When I was applying for vet school two years ago, it seemed like every application and every interviewer wanted to know what had been my greatest challenge in my life/career and how I overcame it. To be honest, I never really had a go-to answer. I went with whatever popped in my head first. Never did I imagine that my greatest challenge would come in the form of an 8lbs 12oz, 21.5in-long bundle of cuteness two years later!

Motherhood, in general, is the most beautiful challenge anybody could ever be blessed with. When I gave birth, I was one week away from starting my second year of veterinary school. My son was premature, and we both nearly died during labor.

To say the birth of my son was traumatic seems like the understatement of the century. It's hard to imagine the fear my husband, Kyle, felt when my son, Keyth, was whisked away by an army of neonatal specialists to be treated in the NICU for severe respiratory distress and hypotonia. As Kyle left with Keyth, I mustered just enough strength to text my mom. Little did I know that sending my desperate "Hey Mom, are you here yet? Can you come back here?" could have been the last thing I ever did. My mom still can't talk about what happened over the next few hours. Thankfully for me, I don't remember much, and thankfully for my husband, I was doing much better by the time he returned in a panic from NICU. 

I wish I could end my story here. I wish I could say that we all left the hospital a happy family of 3 in 2 days as expected. But even after all that, the hardest thing I have ever had to do was not delivering my son after 36 hours of labor and multiple failed epidurals. It was not fighting for my life postpartum. It was leaving that hospital after six days without my son.

I spent the next five weeks of my life returning to that hospital every morning and leaving every night without him. My son was trapped in "baby jail" and we could not break him out! His battle was not one of fighting for his life (thankfully), but fighting to overcome the severe pain that feeding caused him. I will never forget the day of my first exam during third semester. I was spending my morning in NICU (day 27 in a row), waiting for the doctors to make their rounds. I had just finished begging Keyth to finish his bottle with no luck, again, when the doctors finally showed up. I talked them in circles, again, about the fact that we had made no real progress since yesterday. The nurse started Keyth’s feeding through his nasogastric tube via syringe driver, and Keyth began screaming bloody murder. I was hysterical, my son was in agony, and the nurse was looking at us dumbfounded. The doctors finally realized that my husband and I were not idiots. They demanded that his force feeding be stopped. Kyle and I did know what we were talking about. Feeding my son was like exposing him to slow torture for survival.

After they helped me calm him down and I had pulled myself together, I called my husband and begged him to come to the hospital in lieu of sleeping after working third shift so that I could go take my exam at 12:45. I did not want to leave my son with strangers after the terrible morning. 

Needless to say, that exam was awful—as were the other two I had that same week and another three the following week. I "studied" while surrounded by beeping machinery between doctor visits, feedings, and my son going through numerous reflux and GI tests. Out of those six exams, I think I managed to scrape by with a passing grade on two.

Around day 30, we resorted to begging to be trained in whatever skills necessary so we could break our son free from this “baby jail” and go home. They had run every test possible, he was on C-Lansoprazole (Prevacid) for his severe acid reflux and erythromycin for his slow gastric emptying. There was nothing left to do, but wait and pray he would start eating. That we could get him passed his food aversions on our own in the comfort of our home. After 37 days, we finally got to go home! Kyle and I had to be trained to place an NG tube in our five-week-old son, and after successful placement on our first try, we were out of there! Never did I dream my first NG placement would be in my own infant. We set up to do his tube feedings at home, and we were determined to get this little man to eat. Two weeks later, we pulled the NG tube for the last time!

It was around this time that I decided—with the loving help and support of my professors and CVM staff—that it was time to admit defeat and sign an extended curriculum contract that would allow me to drop half my current classes and continue "half-time" over the next two years. This decision was hard, and I struggled for weeks to make it.

However, I can now say that this decision was the right choice. My stress level dropped drastically after I signed my name on that dotted line. I left Dr. Funk's office with a true smile on my face for the first time in months. I took on the rest of the semester with a new determination and hope. I can say that I succeeded! I earned my best semester GPA to-date. 

Being a parent while in vet school is anything but easy. But I did it. I'm doing it. If being a vet is your dream, too, know that whether you encounter extraordinary hardships while parenting or not, you could pick no better school than MSU to help you face them. 

Please, also know that many students before me have had children during a semester and never missed a beat, and I am positive that many after me will do the same. This applies to any and all hardships that you may face during school. 

I have never felt so much love and support from such a large amount of people as I did during this whole process. I will forever be grateful for the people that helped me make this decision and dealt with my unbelievable stubbornness and determination. 

Without my CVM family, I can honestly say my dream to be a veterinarian would not be coming true. I'm so proud to be among the several members of our "parent student group.” We all have to make some serious sacrifices every day that aren't easy. Do we spend the evening studying for tomorrow's exam and away from our children? Or do we spend the evening with our children we haven't seen all day and lose the hours of studying?

There’s a saying that raising a child takes a village. I say that raising a family while in vet school takes three villages! It takes a village of support and love from your family and loved ones. It takes a village of caring classmates to help you in any way they can. And it takes a village of faculty and staff standing behind you. I am proud to say that the MSU College of Veterinary Medicine fights for me!