I Graduated with My Baby in My Arms

I still remember that day in the dean’s office. I was four months pregnant, and the nausea had already forced me to miss two major exams.

“Miss Martínez,” said the academic coordinator without looking up from his papers, “I’ll be frank with you. This isn’t going to work. No one can be a mother and finish a degree at the same time. You have to choose.”

The floor seemed to vanish beneath me.

“But I only have six courses left…”

“Six courses is two full semesters. With a newborn.” He finally looked at me, his expression saying, be realistic. “I recommend you take an indefinite leave.”

I left his office trembling and called my mother from the hallway.

“Mom, they told me I have to leave university.”

“And what did you say?”

“Nothing. I was speechless.”

“Well, then go back and tell them they’re wrong.”

I didn’t go back that day—but I didn’t quit either.

When Santiago was born, the world became a beautiful chaos of diapers, midnight feeds, and notes stained with milk. My classmate Laura recorded lectures for me when I couldn’t attend. My neighbor, Mrs. Carmen, watched Santi for two hours every afternoon so I could study.

“How do you do it?” Laura would ask, seeing me arrive at class with dark circles under my eyes, my baby carrier still strapped on.

“There’s no alternative,” I’d reply. “Giving up is not an option.”

Some days were nearly impossible. Like the night before my Advanced Statistics exam, when Santi fell ill. I spent the entire night at the ER and went straight to the exam in wrinkled clothes, exhausted.

The professor looked at me with disapproval.

“If you need to withdraw, it’s understandable.”

“No,” I said, sitting at my desk. “I’m here to take it.”

I passed with a seven. Not my best grade—but my greatest victory.

Some professors looked at me with pity, advising me to “take it easy,” while others demanded the same from me as any other student. Those were my favorites. They didn’t want my dramatic story—they wanted my knowledge.

I wrote my thesis during Santi’s naps. Every paragraph was a small victory against exhaustion, against the voices telling me I couldn’t, and against my own doubts at three in the morning.

Two years after that day in the dean’s office, graduation arrived.

I walked into the auditorium with Santi in my arms. He was two and a half, wearing a tiny suit my mother had bought for the occasion. When they called my name, I stepped onto the stage with him.

The rector handed me my diploma and, for a moment, I saw surprise in his eyes at the sight of my child. Then he smiled.

“Congratulations, Licenciada Martínez.”

The applause started softly, then grew louder. I saw Laura crying in her seat, my mother clutching her chest, Mrs. Carmen waving a handkerchief.

I descended the stage with my diploma in one hand and my son in the other.

Outside, while everyone took pictures with their families, I ran into the academic coordinator from that day.

“Miss Martínez,” he said, and this time his tone was different, “I owe you an apology. I was wrong.”

“It’s okay,” I replied, holding Santi on my hip. “I doubted myself too. But yes, it is possible to be both a mother and a student. You just have to be stronger than you ever imagined.”

That night, as I tucked Santi into bed, he pointed to the framed diploma on the wall.

“What’s that, Mommy?”

“That, my love, is proof that when someone tells you that you can’t, they’re only describing their own limits, not yours.”

He didn’t understand, of course—he was only two. But one day, he would.

I graduated with my baby in my arms because no one would tell me what was possible. And that lesson, more than any diploma, is the one I want Santi to carry with him: obstacles exist not to stop us, but to show what we’re made of.