Bigger Better And Exhausted

…or at least seriously worn out. I’m sure it’ll only get worse once I start college next month. College. Pre-med. At twenty five years old. With four children under the age of ten. What the heck am I thinking?

I always wanted to be a doctor. Seriously, always. When I was five years old I had a toy stethoscope and actually looked forward to going in for my shots. Because there were doctors there. But, well, like they say “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans”. I got pregnant just after my sixteenth birthday. Tragic, huh? Well I wouldn’t go that far. It’s not like I didn’t know how babies were made. But of course, having a baby in my mid-teens meant that I couldn’t possibly ever make it through med school. Right?

I thought so. I have to say, I spent the last seven and a half years since my son was born, embarrassingly convinced that, while having a baby before you were old enough to vote didn’t mean your life was over, it did put some of the bigger dreams a bit too far out of reach. Besides, I never really wanted to be a doctor anyways.

I’m sure I could make a novel length drama out of the years between then and now but memoirs are quickly going out of style, so what would be the point? A wonderful husband, a pretty satisfying life, and three more beautiful babies later, a blazingly obvious question finally occurred to me. “Why not?” My husband was convinced we could make it work and, once I was willing to be persuaded, convinced me too. So I applied to the college here in my hometown and was flabbergasted to receive a letter of acceptance despite the fact that, as I already knew, all you needed to get in were student loans and a pulse.

The ball had started rolling. I picked my major, a B.S. in biology, took my COMPASS test (a test for those of us who took the “get pregnant and drop out” career track to make sure that we can read) and met with an advisor to actually pick out classes. Like a real college student and everything!

Trust me, I’m excited. Elated. Terrified. Because you can’t go through medical school while still being a parent to your children. That’s what I’ve always been told. Because you can’t manage homework, and a family, and a household. Something’s got to give. I’m sure of it.

That’s why I’m glad there are blogs. I found some wonderful blogs written by doctors and nurses and even med students and residents. They’re all doing it. They’re all managing it just fine (or at least with a minimum of tears and anxiety). If they can do it, then maybe there’s more than a glimmer of hope that I can too.