Attention getter (teaser): Congratulations, you’re pregnant! You’re going to be a mom! Those were the words I heard around the same time I decided I was finally going back to school 9 years after graduating high school.
Significance (why important to them?): I hope my story inspires you to not give up your dreams and goals even if at the time it seems impossible to achieve. Anything is possible if you put your mind to it.
Central idea/thesis: Two important life decisions motivated me to work harder and not give up easily.
Preview of main points: I finally decided to go back to school in the same year my husband and I decided to have a baby.
Body
First main point: My husband and decided to finally have a baby after about a year and a half of being married.
Subpoint: The excitement we felt was unexplainable and we knew our family would be equally as excited as us.
Support: After being married my husband and I knew we wanted to add to our family. We made plans of when it would be the best time. The planning of this went as far as deciding at what age it would be best to make a little addition that required work and attention. We wanted to have energy for our kids when they began to be more active in the future. The timing was important for us.
Support: In June of last year we finally found out we were going to have a baby! We couldn’t wait to share the good news with family. Immediately after finding out, we broke the good news to my husband’s family. I waited until the day after to surprise mine. It was hard to keep it a secret, so we didn’t wait to say anything! Our plans seemed to be going accordingly as planned.
Subpoint: I knew being a mom wasn’t going to be the easiest task.
Support: Although there was excitement, there were also worries. “Your life is going to change forever”, “Your priorities are going to have to change”, “It’s going to be difficult!” and “You won’t have time for yourself”. Those were just some of the things that were said to me when I announced my pregnancy to some people.
Support: I knew my life wouldn’t be the same and my priorities would have to change. I just wondered why it felt like people were trying to discourage me rather than just be happy for us. I had plans for my future self when I found out I was pregnant so everything that seemed negative made me question my future plans. I was ecstatic about my pregnancy, but it did make me wonder if I was going to be capable of achieving the goals I had set for myself. I gave birth on February 3rd, 2020 and that’s when the real journey began.
Transition: Internal summary of point I, the internal preview of point II: Being pregnant and then being a first-time mom isn’t an easy task. That same year my husband and I decided to become pregnant, I decided it was time to go after a dream and goal I had for myself.
Second main point: Becoming pregnant is already a huge decision but I decided I also wanted to become a student.
Subpoint: I became a college student a few months after becoming pregnant.
Support: Becoming a college student was something that was on my list of goals I wanted to complete. Going back to school meant that I could be proud of trying to better myself. I was taught that education was an important step if you wanted to become someone in life. Making my parents proud is also an outcome I wanted to achieve by going to college and graduating eventually.
Support: My parents immigrated to this country from Mexico to give us a better life. They have worked hard their entire lives to make sure we didn’t have to go through the same things they did. Going back to school meant that I could show them that I was grateful and thankful for them having to go through struggles to give us a nice life. There were many events in the past that set me back from even starting the process of college. I felt like I was failing.
Subpoint: Sometimes in life, you just have to take a leap of faith.
Support: Although it was something I wanted to do, I didn’t put my full focus on attending college after graduating high school. Instead, I decided that I was going to work first. One thing led to another when the thought of going to school came to mind. The “right” timing just didn’t seem to show up. Bumps in road after bumps in the road seemed to just show up when I thought of applying. Nine long years passed when I decided that enough is enough. I was going back to school no matter what and this time I was determined! It just so happens that it was the same year that my husband decided we wanted to have a baby.
Support: It was last year when I first started college. I decided to take a leap of faith that was needed. Many obstacles and many thoughts of “I can’t do this” had crept into my mind every time I wanted to go back to school. Becoming pregnant wasn’t going to stop me from achieving my goals. Being pregnant was actually a motivation to give the school a start. I want to make my baby proud one day. It was going to be hard work but nothing good in life comes easy. My thought was, “If not now, when?”. Pushing through obstacles in life is just part of the process of becoming successful.
Conclusion
Summary of main points: Going to college and being a first-time mom isn’t easy especially if it’s during the same time frame. I used to have what I like to call a weak mindset. Before starting school, I did not push myself hard enough mentally to get to where I wanted to be.
Concluding statement (pleaser): It might be hard and difficult at times but you sometimes just need to push through to reach where you want to be. Some goals might seem hard to achieve in life under certain circumstances but it’s your strong will that won’t make it impossible.