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Three in 10 girls will be pregnant before the age of 20, according

to Students Against Destructive Decisions. Women are most fertile

while they’re young, as they have a greater number of eggs in their

ovaries. Getting pregnant in college may not seem possible if

taking precautions or perhaps having a child in school doesn’t seem

like it would be too hard.

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Clements High School graduate Lynne Greene recalled her big plans

after her senior year in 2007.

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“I wanted to major in specialized education, before transferring to

Athens State,” said Greene. “Only a year later I found myself

pregnant. I decided to take a semester off, and that turned into

another one, and then another one.”

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With plans of one day returning to school, Greene said getting

pregnant with her son at such a young age was not in her

plans.

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“The truth—I was drunk, careless and didn’t think of the long-term

repercussions,” she said, admitting to not using any form of

contraception.

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“If I didn’t have Landon, I would’ve been close to graduation,

instead of waiting tables,” Greene said.

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North Alabama resident Abbey Bumbarger had a similar story to tell.

She found out she was pregnant five weeks before her high school

graduation in 2000. Although she was on the pill, she said she

missed taking one, and it resulted in an unplanned

pregnancy.

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With an academic scholarship to Penn State and plans to join the

Air Force, Bumbarger saw it all disappear. She said her mom cried

for three-straight days before making it to the abortion clinic

with her.

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“I was sitting there, ready to abort my baby, when I found out I

was further along than I had thought,” Bumbarger recalled. “I was

already in my second trimester, and they said the abortion would

take two days. My mom and I got up and walked out.”

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After completing a couple years at a local college, she dropped out

when she got a job to support her daughter, Shaye. A couple years

ago, they moved to Madison to start over. Bumbarger got a job and

enrolled back in school fulltime to pursue her degree in business

management.

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“I felt I was doing well, pulling it all together. Then, I got

pregnant again.”

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Now with a 10-year-old daughter and a newborn, Savannah, the mother

of two explained the toll five online classes and working full-time

has on her.

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“You can’t ever get anything done. You have to stop, feed her,

change her and give her attention,” said Bumbarger. “Studying is

impossible until late at night, and by then you’re too tired to

care.”

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She plans to graduate next year, but knows it will have its

challenges. She said her difficulty comes from trying to balance

everything in her life. After the birth of her second child at the

age of 28, she made the decision to get her tubes tied.

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“You always think it won’t happen to you, but it can. Just one

time, or just forgetting that one pill—pregnancy can happen to any

girl,” Bumbarger warned.

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Jennifer Orazi managed to graduate from the University of Alabama

in Huntsville with a baby. Finding out she was pregnant in her

junior year was a shock, but she said she was lucky enough to have

her son during summer break.

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“If I had never become pregnant, I probably would’ve been able to

finish school earlier,” said Orazi. “It ended up taking me an

additional year to graduate because I couldn’t take extra classes

each semester or during the summer.”

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She attributes her bachelor’s degree to a loving, supportive family

and hard work.

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“The hardest thing about being a young mom is having to grow up so

much faster than planned. What I do doesn’t only affect me anymore.

I also have to look at how it will affect my son,” she said. “If

anything, I have become more cautious and less impulsive.”

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 Like many young women in college, Orazi thought it would never

happen to her, and warns sexually-active people to be careful.

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“Being a mom isn’t the easiest thing in the world, and a lot of the

plans that you may have for the future will have to fall by the

wayside if you get pregnant,” said Orazi. “In the end, everything

will be much easier by making sure you have your own life together

before thinking about bringing another life into the world.”