EU maternity leave plans.File photo dated 05/09/10 of a woman eight months into her pregnancy. Euro-MPs are facing growing pressure to block "unjustified" attempts by the European Union to dictate terms of national maternity leave. Issue date: Tuesday October 19, 2010. Controversial plans to extend maternity leave across Europe to 20 weeks on full pay will be debated in Strasbourg today, with a vote tomorrow. Business leaders have joined the UK Government in mounting a campaign against the move following an "impact assessment" showing the plan would cost the Treasury an extra £2.5 billion a year. See PA story EU Maternity. Photo credit should read: Katie Collins/PA Wire URN:9640946 (Press Association via AP Images)
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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.”