Advice anyone...PLEASE?

[JessicaMarie]

I am starting school for nursing this year. Sounds normal right? Well I'm a little different from the traditional right out of high school college student. I dropped out of school when I was 16 (beginning of 10th grade). I am the 18 year old mother of a beautiful healthy 2 year old daughter named Atira (born at 24 weeks gestational age - why I want to be a nurse). I made the decision to go college mostly to better life for my daughter - provide her with the things that I never had. It's something that I've dreamed about since the day she was born but now that I've finally taken the steps necessary to enter college (which by the way would've been way easier if I stayed in school - stupid me! but you do what you gotta do I guess) I'm scared. My schedule as it stands is 10 hour days, 3 days a week (school) and 12 hour days, 3 more days a week (work). That leaves me with one day with her and to myself. Not a single hour of a single day can be sacraficed. I need to work to support myself and my daughter and I need to go to school to be the best provider I can be. I certainly don't want the next couple of years to compromise my relationship with my daughter but I feel I need to do this for her and myself. I refuse to be a "typical teenage parent" stuck in the rut of welfare and living off other people. I want to prove I can do it to all those who said I couldn't, to myself, and I want to give a special HA HA! to all those rude people who stared, whispered, and made rude remarks about the "baby having a baby." Any advice anyone? I feel as though I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place!

[JessicaMarie]

Oh and by the way ... my daughter is the only child in her daycare that can identify her mandible, maxilla, zygomatic, nasal, frontal, and occipital bones - and her personal favorite PHALLANGES!

[Coffee Nurse, BSN, RN]

Big, big ups to you, Jessica! Heck, I think you're doing better so far in NS than I did as a "traditional" student! :)

[MS._Jen_RN, ASN, RN]

Thanks for the update! You have done a fabulous job. You have set a wounderful example for your daugther. Keep on keepin' on. You can do it.