Anna Marshall, a University of Hull student, shares her story of how you can still be a student and a fantastic mum with the right attitude and passion.
I found out last Easter, the day before tour. That unwholesome little blue line glowed brightly on the test: pregnant. I thought I would abort it after tour. I told my boyfriend via a Facebook message and his email back was “You’re aborting it right??”…. So off I went for a week in Spain with my team. Even though I was sure I was aborting it I didn’t really drink too much, a challenge in itself on tour!
Nevertheless, dancing on bars, stages and podiums was a must, even with a tiny little tadpole in my tummy. On my return to Hull I took another pregnancy test which told me I was over 5 weeks pregnant (the maximum amount they can measure on a home test) so I thought I had better go to the doctors. The doctors told me to think about it a little more and gave me some folic acid tablets to keep the baby healthy in case I decided to keep it. This was the point when I resolved to tell my mum, and so off home I went and waited for a ‘good’ time to tell her.
Needless to say a good time didn’t arise and so I just told her. She told me whether I decided to abort it or keep it she’d support me either way. Now was really the time to decide what I wanted to do, the baby was growing bigger every day and I needed to make a choice.
After thinking about it, and talking to my boyfriend I decided I wanted the baby but I didn’t really want the boyfriend. So we broke up and I kept the baby and got on with life as though it wasn’t really happening; I still went to lectures, still went to my running club and ran 10ks, 1/3 marathons and league races (admittedly pretty badly now as the baby seemed to take all of my energy).
I contacted my tutors and told them that I was pregnant and asked for advice. I was mainly told to defer until next year, but I really didn’t want to do this. I was, on the whole, approached with negativity by them telling me I wouldn’t be able to cope doing my final year in university and having a baby. But I really wanted to continue as I only had a year to go. The baby was due at the end of November so I knew I’d have a little time before it was born to get ahead on all my work. I started my dissertation in the summer and was given the lecture notes for my first semester topics early so that I could start looking at them and doing background reading.
Time passed and I soon found myself looking in Topshop for maternity clothes – flowery smocks and stretchy jeans. I went back to university at the start of the semester, having left as a slim 21 year old girl I returned as an 8 month pregnant woman! I’d only told a select few of my friends that I was pregnant, so to many of my class mates it was a shock. I spent Monday to Thursday at University in the library, studying and getting essays in before I left to give birth to my baby. It wasn’t easy being heavily pregnant at university, I needed to wee every 5 minutes, which isn’t ideal in a two hour lecture. I got ravenously hungry all the time, felt constantly tired and was huge! I was so huge it was a struggle to actually fit behind the desks in the Larkin lecture theatres, they obviously were not meant for pregnant women!
Walking from my car (parked on Salmon Grove) to the library felt like a huge trek and would leave me feeling shattered. All my lecturers were really good by now though. They always asked me how I was getting on with both my pregnancy and my work. Sometimes I did feel a little isolated as everyone else I knew was going out on socials and having cheeky pints after lectures whilst I was studying till 4 or 5pm every night and then driving home to my parents house in Brigg (I moved back home so my parents could help me) and feeling so tired I was often in bed for 9pm. I continued going to university until the week before I was due. My class mates would joke about how funny it would be if I went into labour in a lecture, but this (luckily!) never happened. I am lucky enough to have a friend who works at the university and she arranged for me to have a parking space right in front of the Venn building for the last week before I went off to have the baby. I had a little plaque with my name on it and it was one of the best parking spaces on campus. If nothing else, being pregnant got me a good parking space!
The baby eventually arrived nine days late, on the 6th of December. He weighed 6lb 9oz and I called him George. I had to have him by emergency caesarean so I was in hospital for 3 days. When I came out I had a few essays that were due, so I posted them to the university. It was weird looking after a brand new baby but still having to think about university work.
I spent Christmas getting to know my little boy and revising for my January exams when he napped. It is really tiring as George doesn’t really like sleeping that much and wakes up 3 or 4 times a night to be fed and changed and cuddled. Being a single mum I have to do all of this by myself, but I don’t mind too much. I’m really lucky as I live with my parents so they do all the cooking and cleaning for me. It would be much harder if I had to study, look after baby G and manage a house! In the day time George catnaps for 15 minutes at a time but wakes as soon as I put him in his cot, so I’ve learnt to type and write and do everything with only one hand. Sometimes if he’s restless I’ll read my lecture notes out to him. Reading about neurons and action potentials seems to put him to sleep, I don’t know why…
I had two exams in January and spent the night before each recapping on my lecture notes while filling bottles of milk for my mum to feed him while she looked after him during my exam (not, I’m sure, how most people were revising…). Both exams went okay, despite being so sleep deprived. I was told by my tutors that if I didn’t do too well on my exams I could probably apply for mitigating circumstances and do them again in the summer, and this was a big weight off my mind.
I went back to lectures at the start of the second semester. I chose modules which all have the lectures on the same day, this meant I was only in on Thursdays. I set off from home at 7.30am to get to university for 8.30am. I have lectures all day (9 till 6). After which I return home to a smiley little boy and spend the rest of the week trying to get my dissertation written up and looking over lecture notes whilst playing, feeding, hugging and changing baby G.
It’s definitely not easy being pregnant at university. And it’s even harder having a new-born while studying. I’m lucky as I had a very easy pregnancy and didn’t get morning sickness or poorly at all. This gave me chance to get ahead with work. I’m also lucky that I have my parents to support me. Even if someone will look after George for just a couple of hours a week it allows me to catch up on a bit of work. My mum looks after George for me on Thursdays so I don’t have to put him in childcare. If I did I’ve heard the university crèche is great and very cheap as the university pays for 85% of your childcare.
I wrote this to let everyone know that if you do happen to get pregnant at university it isn’t the end of the world. You can keep the baby and keep going to university- if that’s what you want. Since being pregnant I’ve heard of many others who have also been pregnant but dropped out of university, but you do not need to do this. With a little hard work and a lot of organisation you can do both. I am still hoping to get a First in my degree though the way I am going about it has changed. I am a lot better at time management and a lot better at multitasking.
There are lots of people at university that you can talk to if you get pregnant, such as tutors and the advice centre. Or email me if you want some advice from a student whose ‘been there and done that’. Life has definitely changed now that George has arrived, but definitely for the better. He’s 9 weeks old now and the cutest little boy ever!
If you are pregnant, think you are or have any questions or concerns then please go and see your GP as soon as possible. Pregnancy tests are available from the Advice Centre and VP Welfare.
Anna Marshall
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