“It shaped me into who I am”: Sheffield woman who was pregnant aged 15 now published author
“I was probably written off by everybody who knew me”
A woman has published her first book at 48 after being pregnant at 15 and overcoming breast cancer in her late 30s.
Nadia Jennings currently lives in Doncaster but grew up in Sheffield where she fell pregnant whilst being a pupil at Ecclesfield Comprehensive school.
Now, 30 years have passed, and she has shared her experience of overcoming challenges she faced to now publishing her book about teaching, “Qualified to Teach: Now What? Practical Guidance for Becoming a Confident Educator”.
She said: “It doesn’t matter where you’ve started, where you’re at, you can achieve things - it’s not impossible.”
When Nadia was around the age of nine, her parents owned a popular pub in Chapeltown called Scandals, where she grew up until she moved out at 16.
She said: “I was young, I was growing up in a pub so I was around older people a lot of the time, so for me, at the time I thought I was mature enough and ready to have a baby.”
Nadia fell pregnant with her partner at the time, and gave birth to a baby girl, Brittany, who is now 32. Following this, she moved out and married Brittany’s dad, a relationship that lasted two years.
“I broke up with my partner when I was about 18 and then I was a single mum and life became quite scary very quickly. The thing is, at the time I felt like I was old enough to do all that,” she said.
After Nadia had Brittany, she started to have an interest in the beauty industry, so she went to college and did a nail course where she “fell in love” with the profession.
But despite having a new direction in life, she shared how her struggles didn’t go away. She said: “Even though I was doing all of that, I was battling with depression, the breakdown of my relationship, being separated from my family - life was quite tough.”
So she moved back into her family home when she was 23-years-old and started working in a salon, alongside this, she became interested in the teaching sides of the profession.
When Nadia was around 26, she met a different partner, who she had two children with, Callie, who is now 20, and Cailan, who is 16.
As life was finally settling for her and the family, she decided to pursue her interest and get a teaching qualification in beauty to allow her to pass on her own skills to others.
But when she was pregnant with Cailan, her partner unfortunately suffered a brain injury from a professional boxing fight.
She said: “I was just about to qualify with my teaching qualifications and then my partner at the time suffered a traumatic brain injury. I was graduating, I was pregnant, all of that was happening and it still is one of the most difficult periods of my life.”
Her partner survived the brain injury, but their relationship did come to an end.
Despite everything that was happening, she managed to graduate with her teaching qualification at Doncaster College, which she described as “one of the proudest moments” of her life.
She later started to teach at Doncaster College for about a year, before branching out on her own and opening her own business, Deity Aesthetics - a business that started as just nails, but then became a place for her to teach students everything about beauty.
Once again, her life was put on hold after she was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 39.
Nadia said: “My mum had breast cancer a couple of years prior to that and when she got diagnosed I was petrified. I was scared of losing her. Whereas when it happened to me, it’s a weird one, you kind of go into autopilot.
“I was like, right this is happening, there’s nothing I can do about it, I’ve just got to go with it.
“It was another setback, another big trauma, but I had a mastectomy and thankfully I’m still here.”
After dealing with cancer, she shared how it “changed her outlook on life”, and summed up how she pushed through another extremely difficult time in her life.
She said: “I’ve always said, you either become a victor or a victim in life, it’s your choice which way you go with it.”
Nadia’s business offers courses to teach aspiring beauticians the skills needed to enter the industry, but as years have gone by, she started to think about the need to offer something more.
She said: “I just thought to myself, the course covers what you need to know to give you that qualification and it gives you an insight on how to teach - but what it doesn’t do, is give you those little things that you have to learn along the way.
“Like dealing with a difficult student or learning to adapt a course, and also dealing with yourself and not becoming overwhelmed.”
This is what led her to writing and publishing her first book, that covers all of those additional tips and tricks to help someone just starting out, navigate the beauty world.
It also dives into her own experiences as she shares her journey to becoming an educator.
So on October 23, 2026, her book titled “Qualified to teach, now what? Practical Guidance for becoming a confident educator” was officially published to Amazon.
The response she has so far received has been “incredible”, with people being “fascinated” in reading her own journey. But despite her success, she admitted doubt sometimes still creeps in.
She said: “In the back of my mind, I’m always like, am I doing this right, but at the same time, do you know what, what I’ve got to tell people and what I’ve got to share is valuable.
“Because everyone goes through things, everybody has challenges and if I can just help one person, make them realise they can achieve things - it doesn’t matter what’s going on in their life.”
In addition to the joy of publishing a book, Nadia shared how she is getting married next year to a “wonderful man” called Josh Carr-Barker, 32 and feels that “finally, things are starting to feel nicer”.
Reflecting on how far she’s come over 30 years, she said: “I was probably written off by everybody who knew me then, but if you’ve got that push inside of you - you can achieve things.”