to tell you what she really feels – which almost inevitably means we are in for a drama-packed episode! And keeping with the TMZ subject matter theme that 16 and Pregnant seems to have this year (After three episodes I think we already have about 4 mug shots of moms and baby daddies) Danielle hints on Formspring that she may have some skeletons in her closet as well. Check out this question and answer:
What is your biggest fear?
that my past will come out if i end up having a good show , cause i know how tabloids are … :/
Uh oh. And speaking of which, Danielle has a defunct Twitter account with a single tweet that reads:
jus got homee , went ta ohio state with megan . [ suspended ] for fightingg . i get ta go back ta school wednesdayy [:
And on her profile she has a background composed of marijuana leaves and halos. Oh, and she is reportedly a huge fan of Jenelle. I’m just sayin! (As I recently admitted, I too am a big Jenelle fan, so Jenelle Army relax!)
UPDATE – None of Danielle’s skeletons have emerged from the closet, but the same can’t be said for baby daddy Jamie Alderman! CLICK HERE to find out what kind of legal trouble he’s been in over the last year.
Danielle says she plans to go to college and pursue a career possibly in the medical field. She says she wants two more kids, but not any time soon!
As I mentioned before, Danielle is very active on the various social networking sites. Here is a rough list of her numerous profiles so you can keep up with all things Danielle Cunningham!
Facebook fan page www.facebook.com/DanielleCunninghamFanPage1
Twitter twitter.com/danielle_MTV
Youtube www.youtube.com/user/danielleMTV
Formspring www.formspring.me/danielleMTV
Stickam www.stickam.com/daniellemtv
I thought I might finish this post out with lots of video clips! Danielle loves the video camera and in addition to uploading numerous videos she also makes frequent live appearances via web cam on Stickam. I’m going to start things off with some extensive Q&A videos from Youtube and follow those with a mish-mash of all sorts of Daniellage…
(In this first clip the audio and video are a bit off)
Here’s the preview clip for her episode from MTV:
I was going to include a couple of Danielle’s Stickam videos but after wrestling with the autoplay feature for close to 40 minutes I’ve decided to bail. (There’s nothing worse than loading a page and having multiple videos automatically starting!!) CLICK HERE to visit her Stickam profile and you can view the clips there.
*** Oh, and I feel I should do Danielle a solid and mention that she gained 70 pounds while pregnant. She’s made some comments that she is very concerned about how she looks in the episode and hopes that people realize she has lost a lot of the weight since. It’s silly to think she should worry – the girl is PREGNANT! – but the internet is the internet and the haters will be heard. Anyways – back off on any and all weight comments if you can. They’re pointless and more times than not completely inaccurate.
