My Unplanned Pregnancy—The Kick in the Ass I Needed

The Three Emotional and Academic Reasons Why

As an AU Student it can be difficult to focus on your studies and work full-time. All my energy was concentrated into this job that was going nowhere and I put my studies on the back burner. In a way my unplanned pregnancy was the push I needed to refocus on what was important, which is most definitely my education.  So here are three reasons why my unplanned pregnancy was the emotional and academic kick in the ass I needed:

I quit the job that wasn’t serving me anymore.

Okay, so when I quit, I didn’t know I was pregnant. I was about 6 weeks pregnant and had no idea why I was crying all the time. While I was working I often would randomly cry, and my nights were spent tossing and turning due to the stress I was under. It wasn’t good for my emotional health and the day I quit I had had enough. I like to thank my pregnancy hormones for that one. At the same time, I wasn’t focusing on my studies as much as I should have.  Quitting my job suddenly meant I had that time to focus.

It Reminded Me of my Promise

I always said I would have my degree finished before I started a family.  Change. Of. Plans. I know now that it doesn’t matter at what point you start a degree or at what point you start a family. At the same time, it has made it a little bit more difficult now that I have a one-year-old who really does take a lot of my attention. But that’s okay, it won’t be like this forever, and the lovely thing about AU is that you can work on your classes at your own pace. My pace would be classified as off-the-charts-mall-walker-slow. Some days I really feel like I am barely getting anywhere. It might be annoying, but it is the one major motivation I must get things done. I became even more serious about my education after the birth of my son. Because, though I may not be able to meet my promise now, I’m still going to get it as close as I can.

It helped me figure out what makes me happy.

I had a difficult pregnancy. I wasn’t in a good place emotionally and I was very ill right up until I went into labour. Because of this, I quickly realized what I needed to do to be happy and acquire some sort of normalcy in my life. A few friendships suffered and I really had to redirect my focus to take care of myself. In that respect, I have always had to aggressively defend my education choices. It got to the point I was questioning them myself. Eventually I realized that it doesn’t matter if someone else doesn’t understand why I would choose to major in English. I don’t have to explain myself and I don’t have to come up with a career plan to present to anyone about my choices.  If it makes me happy and it’s what I want to do, it isn’t important what someone else thinks.

When I was pregnant, I realized the only person I had the energy to focus on was myself, and that that was the most important. Now, as a mom, it is even more important that I make sure to focus on what is important to me and what makes me happy. Working on my degree through AU gives me something to do for myself, and I refuse having to defend that any longer.