Hi everyone,
I am actually going to be an M2 next year, but I really need some advice from older students.
I just found out I am pregnant. Baby daddy is a classmate/ex-boyfriend. At first, he was super supportive and said that he would do his share of the work to take care of our child. Now, he is saying he wants nothing to do with baby, and is strongly urging adoption.
While I haven't ruled out adoption completely, it is not my first choice- I would really rather keep my baby. I am also strongly opposed to abortion for myself.
So my question is-- in your opinions, do you think I can manage being a single mother/2nd year medical student? The baby is due in February. I hear from my friends that there isn't as much of a requirement to be at school as in first year, so how much time would you say I will actually need to be at school physically? Are there certain classes that are required?
Thanks so much. You will probably recognize me as the pregnant M2 this fall.
Wow, greatest first post ever....
Not sure if you should really be looking to us about managing a baby and a med school courseload, as nobody here has had to deal with that yet. 2nd semester of M2 year has a bunch of required-attendance stuff for CER, and the workload with pharm and path is pretty hefty. While many students have performed well while skipping classes, they also didn't have newborn baby to provide round the clock care for.
If you want my honest opinion, I'm not gonna blow sunshine up your ass about this: I think it would be nearly impossible to be a single mother of a newborn baby during 2nd year without a substantial amount of support in the form of childcare from your family (this would have to be nearly full-time). It wouldn't even really help to have the father be involved, since he will have the same requirements and workload as you.
I'm assuming you've considered the fact that the baby will only be 5 months old when you start third year, so I would guess that you're weighing taking a year off starting in July 2009 vs. taking M2 (or 2nd semester M2) year off. If you haven't already, you need to start a dialogue about this with the deans to see what your options are. Most med schools are pretty cool about granting leaves of absence...I dunno how the administration here will react to your situation, though - recent interactions with them have left a bad taste in my mouth, so I should probably just hold my tongue.
Also, if you haven't already, I would consider talking to a lawyer about where you stand in terms of getting financial support from the father of the baby. Precedent would say he doesn't get a free pass out of this just because he wants you to put it up for adoption.
Good luck with all this, and I hope I didn't come off as too harsh or anything, but you definitely have some big decisions to make.
If you do wind up thinking more about adoption, I would be happy to pass along my mom's information to you. She's an adoption attorney and would be more than willing to answer any questions you might have about the process, and I would guess that she would represent you at a very reasonable rate since she would be sympathetic to your situation as a med student (and actually, in most cases the legal fees of the birth mother are paid by the adopting family anyway).