Pregnant whilst at Uni

[justneedadvice15]

Hi, just looking for advice. I am 21 years old going into my second year of university. Me and my partner would really like to start trying for a baby, however if i was to fall pregnant in the next couple of month, I would be commencing my final year with a newborn. So i am basically in a predicament as i desperately want a child now but would i be putting too much pressure on myself? I do not particularly want to wait a couple of years to have a child but i also do not want to differ a year either... i dont know if this makes sense but i would really like advice from women who have had a new born during the year of dissertation and women who have planned their pregnancy whilst studying?

I got pregnant in the August before commencing my 3rd year. DS was born about 2 weeks before my dissertation was due. My pregnancy was straightforward, I took medication to control the morning sickness and didn't have any other issues until preeclampsia at 39 weeks. I finished with a first but it was a hard slog to get it.

If you can, hold on a little while longer and try and schedule the birth for after you finish your 3rd year. Will probably save you a whole load of stress

I wouldn't do it OP. I have a baby and tasks that used to take an hour or two now take up the whole day. Mentally I am exhausted and I couldn't tell you what I did yesterday, never mind retaining knowledge for a degree.

My friend timed her pregnancy so that the baby was born in the summer after her final exams. Is that something you would consider?

Having been in that position, I would wait, 100%. I could never give my course or my dc enough focus and attention. I felt like both suffered, and it was stressful.

I could share my opinion but as you just want experience, I’ll share that with you instead.

I got pregnant due to a contraception failure in my last year. It was a combined undergrad and postgrad course meaning I came out with an MSc after four years on the same course. So potentially slightly harder but not too dissimilar workload to my third year.

We decided to keep the baby. It was the hardest thing I have ever done and knowing how hard it was, would I have planned that? Absolutely not.

I felt like my newborn was just this thing I had to keep alive, alongside not wasting tens of thousands of pounds to get my qualifications done. I didn’t give my newborn DC the dedication and love they deserved and would spend hours of sleep-deprived breastfeeding trying to construct a semi-decent piece of work under huge stress. My studying suffered and I found myself just proud of ‘finishing’, rather than able to say I’d done as well as I possibly could.

I muddled through and I love my DC more than anything but ultimately, I look back on those early days with so, so much regret and sadness when it should have been the best time(s) of my life. Just not at the same time!

The reason you’re not going to get many replies from people who did this is not many people would do this.

Because it’s madness.

I started my degree with a 2 year old and finished it as a single parent. It was hard. I remember writing 4 assignments whilst dealing with chicken pox. I couldn’t have done it with a new born. No bloody way. But I wanted to do really well at uni. If you’re not bothered how well you do then it’s different.

Why would you just not wait? What is the actual rush?

I fell pregnant (unplanned) towards the end of my first year. We decided to keep the baby but I also had to drop out of uni. It was incredibly difficult.
Me and my dd dad are now married and she is 4&1/2. We have a 2nd dd now too.
Children are wonderful and they are the best thing that ever happened to me.
But if I was you I would finish uni first.
Pregnancy takes a huge toll on your body and you may even struggle to meet deadlines or produce the quality of work you're capable of.
I've been there. Finish uni.

@justneedadvice15

No disrespect but no I am not whoever this person is you are on about. And you do not know my personal circumstances. I have my own place, I have a secure job just studying to further my career... and me and my partner have been together for 4 years and have plenty of savings. I am not your typical 21 year old, my question was simply asking for advice on people who have been through it not people who try to belittle my question having no idea how I am financially or personally.

I beg to differ, you actually are a typical 21 year old because you have a very unrealistic view of how the world works. Not your fault, it’s the way brains mature. In five years time you will cringe at some of the ideas you now hold.

Nobody has a secure job unless mummy or daddy own the company. Nobody has their own place unless they have had the good fortune to have been left a legacy or gift enabling them to buy it outright.
Nobody has ‘plenty of savings’ to fund a pregnancy without financial support unless they would be able to live comfortably for a year on those savings .

What you need to think about is not what having a baby would do for you, but what you can offer a baby in terms of a comfortable, secure, emotionally and financially stable home. If you and your partner split, would you be able to support yourself and the baby in a well paid satisfying job with prospects for advancement ?

No one can see the future, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t consider more possibilities than ‘desperately wanting a child’ and scratching that itch.

I do wonder if your studies are not going well at the moment, is a baby the way out/ an excuse for not achieving what you wanted when you started your university course.

It's possible to juggle a baby and the last year of a degree, but it'll be bloody hideously difficult, and I believe that those who do it got pregnant by accident. I've never heard anyone want to get pregnant during their degree on purpose!

YABU and would be very silly to have a baby while at uni.

Even if you owned a house, mortgage free, were a millionaire and not just basically a kid yourself, I’d still say trying to have a baby and study at the same time would be madness.

Babies are hard work. They take their toll emotionally and even the strongest of relationships suffer in the first year of a baby’s life.

You would be foolish 🤷‍♀️

Take it from someone who really believed they were not your typical 19 year old, I was.

I had DD at 20. Do I regret her? No, she's incredible.

Do I regret having her so young? Absolutely 100%. It doesn't matter how much you try or I tried to convince ourselves we're "more mature". We aren't.

I wasn't, you aren't. You're 21. Take it from the collective voices that having a baby this young is so unbelievably stupid alone let alone while you're in the middle of a degree. It's sheer madness.

I will say what my tutor said when I got pregnant at 21 and wanted to do my final year pregnant/with a newborn. "You are being naive".

Finish uni first. I wrote my thesis when my son was 1.5 years old having already deferred it for 9 months. No way could I have been at uni doing lectures at the same time as having a new born.

You're not showing very much of the maturity you claim to have.

People are telling you to wait, because they had any at uni and found it fucking hard. They're advising you to learn from their experience.

They're telling you that you will find it hard. That you have no way of knowing that your pregnancy and or baby will be easy.

Why would you ask for advice from people in a similar situation, and then go on to ignore it and throw your toys out of the cot?

The sensible and mature thing to do would be to listen to those who have walked that path.