When I graduated from high school there was of course the big question: what to DO with my life? It’s the quintessential high school graduate dilemma. I ended up choosing computers, something that I had a passion for and seemed to have many good options for careers down the line. I got myself a Bachelors degree in Computer Information Systems.

And then I immigrated to the United States. If you know anything about immigration, you know that you’re not allowed to work for a good long period while they process your (multiple, quadruplicate, ad-nauseum) paperwork and finally provide you with a permanent resident card. And then we were going to have babies! Soon! It wouldn’t be worth it to get a job only to quit in a few months. (Pause a moment for a good laugh.) Plus by that point it had been over a year since I graduated, thousands of miles away from a Canadian college, and in computer speak I was already outdated. Plus computer work tends to be very… intense. Computer systems are fickle things. Suddenly computer programming wasn’t looking like such a great idea.

I couldn’t have known back in 2000 where my life would lead. It wasn’t until after we got married, until the infertility, the IVF, the pregnancies and births, that I found this passion. It’s not as if I grew up as the girl who loved babies and children – I actually wasn’t sure I ever wanted children at all, kids just weren’t my thing (pets were, however – I clearly had a very strong maternal side). I’m kind of sad I wasted 4 years on a degree I will never use, but I guess that’s the risk you take when you go to college so young. It was a learning experience, and I certainly love school, and it gave me a degree to lean back on if I ever need to, but still. I just don’t see me ever doing that. My heart isn’t in it anymore – hasn’t been for a very long time.

I’ve been doing a lot of hard thinking this past week, thinking about passions and priorities and possibilities. I started looking at alternatives to being a birth doula, like becoming a lactation consultant. But the more I think on it the more I realize that I can’t ignore this drive I have simply because there is an obstacle. Not having my parents nearby for childcare is unfortunate and does make things harder. But who am I to give up at that? Sometimes you need to fight for what you want. Life doesn’t serve you perfection on a platter. I think I spent a lot of time in prior years waiting for a career to fall into my lap, waiting for that perfect job to come along and bite me on the ass. Well that’s not how my life works. I had to bust my ass to get pregnant and bring home a child – but I did it, because it was worth it, because I was passionate about it. I spent remarkably little time (for me) complaining about how I couldn’t do it, I just did it. It may have been one of the first times in my life that when push came to shove I dug into my strength and just did it. (The first was probably dating and marrying my husband: 3000 miles, different countries, I was in college still, and there’s a 16 year age difference. Most everyone thought I was nuts and that was a whole lot of obstacles, but I was stubborn and determined and it was most certainly worth it.)

Not that pursuing a career is the same as getting married or doing IVF, but sometimes I need to remind myself that the things worth doing take determination and strength to accomplish. So here it is. I have found something that I believe is worth my time and energy, worth fighting for. There is a way to find childcare, and I will find it.

I am also going to be starting to take Biology classes at the local college come this fall. We talked about me taking a class last year but of course I hemmed and hawed and didn’t do it. It’s going to cost some, but it’s clear that all of my interests lie in Biology. I will need a degree in order to do pretty much anything I want to do in the future. It’s easy to talk about “the future” when it’s some far-away object, but I have to start taking steps now.