anyone PREGNANT at uni?

[VirtualFairy]

hi there, i am in my 2nd year of my degree and pregnant, have 2 kids too they are 5 and 7 years.

is anyone else pregnant at uni. does anyone have the experience of going part time and finances etc
i am so daunted by the prospect of sorting all this stuff.

i have not told anyone at my uni yet - friends or lectures and they have not noticed me getting fatter so far. how shall i tell people? i am 16 weeks so i must tell people soon as its becoming obvious, and i look stupid wearing my fluffy gilet in this weather lol

I started a MA when I was 20 weeks and gave birth in week 8 of second term. What I found most difficult was that my memore just disapeared so keeping up with the reading or better said, retaining the info in my head after reading was particularly difficult. However, most lecturers have their own families and are very helpful and understanding about the needs or problems you may experience during the pregnancy and the first days -or year- of the baby.

I have told my tutor about the pregnancy as my husband (who is a lecturer) said that it was important for the faculty to know specially if any problems of my performance would need to be discussed by the board of studies but TBH in my department they didn't care about it. Though my supervisor was very nice , he even recommended me the NCT.

I believe that studying while pregnant is a good experience, but it also teaches you WHY everybody admires women that continue to study while pregnant or with a small baby. It's not easy, but it's possible.

memore=memory

I got pg in the first week of my second degree! Nicely timed so the baby was due in the summer holidays.... to be honest the pg was OK, didn't make that much difference to the studying I think; it was having a small child that made the second year v.tricky - but then you are already coping with the logistics of that. I had a nightmare as could only cope with a fulltime nursery place but wasn't getting any funding so we used up all our savings - if you are LEA funded I believe they now pay up to 85% of your childcare costs, so that should make a big difference (watch out with going part time as this might not apply to part timers, I don't know. Take advice from the welfare office of the NUS or someone asap I'd say).
The heartening news is despite doing my first year exams at 8+ months pg, and having no childcare for one term (the first term of the second year; I took the baby with me to lectures, leaving a dictaphone on the table if I had to go out to feed/change etc,and for that term did little more than go to the lectures, no essays etc, which the dept were fine about) and childcare nightmares for the final year (the nursery closed and I only had part time nursery for the last year of the degree) I still got a first!! So it can be done. Actually I think doing hte degree kept me sane! Good luck with it all.

wow a 1st, so it is possible- i am thinking i will have to go part time as the baby is due in september so going back after summer would be impossible so i was hoping to go back for the 2nd half of the year, i think i better talk to my uni and arrange this. and talk to my lea and find out i they will give me any money if i was part time.

That's true, doing the degree keeps you sane and having the baby helps you to organise better the degree work.

Having to work in the degree definitively helped me to keep my sanity through a condition my baby was born with, through a very bad summer for DS's eczema, and PND. Having DS helped me to work efficiently and focus during the little time that was left to study.

i found out i was expecting ds3 a week before i was due to start 1st year. ds1 was 4 and ds2 was 3.
i did 1st year full time but told my tutors and they were very understanding (i held off as long as poss telling people but i am doing biology so we were playing with mutagens etc and i was worried about health and safety).
ds3 was born 31st may, 10 days after i finished lectures (tutors started getting a bit panicky by the end lol).
i started 2nd year part time last october but after doing 1st module up to xmas i realised that i personally (doesnt mean you!!!) had bitten off more than i could chew and i didnt go back in january as planned. instead i am doint the exam for that module in 2 weeks (should actually be revising now) and am going back part time in october, starting full time again next january.
i found that if i had to miss a lecture for any reason, tutors took one look at bump and said 'o, i'm sure you had a good excuse' before i even explained myself!
dont expect too much of yourself, be prepared to go with the flow and it is easily do-able - i found uni much more flexible than work and people manage that!
as for part time financial implications i couldnt say as i think my loan was screwed up, call your lea and they can tell you basic guidlelines for how loans etc are worked out.