About a year after my husband and I started dating, I decided to go back to school to become a nurse. The first semester that I was back in school, my husband went back to get his EMT certification. It took me four and a half years to finish my nursing degree. At first, I worked full time while going to school, but in the last few years, I could only work part time because of my school schedule.
We got married halfway through nursing school and luckily my husband had a good job and was able to make enough money to support us. We made a deal that as soon as I was finished with school, he could go back to school to pursue his paramedic degree and I would be the one to work full time.
It was a great plan. But then, during my last semester of nursing school I caught baby fever. I was convinced (for various reasons) that I would never be able to get pregnant so I insisted we try as much as possible. The week before I graduated, I found out I was pregnant with Maggie.
My husband was still busy working at his job and there were no definite plans for him to go to school. When I was five months pregnant, he lost his job. I told him that he either needed to start school or get a new job, pronto! That spring semester when Maggie was just a few weeks old, he started school again.
We've been plodding along with him finishing an associate's degree while I worked full time. Then this past January, he was accepted into a very rigorous paramedic school program.
So, I have been working two jobs since January so that he can focus on his schoolwork. We are constantly juggling childcare. Of course, things would be easier if we didn't have the childcare dilemma, but our lives would be so much emptier.
Sixteen weeks from yesterday is his graduation. When he finishes school, he will be able to start working and I can quit my second job (or scale back my hours considerably because this job might pay for the girls' tuition at private school).
It is taking a lot of sacrifice on all of our parts, but I am confident that the end results will be worth it.
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