Here’s a difficult post to write about. I have been largely quiet about it. Most people don’t understand and many people have thought and even said I’m a bad mother for doing it. You don’t have to agree with someone’s journey to support them, you know.

As you know, I have 2 young children V1-3 years old  and V2-15 months. And my hubby is in the Army. For the past 11 years, all of our marriage and then some, I have been trying to go back to school and figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. While we were stationed in Germany, I finally figured it out! With the help of a very dear friend of mine and a few German beers, we talked until the wee hours of the morning. We talked about what I loved doing (helping people) and how I could best utilize my talents and desire to help people. I never in my life (before that time) considered the medical field and always assumed I didn’t have the “right type” of intelligence to be a nurse. For a dream I never knew I had, I sure found a real passion. 

When I told my husband about this crazy idea, he was like, “hum, I don’t know…let me think about how I feel about this.” And I wasn’t sure it was something I would find a passion in, either. So we talked about it for several weeks. We contemplated what it would mean for our tiny, incomplete family. Finally, one day, he said, “well, if you want to try, who am I to stop you?” Or something to that effect. Then, a snarky remark about how I might quit smoking, if I became a nurse. And I laughed. Maybe. 

We moved back to the U.S. and we bought a house. We arrived too late for me to go back to school that fall, so I went back to work  as a waitress. I spent more money driving to and from this job than I made from it. And I wasn’t happy. 

At that time, I had also started doing fertility treatments which eventually lead to me getting pregnant with V1. In the spring of 2010, I started back to school and started working on nursing school pre-reqs. I applied to, and was accepted into an accelerated nursing program. In the early-middle of the program, I did a final IVF cycle that resulted in pregnancy. Now, understand that every cycle I had done up to then always resulted in a negative outcome, so I had to assume that the results would be the same. Except they weren’t. I finished the summer semester and registered for the fall term. I decided that it would be too hard and I dropped out. 

Fast forward 3.5 years. We have moved twice in this time. Added another baby, who is magic. I was told I had between 1-5% chance of conceiving on our own. And yet, I did. And we are very blessed. I started to get my application and pre-reqs in order to start applying to a new school and pursue this goal that never started out as a dream. An elusive goal. One of the things the new school required was that since I had been a nursing student before was to obtain a letter from my old school stating that I left in good standing. I wrote the old school an email and received a phone call not too long after that. I was told that I was still eligible to readmit back into the old school and that they would reserve a slot if I cared to come back. For me to go back into that school would require one of two things. That is: take the kids with me or leave the kids with my husband. And my husband had suggested that I take the baby and the older one stay here with him. But I didn’t want to split the kids up. When it occurred to him that both of them would stay here with him. 

Now, if you think this was an easy decision, you’re wrong. We talked and talk and continue to talk about it. A dozen times a day, I change my mind. But my husband asks me if being a nurse is what I want to do. Which it is. 

We have come to agreements and are planning breaks now; buying plane tickets so I can come home and be with the kids. 

Here’s an FAQ for you:

1. “When will you see your family again?” On breaks. There are breaks between semesters and there are mid semester breaks. Plus, we live in a technology filled world. I will get to “see” my kids on Skype everyday. 
2. Where will the kids go during the day? They are enrolled in a Montessori program and they will go there all day.
3. How long is your program? It’s 15 months, not counting breaks. 
4. What happens if your husband gets deployed? He won’t, but if his job requires extra hours, my inlaws are willing and able to help as his job requires. 
5. Where will you live? I have found a housemate and I will rent out one of her rooms for the duration. 
6. I could never leave my kids. Ok. Don’t, then. Honestly, I don’t really know how to respond to that. 
7. You should have never had kids, if you were just going to leave them. Really? This situation is very temporary. I’m not leaving forever. 
8. Do you think your kids will resent you for this? I sure hope not. I hope they grow to learn that education is important and that by bettering myself, I can be a better parent to them. 

There’s probably more questions I get, but these are the main ones I get asked a lot. 

I’m sure I’ll write more about this as I feel I need to or to clarify my situation.