Feeling like leaving my accelerated program *long

[notsureaboutanything]

Hi all, I am not much for asking for advice but I have a couple of days to make a life changing decision.

I just graduated with my BS in May 2019 from a liberal arts school in the midwest. My plan was to go to medical school, but I changed my mind the last year. I felt like I didn't know what to do anymore but I still wanted to work in health care, so I applied to this 21-month, accelerated MSN program (not an advanced practice program) in the city my husband is from (and lived in at the time because he graduated a year prior to me). I was interested in OBGYN and I transferred that interest to nurse-midwifery. I felt really comfortable with that scope of practice. I had a baby in high school so my interest was helping young moms, and my dream would be to do home visits, like the old days.

I found out I am pregnant about a month ago. My oldest just started Kindergarten and my husband and I will both be 24 this month. Ever since then I cannot muster up any interest at all for school, and I feel slightly resentful about it. I feel like I don't have anything in common with the people in my class and like the school is stealing 120k from me (it's a private university and there weren't but 2 tiny scholarships available for us to apply for). I was apprehensive from the time I got accepted in March because letting go of the dream of medical school was difficult for me (the reasons behind changing goals is an essay in and of itself). I am very bored in lectures, which isn't like me. In undergrad I found interest in even the classes unrelated to my major (going to a liberal arts school there were many of those).

I worked as a tech in a hospital all summer, nights, in the med-surg service line, and all the nurses did was complain. They were very nice to me and I enjoyed picking their brains and working as a team, but they did not seem happy. The doctors did not seem happy either. I left the job before school started because nights wore on me excessively. Since then I have felt very negatively about ever working in hospital, something that has weighed on me as I started school, because all nurses are expected to work in a hospital.

Anyway, I am trying really hard to feel some passion about nursing but I can't. I don't know if this apathy is related to hormones because this pregnancy has been so much harder than my first and I have much worse nausea, exhaustion, acne, trouble sleeping and I don't feel like myself. Or I may really not feel passionate about nursing. I started out in college as a nursing major with a newborn baby. I went to the SNA meetings and I volunteered but I changed my major from pre-nursing to health sciences the next semester because again, I did't feel like I fit in with the other girls. I also did started at and finished a semester at a community college RN program that I enjoyed, but had to leave due to problems with my marriage to my first child's father. When I finally got divorced and started at the university I graduated from I applied to be a nursing major but I changed it a month before hand because I met with medical students and loved the curriculum they got to learn and I thought, why can't I go for this dream?

I am afraid to leave school because if I am not there, then what am I? Another person with a BS not working in their field? A stay-at-home mom with a wasted education? I cry everyday and my husband is tired of it. I just feel so lost.

[MiladyMalarkey, ASN, BSN]

Have you sunk finances into this endeavor, meaning have you taken out loans & how much? It's unclear, are you already in this for profit ABSN program already...how much $ is invested in it already & is it refundable?

You don't sound sold on nursing. You need to stop, breathe & find yourself & what you want to do. You seem to go back & forth between several things often more than once. In the meantime you may be hemorrhaging money in the process.

Unless you've already dumped 100k to become a nurse (in which case I'd say you're too invested to really quit with that debt) then you need to stop school and figure things out. If you dont want to stop school, go to a community college, which at least is a affordable place to find yourself.

I'm sure pregnancy isnt helping now & maybe you will need to take a break till after. But you'll need to do some soul searching & try to stop spending too much money in the process.