College is something a lot of people experience, even if just so you can party on the weekends and move out of your parents’ house. It’s four years of fun, stress, and learning who you are.
But what happens when you get pregnant in the middle of it?
I’m a junior at a respected University, a Social Services major, and six months pregnant. And the pickup line “I’m 19, single, and pregnant. Wanna hang out?” unsurprisingly hasn’t worked yet.
College didn’t start out this way, and it was never how I expected the end of my teen years to go. I had a 10-year plan. Go to school, get my degree, start my career – then have a baby. MAYBE. The plan was never go to school, fall in love with a man, break up after a year and a half, move out, and find out you’re pregnant six weeks later.
But of course, plans don’t always work out the way we want them to.
Choosing to keep my child was the single hardest decision I’ve ever made in my life – and being in recovery in a 12-step program, I’ve had to make some hard decisions. Choosing to give up my life for someone else, something I never could do (hence the breakup), was a decision I couldn’t have fully comprehended when I decided to do it. Still having my baby safe and sound inside me, I doubt I’ve actually started to realize how much my life is going to change in a few short months.
Finish school. Seems simple, right? Not when you’re a single mother with a full-time job of raising a kid, a part-time job, and a full-time class load.
Those are questions you can’t ever answer until it happens to you personally.
The day I took the pregnancy test was the most surreal day of my life. I didn’t look pregnant, I didn’t even feel pregnant. I hadn’t even missed my period yet. I only took a test in the first place because a friend was worried she might be pregnant, and I wanted to make her feel better. Turned out she was the one comforting me that night. In the grocery store bathroom, next to a stranger peeing, I found out that my life was going to change regardless of what decision I made. Sobbing on the floor of that stall for half an hour, only to pick myself up and walk outside (after buying another test – just to “make sure”), was the biggest thing I’ve ever done.
Getting up when you want to stay down takes courage.
