Open Letter to the Dean of Undergraduate Studies...
Dear Ms. Dean,
Okay, so I've made a few mistake (clear throat), umm, a few errors in judgement shall we say? It is essential that I clarify my reasons for having such a spotty record at the University.
I was working in an office, a job in a string of jobs that I didn't like. It was the best paying job I had ever had, or probably ever would have without the benefit of a degree. I hated that job. So a few months into it, after watching my boss throw herself on the floor and have a sobbing fit, I knew it was time to quit and go back to school. It was a big risk at the age of 27, but I saw no way around it, and I saw no way I could stay in that cubicle with that boss throwing fits at my feet.
My first semester was incredible. It was really tough, relearning how to write papers on dead-line, there were tears of frustration and fear, but man, I pulled through with flying colors and a better than 3.8 GPA.
I kept on through the summer and earned two more A's in the classes that I chose for that term. And then at the end of the summer, just before the start of fall classes, a surprise miracle happened. I was pregnant. This was not a plan, but it was a very happy surprise. I mean, I was 27 years old and not getting any younger. My prime baby-making years were already behind me, and I always knew I wanted to be a mom. Besides, in this open-mined day and age a woman could, no, was expected to do everything. I didn't see why being pregnant should change any of my plans about earning a degree.
About six weeks into my pregnancy and a couple of weeks into classes, I started throwing up--constantly. Morning sickness is a misleading misnomer. This was all-day everyday sickness and it didn't let up until the day my son was born. The medication they put me on did keep me from vomiting most of the time if I ate constantly, but it never kept me from feeling ill. So, needless to say, my attendance began to waiver. I had to fight with my Feminist Lit professor to keep her from failing me based on my poor attendance, despite reassurances from her in September that she "understood my plight and hoped to see me in class." She took her revenge on me by giving me a "D" on my final paper when I had earned all A's up to that point. But no matter, I plugged on and finished a respectable semester.
My baby was due in April, and the semester ended the first week in May. I saw no reason why I shouldn't continue (carpe diem, right?) with my studies up until the point I went into labor, and then come back and finish my final exams after my baby was born. Boy, I had it all figured out. I mean, you read about those women who do this kind of thing all the time, right? Isn't there some country where the women only stop working in the field long enough to push out their babies and then go right back to work? No problem. On to the next semester.
Okay, it's the beggining of April, and I am so huge I can barely walk. And forget about fitting behind the desks at school. My baby starts kicking like crazy the moment I try to squeeze him into one of those seats built for petite little teenagers who can't figure out what I'm doing in their classes. And not only is it difficult to walk, but it actually hurts to walk. My pelvic bones are stretching and opening to prepare for labor, and it HURTS! And what if my water breaks in the middle of lecture? As if I'm not enough of a freak-show already. You can see where I'm going here--and it's not to class until the moment I give birth. It's home to the couch where I can wait out my last few weeks in relative comfort. I mean, I'm not crazy, afterall.
I had every intention of finishing the two incompletes I left behind me in that semester. I asked for extentions, I wanted to study, I thought I could. I feel so bad about it. Ashamed, really. But guess what--being a new mom was A LOT harder than I thought it would be, and I loved my little baby even more than I could have imagined. Way too much to just leave him with a sitter to study. He was a breastfed baby and he couldn't be without me for more than a couple of hours, and I couldn't be without him for even that long. So it was painful for me to leave him to go back to school when he was only four months old. But women do this all the time, right? They go back to work after six weeks if they're luck enough to have that much time, so who was I to feel like my baby and I deserved to be together? So I signed up for another full-time semester.
It was a difficult few months. I took classes on Tuesday, Thursday, and Monday night. And they weren't lite classes either. My first class of the day was Lit of the Sublime, and then on to Israeli Politics, then a 20 minute break to pump breast milk in the second floor ladies room, and then back in to Public Policy. It's no surprise to me that I left my Public Policy class unfinished. I don't think I had anything left by that time of the day. But I am still proud that I did very well in my other three classes, including the Russian Film class I attended on Monday nights. It was a good semester, even with the one incomplete. I decided that the answer was only taking three classes a semester, so that is what I did.
I cleverly signed up for an on-line class about Latin Music (how could I go wrong?), I cross-registerd for an evening class at Hudson Valley (it was near my house), and I took one class that I knew I would love, Shakespeare.
The first to fall was the on-line class. I couldn't figure out the discussions and how to properly participate, and I couldn't scheduled child-care for a time when I could work on the class. It fell to the wayside. Then my husband and I decided to begin the process of buying a house and it happened a lot faster than we expected. It was stressful and required a lot of leg work. And then something happened that effected me more than I knew that it could--I had a miscarriage in the middle of March. I was sad and distraught, emotionally, hormonally, and psychologically. March turned into April rather quickly, as it has a way doing, and I was hopelessly behind in my Shakespeare class. There would be no catching up. The only class that survived was the Labor History class that I took through Hudson Valley. I got an A.
It was time to take a big step back. My life had been so blessed and had come so far over the past couple of years, and I had just been running along as if not to be run-over by all the changes. I was disappointed and depressed by my lack of progress that semester. How could I let this happen again? I'm not 18 anymore, I have responsibilities, I have a passion about my education, about making life better for my family. I decided not to take any summer classes. I decided not to take any fall classes. I had been so worried about what everyone would think about me as a person if I just admitted that I couldn't do it all, that I just needed to stay home with my son and make our new home a nice place to live and grow. I didn't want anyone to think I was lazy, or that I was taking anything for granted, or getting more than I deserved. Shouldn't I be working, or going to school, or doing something "besides" raising my child? The answer I kept coming back to was no, not right now. My first and only priority had to be my son, myself, and my husband. There would be a time and a way to go back to school, and I would wait until that time was right.
The summer and the fall have been busy, despite not taking any classes. I painted most of our house, worked on the yard, and just spent a lot of time thinking about and caring for my son. I have learned what it takes to get dinner on the table at a reasonable time, how to grocery shop without having to go back out every day for something else, and how to orchestrate a routine that my child and I are comfortable with. Most importantly I've learned how to drop everything for my toddler when he needs someone to play blocks or read a book. I am a mom now, and it requires from me an entire new set of skills that I didn't know I could nurture within myself.
posted by ErinMary @ 10:03 AM
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