Raising a child while chasing a dream

Listen to this article

My wife graduated from the nursing anesthesia program she has been working through for the past three years. She’s been graduated for three weeks now and it’s become clear with hindsight how difficult that was while raising our child, but also how much stronger we are because of it.

She got accepted into the program a few months after we found out she was pregnant with Arden. There were no questions about whether she would accept or not … just questions about how difficult it might be. The answer was harder than we expected now that we’re looking back on it from a point of freedom.

The last two years specifically meant clinical wake ups at 4 a.m., academic work in between, weekends away for school obligations, financial stress, and just a general feeling of an unsustainable lifestyle. But throughout the celebration the last few weeks, we’ve also had a chance to reflect on the ways that making it through this program as a family has made us stronger.

The confidence in us as a family unit to communicate with and compensate for each other has never been higher. This is definitely the most difficult trial my wife has undergone individually, but for us as a family too. I know she’s felt the strain of all of the different roles she had to maintain throughout, my confidence in her as a mother and a partner have never been higher.

Looking back at all the articles I’ve written throughout that period, I’m proud that, despite how difficult it was, we still managed to be happy and to enjoy our time as parents. We carry those memories into this new era knowing that things will be even better now that we have a less intensive lifestyle.

With parenting specifically, we’ve learned a lot about raising our son during an objectively difficult period of parenting while concurrently being in one of the hardest periods of our lives. Our son is now more resilient in a lot of ways and the time we spend without thinking about tomorrow together now seems like a genuine gift.

I’ve been able to share with my son just how proud of mom we are. I’ve been able to show our son how to display and convey those things. I’ve been able to tell him how important it is to be strong and considerate in a family unit like this.

When he’s older and he doesn’t remember any of this, we can still use this time we remember as a lesson. My wife worked hard to get to where she is right now. She pushed herself and took steps that got her to where she wanted to be. She wanted something and made it happen. There is a lot my son can learn from this period in all stages of his life.

I am thankful my wife trusted my parenting abilities enough to help support our family through this stage. I am glad she felt supported by the things I did to help her get through. I am proud of her for staying so strong for our family. I am happy she’s done. We have a lot of big plans for this summer and we are looking forward to all of them.