Need your support

[Jenpea71]

Hello,

I am brand new to this board. I am a 35 year old married woman with a 3 year old. I have a BA and have been working as a social worker for the past 6 years. I have wanted to go to nursing school for a long time but was so exhausted by my BA that I wasn't ready to go back to school. I am signed up for my first pre-nursing prerequisite (biology with a lab) that begins in 2 weeks. I am very excited but nervous about getting back into the swing of school after so long. My husband and I are going back and forth about having a 2nd child and I don't know how school will fit into all of this. I work 4 days a week and have about 5 prerequisites to do before I can even apply to an RN program here. At the rate I am going, that could take 3 years! Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!

[akanini, MSN, RN]

Oh my gosh. I read your post and see my life somewhat on black and white. I have a BA and have been working in social work for a couple of years. I have wanted to go to nursing school for a while and will finally start LPN classes this Sept. I do not have the sciences to do an accelerated program, unfortunately. DH wants an addition to the family for our six year old daughter. I am totally against it and he feels I'm being selfish. LPN school will finish in August 2008. He insists that when I'm finished LPN school, we should be working on a second child. I want to do the RN right away. I'm so not feeling having another child right now and maybe ever.....................................Best of luck on your decisions!!!!!!!

[LMRN10]

Here are my thoughts...

Now, I would say if you are planning on taking Nursing classes right now, don't do it, but since you are working on your pre-req's and it could take you a while to get there, why not.

What I would do is this...lay out a schedule as far as what classes you will be taking when. This is what I did. So I knew how long it was going to take me and when I would actually start my Nursing classes. Then figure your 9 months into that and then you'll see how old your second will be when you begin the Nursing part.

Here is what happened with me...

I began school in 2004. Got pregnant (not planned at all) in December 2004...my husband and I were due September 2005. It changed my schedule. But after I had her, I continued to take classes. In my opinion, if you keep an easy load, you should be able to handle it (and I did take some online too...which helped!)...it's when you get to the Nursing classes when I think it'll become a bit more tricky (but it'll be tricky with either one or two). I'm not there yet, but hoping to be in January. My thoughts are if it's a newborn going into Nursing school vs. a 1 year old, those are two completely different scenarios. Newborns in my opinion are very tiring...when you have some sort of schedule, that is when you can figure out yours.

In my opinion, you can handle 1 or even 2 pre-req's with kids...as long as you have the support. And you will have time to spend with your new little one before you head off to Nursing School! JMO!

Good luck!!!

[Rianna1]

We had our second child right before I started my pre-reqs for nursing (Fall 2006). The semester started on a Thursday. I went to class Thursday night, had the baby Friday night, missed class on Tuesday but went back to classes on Thursday. Because I was on maternity leave, I was able to take a full load. That semester I took Microbiology, Physiology, Nutrition (online) and Pharmacology (online). I have the support of DH and my mom who came to watch the kids at night as DH worked really early hours. It was rough, but we got through it. I missed our newborn and sometimes felt guilty while I was in night class. I always kept telling myself "I am with her 24 hours a day, five days a week, so no reason to feel guilty..."

Since you work full time, many community colleges offer night courses and even some of the lab pre-reqs during the summer. Do some research; i don't think it will take you three years to do pre-reqs. you sound pretty determined; when things got rough, i always thought i'm doing this for me, but mostly for my kids... you can definitely do it.