GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KKCO) - It was more than three years ago that a Palisade High School student gave birth to a baby girl in the shower at her parents’ home. Hours later, that baby was found dead in an entertainment center in the teen's bedroom.

Seventeen-year-old Cheyenne Corbett was charged as an adult for killing her baby, and she eventually pleaded guilty to child abuse resulting in death. Now, for the first time ever, she's telling her side of the story only to 11 News.

Cheyenne just turned 21, and she's now finishing the second year of her 16–year prison sentence. I recently sat down with her to ask what happened, how her life got turned upside down, and where she thinks everything went wrong.

This is her story, presented in three parts. Be sure to click the links below for the entire story. We have also posted her raw interview. Also below is a link to my blog where I discuss my impressions of Cheyenne after we met.

Part 1: Growing Up
Cheyenne Corbett is a convicted felon. These days she spends her time behind bars. But this isn't how she pictured her life. In fact, Cheyenne was the type of kid who never got in trouble.

"It was just really odd to go from not being in any trouble ever in my whole life. Not even going to the principal's office,” said Cheyenne. “I think I had detention once."

Cheyenne was adopted as a newborn baby, but later her parents were able to have a daughter of their own, named Sierra.

"Growing up I was a pretty normal kid,” says Cheyenne. “I grew up in Utah, and we grew up on a teeny farm. We had all kinds of animals. And everything was fun until we moved to Colorado when I was 10."

Everything changed when her adoptive father abandoned the family after moving to Grand Junction.

"That's kind of where our relationship with my entire family kind of fell apart. I lost all respect and trust for everyone around me, pretty much. It was a pretty difficult thing," she says.

As a talented musician, she could play almost any instrument she touched.

"That was also a very good creative outlet that I had," says Cheyenne.

And her life–long goal had always been to be a doctor. "A pediatrician, actually."

In school, she worked hard and got good grades. "It was my escape. I could go to school and not have to worry about what's Sierra doing, when is mom coming home," Cheyenne says.

When her mom was gone, either at work or out with a boyfriend, Cheyenne would stay home to take care of her little sister. "I didn't want her to feel as abandoned as I felt," she says.

By the time she was in high school, she says, things were getting difficult at home with her mom. "She had a lot of guys come over, and a lot of different boyfriends and stuff through that whole time."

Then Cheyenne got a boyfriend of her own - her first serious relationship. "It wasn't so much that this was love at first sight, or any sort of strong attraction. It was more like this guy's pretty cool. It was nice to feel needed and to feel loved. Who knows if that's what it was," she says.

Cheyenne had sex for the first time and soon found out she was pregnant. "At first I didn't want to be pregnant. I'm 17–years–old,” says Cheyenne. “I was petrified. I was absolutely petrified."

Cheyenne's boyfriend broke up with her, and since she doesn't believe in abortion, she decided she needed to handle it on her own.

She told her friends about her pregnancy, but was afraid to tell her parents. "One of my best friends had just had a baby and my mom made very derogatory comments toward her, and wouldn't let me hang out with her. Having that in the back of my head I thought, 'Oh crap, I'm in trouble.'"

So she hid it and kept it a secret from her mom. "I knew eventually I was going to have to tell her. It was going to be one of those, 'Hey Mom, I'm at the hospital – surprise!' You know. My intention was to tell her as late as possible, and by then it would be... there would be a baby, and she couldn't be so angry with me if she had a new grand baby. She couldn't really holler at me too much," Cheyenne says.

So she lied. When her mom asked if she was pregnant, she told her no.

"We had a very rough relationship as it was. It was hard enough for me to tell her that I had a hard day at school. I wouldn't even think to tell her that. So to come out and tell her 'Hey Mom, I think I'm pregnant, that probably wasn't the best idea,'" she says.

Cheyenne's dad also asked if she was pregnant when she went to visit him in Arizona. He even took her to a clinic where they confirmed she was going to have a baby. But Cheyenne hid the results of the visit, and continued her charade.

"Her being my adoptive mom, she doesn't have that kind of mother's intuition. I think it was more denial on her part. Her saying, 'That's not possible – that couldn't happen to my kid," Cheyenne says.

Cheyenne thought she had time to figure things out. She wasn't expecting to have the baby until October. But in the early morning hours of July 22, 2006 she started having cramps and back pain. At first she thought it was from an exhausting day of band camp and work.

"All night long I was battling this awful back pain. No one had told me about back labor," she says.

She couldn't sleep that night, so got up at about three in the morning to take a hot shower. "And I felt dizzy, and like white little bubbles were popping around my face, in my eyes. I thought, Holy crap, I'm going to fall over. I thought oh crap, I gotta sit down, so I sat down, leaning up in the corner of the shower, and I don't really remember much after that."

Cheyenne passed out with the water still running.

"I remember when I came back into consciousness, the water was cold. There was a lot of blood. Just blood everywhere, and there she was. She wasn't breathing, she wasn't moving. This wasn't what I expected. This isn't the way it happened on TV," Cheyenne says.

Cheyenne was now face to face with the baby girl she had tried to hide from her family.

"I did knowingly deceive, and it was my deceit and my manipulation and my lies of everyone I told around me that ultimately led to this. But my intention was never to hurt my baby," she says.