About four weeks before I was supposed to leave for college I found out I was pregnant. That completely came at a wrong time. I withdrew my application at Lander and decided to apply for Spartanburg Technical College for the transfer program. I was going to attend Tech for two years and then when my son got older transfer to USCU. About a year and a half later, I realized I was wrong again! At age nineteen I was married and pregnant with baby number two! My life changed completely at that point. I thought for sure my dreams of becoming a nurse were never going to happen.
I continued my education, but decided to switch my degree to therapeutic massage. I could do that and it would bring in pretty good money once I graduated. Well, I worked very hard, and I graduated with pretty good grades. It felt so awesome that I actually graduated. I passed my board exam, but never took advantage of me being a licensed massage therapist. It was not nursing. I was going to try school again...but I had another child, my third boy...at the wrong time again!
I started a daycare Job in April of 2008 working with the one year olds. I absolutely loved everything about it. I realized how creative I was and that I had a natural, God given talent for children. I found out I was pregnant again, with my fourth child. This time, it was a great timing. I even got moved to the baby room. It was amazing that I was going to be able to be with my child every day. I had him in January of 2009. A few weeks after he was born I came back to work. I was a mother of four beautiful boys, a wife, and a full time employee working with babies. I was a very busy person. I loved my life, but for some reason, I still continued to have nursing in my heart.
In September of 2009, my youngest son Nicholas was seven and a half months old and passed away during the night. We found out that he had a rare heart disease. My life changed forever. From that point on, I had no idea how my life was going to turn out. I learned to lean on God for everything in my life. Through years of continuous healing, I developed more compassion than I ever had, especially for babies. And most importantly sick babies. By this point in my life, my heart was so heavy.
I continued my job that I was great at. I loved each of those children like they were my own. I kept saying to myself that God brought me down this road because he wanted me in daycare. He wanted a special person taking care of those babies. A bond was formed with every child I had, and when it was time for them to move rooms, it was hard for me to let them go. I could not take this heartache. I knew that God gave me this experience in life for a reason, but it was up to me to find out exactly what it was. Why did my life take a completely different route than I ever expected for myself? I wanted to find out.
I prayed every night for an opportunity in life that didn’t cause me heartache. I wanted my life to be different. After about a month I lost my job. That was a shocker, considering I was amazing at my job. I had not done anything wrong. I had no idea what I was going to do. My husband had lost his job, and my income was the only income coming in. It was not for me to figure out. God was going to answer my prayers; he works in mysterious ways. I realized right then, on that very day, that God knew what he was doing all along. God was molding me, maturing me. Because of my experiences, my heart grew one-hundred times bigger. Daycare taught me patients and compassion. My experiences in life and in daycare have taught me everything I will need to be a nurse. I knew that it was finally my time to experience my dreams. It wasn’t that God didn’t want me to be a nurse; it’s that he wanted me to develop more. I was going to do this! The same day I lost my job I came to USCU and applied for the nursing program. I got my acceptance letter a few weeks later. All of my children were going to be in school this year and I knew this was my time. Nothing was going to stop me. I registered for my classes, and am here today. I know I am going to do wonderful in school. I want to be able to help others, and share my compassion with them. I have learned that life is a roller coaster; it’s never ending. There are breaks in between, but it continues. Life continues. And God is good!
