Help required please - niece (18) about to go to Uni and has just announced she is pregnant

[yoyo]

Has anyone had this experience? What would you advise?

She is a very "young" eighteen and emotionally quite immature. This is her first boyfriend and she has not been with him long. They do not seem that serious about each other. He is also from Nigeria which complicates things.

She is about to go and study Law at a Uni which is about a 90 min drive from her home. Uni are supportive. Her mother has said she will leave work to look after the baby if necessary. Her father has not been told yet and will be very upset we think (her parents are divorced).

Positive and negative experiences most welcome.

my friend's dd became pregnant earlier this year during her first year at uni - she did have a termination because she realised the restriction it would place on her and her life. Her parents were supportive of any decision she made.

Why would her db being Nigerian make things complicated?

yoyo i hope you mean that the complication is that the father is from Nigeria and will probably be returning there and not that it is a racist issue. that would be sad.

i personally think that sh should speak to the Uni about provisions for pregnant students. I'm she is not the first and definatley won't be the last student to become pregnant.

Before anyone gets the wrong idea - her boyfriend's parents live in Nigeria so he has little support here from his own family. I think it will be very hard for him as he is also 18 and about to start at a Uni about 250 miles from her. It appears that his parents are strong Christians too which may pose problems for him (they have not been told as far as we know). And yes, he will probably be returning there too.

what does she feel about it yoyo? and him obviously?

I think at the end of the day its there choice, if she wants to keep the baby then im sure you and her other family will support her, her bf's parents may not be happy but, its happened and it cant be helped im sure after the shock they will be supportive. but IMHO i wouls let them decide and support them in whatever they are doing, she can still go to uni if there supporting her.

She has only told her mother and asked her to tell the grandparents and then to tell her Dad (she is currently on holiday with her Dad and her brothers). Her mother has only said that she wants to keep the baby and to go to Uni. Nothing about how she actually feels about becoming a mother. She was so intent on having a career and has never shown any interest with babies - she has refused to babysit for anyone. I feel incredibly sorry for her and hope she hasn't been pressurised into keeping the baby if she doesn't want to She is such a private girl I really do wonder how she'll cope. On a practical level she has never had to do anything for herself - no cooking, cleaning, washing..

Just how realsitic will it be for her to study? Perhaps she should take a Gap year and decide once the baby's born (due in Feb)?

My sister was 19 when she found herself pg and had just restarted college. She is currently waiting to find out if she passed her exams to go to uni and quite freely admits that the last 2.5 yrs have been VERY difficult. She would have to wait till everyone was asleep before the house was quiet enough to do her assignments and although she had a lot of family help she still found it hard.

She also has never had to do any cooking, cleaning etc and previously would love to spend her money on coats and shoes..... but she has had a lot of growing up to do and has coped. (It didn't help that she is 23 but looks 15 so had a lot of tut tutting from people in the streets when out and about with her dd)

I was 19 and about to go to uni when I found myself pregnant. I had been with the father for three years and thought we were quite serious but he left me when I got pregnant [shrug emoticon]

Tbh I know this sounds bad but I probably would have had a termination had I found out earlier than I did - but when I did I just couldn't.

I found out on 6th July, moved out of home in August and gave birth to my ds1 in Nov. I dropped out of uni as I had a place in London and I lived in Durham - way too much complication. But I studied with the OU and would have went to a local uni the year after but I met my dh.

It can be done. She could take a year out of uni, or even still go if she will be getting enough support. Good luck to her.

Oh yeah, and I (embarrasingly) couldn't cook/wash/anything. I once rung my mum and asked her how to heat a tin of beans because I'd read the tin and it didn't tell me what number to put the ring on!

I had never worked a washing machine before but soon learned when I had to, and soon learned to cook, tidy up, wash windows, scrub the loo etc. We all have to learn at some point.

I got pregnant at 19, a week before going off to uni 400 miles away from my parents, and found out a week after freshers week! At first, of course, the idea is very daunting, but I could not face a termination and have never looked back. I lived in scummy halls until 38 weeks then moved into a flat in my university city, where I've been evr since. To be honest, though I amnot that close to my parents, so there was no reason for me to give up uni and go back home. I am very fortunate that my university has a nursery on campus, where my dd, now 14 months, goes during the day so I can study. Yes, it is very hard, but it CAN be done. Your niece needs to make sure that she keeps her tutors up to speed with whats happening. I didn't know how to tell anyone and became very withdrawn during my first year, and they were ok with this, they let me do the bare minimum needed to pass. However, I do English, I'm nt sure that a Law department would be so lenient. I'll never forget doing my final presentation at 37 weeks when noone had seen me for a term! Noone knew what to say. I would say go for it. If the uni has counsellors, she should definately enrol in freshers week, they are always ridiculously overstretched. You shouldn't underestimate the stress of being pregnant at uni,and counselling really did help, as did seeing specialist pregnancy crisis counsellors, who were totally unbiased and just gave me somewhere to sit with a cuppa and talk. Your niece does need to reassess what she expects from university. There will be no partying, obviously when pregnant, but it is just now I realise the impact it has had on me. I feel much older than my classmates, and often feel sorry for myself when I know my boyfriend is out with his mates, and not at home with me, even though I know its unreasonable to expect anything else from a student with no responsibilities. A major thing to consider is housing. Being a student parent is not the most ideal thing where landlords are concerned, as you have no guaranteed income as well as a child. It always upsets me how many times landlords have declined me before even meeting me. Anyway, sorry to ramble, but I wish her luck in whatever she decides x x

Forgot to say, timing is a big thing. I had dd at the beginning of the summer, so didn't need to take a year out. I think it would be harder if you had a baby in term time.

i was in similar situation. i di my first year part-time, over two years, then transferred back to full time. i think if i had had a year out first i may never have gone, but part-time for that first year was really helpful, especially if timing is tricky, my ds was born in february - so was part-time when v pregnant, was easier to take bit time off for birth, easier to catch up, then easier for childcare whilst adapting to being a mum and student

dpon't regret having the baby or uni though. in some ways, once have realised being a student is going to be very different with baby or bump, being a student is quite a good way to spend first few years of baby's life in terms of flexibility, time off than being at work. but appreciate that at eighteen babies were last thing on her mind. hope it works out for her

Thank you all for your responses.

Littlelamb and Granarybeck - you have made some excellent suggestions which if I am unable to pass on to her directly I will do so via her Dad. I am heartened by your positive experiences.

Tomorrow will be a big day for her as her mother intends to tell her father (the family history is difficult to say the least). He will be so shocked but I hope he can walk away and give himself time to reflect before jumping in with both feet. I don't know if he will contact us but if he does and raises particular problems could I CAT you for your experiences? I will of course understand if you would not want me to contact you.

Thanks again.

hey im a student and am also pgnt the baby's due in dec. iv found it quite difficult to adapt to havin all these new hormones etc aswell as havin my normal life to deal with. however, i think that as some of the girls have said, havin the flexibility of student life its given me the spare time to do what i need to to prepare for baby. you wouldnt necessarily get this time if you were working full-time. i think that your neice could start her course and then take time out for herself and the baby, if the uni is fully supportive of her then she could return to uni after a year out and finish where she left off- thats what im doing
she would still have the benefit of goin to uni aswell as her time with the baby. im expectin it to be hard to cope with when i return but that would be the same if i had a full-time job i think. its not the end of the world and if shes clever enough to get on the course in the first place then im sure she will do well whatever she decides to do!

Yoyo, Of course you can CAT me if you need to, one of the worst aspects for me of being pregnant at uni was believing that I was on my own, I would have loved to hear from someone with experience of it. I also forgot to add, your niece should ask if the university has a student parent rep, as ours does, and this is the person who could really help her, and put her in touch with other parents, and perhaps even pregnant students. The university was very strict about confidentiality, and even though there was another student in the exact same situation as me, we never found out about each other til after the births. Our dd's are 10 days apart, but because of red tape we w4eren't told about each other. Make sure your niece states explicitly that she wants to be put in touch with other people, otherwise she may feel terribly isolated.

hi, I had my second child half way through my first term at uni. I used to got to uni during the day, work part time in the evenings and the stay up till about 2 or 3 int the morning studying. It was hard work but not as hard as the problem of finding reliable childcare (hubby worked dayshift) I done it though and got my degree in accounting. I found the most difficult thing was the major lack of money, I done my degree before the new tax credit system so we were pretty much entitled to nothing although I did get about £5000 a year in grants, I started my degree the year before they started giving loans instead of grants som at least I didnt have a huge loan to pay back (its big enough though). I think with enough support its possible but still hard work and if her mother is going to help then I hope she does well. Lots of students have babies during their time at uni and if its anything like when i done my degree then I was able to get alot of lecture notes to take home instead of attending lectures and I kept in contact by phone and email when I was off. Good luck to her whatever she decides.