Step by Step Parenting

There’s this saying about law school amongst lawyers that goes something like this:

The first year, they scare you to death.

The second year, they work you to death.

The third year, they bore you to death.

My first year of law school absolutely scared me to death; I wrote all about that first year already (read more here).

And the fact that I’m just now sitting down to write about my second year a week after my third year has begun is a direct result of the fact that yes, my second year, I definitely worked myself to death.

But… with one small caveat.

Well, I guess two.

Since I already wrote about the first half of my 2L year, when I was pregnant with twins the whole time (read more here), today, I’m just going to focus on the second half of the story. It starts in January, at the start of winter semester, when I am 32 weeks pregnant, and ends in August, when my twins turned six months old.

Winter Semester

After spending winter break moping about my grades and failing the MPRE, I was ready to hit the ground running once a new semester started in January. I guess hit the ground waddling might be more accurate, but either way, I was ready!

I had been planning the logistics of this semester since the moment I had found out I was pregnant back in July. I told the school’s Dean of Academic Affairs I was pregnant before I told my own mother (sorry, mom) because I was that worried about making it work.

The semester started the first week of January, and finals were March 17th and 18th. I would have been 40 weeks pregnant on March 1st. The conundrum with twin pregnancies, though, is they almost never go to 40 weeks. Because my pregnancy was technically in the high-risk category, my OB/GYN actually wanted to induce at 38 weeks. But tons of twin moms I had spoken with didn’t even make it that far, with most of them giving birth any time after 30 weeks.

So yeah, I was pretty nervous to start a whole new semester at 32 weeks pregnant. It took the phrase, “they could come any day now!” to a WHOLE new level.

Coming up with an accommodations plan with the school was a little bit of a nightmare. How do you plan to accommodate something when you have basically zero idea of a timeline? And I wasn’t even sure whether I would need a C-section, so that alone already calls for two very different plans. We ended up with a Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, all the way to Plan G, and I just tried not to think about it. Was I stressed about all of the unknowns? Absolutely. Was there anything I could do about it? Nope.

I was really excited about my courseload, so I just threw myself into that. I had Constitutional Law with one of my favorite professors, and Family Law with another one of my favorite professors, as well as one online class. I genuinely enjoyed studying for each class, which made it easier to push through the semester while my whole body was basically begging me to just lay down. The walk from my car to school was only a few blocks, but even that short walk got progressively harder as time went on. For the entirety of the semester, my bump measured well beyond the size of a typical 40-week pregnancy bump, so everything was a struggle, from showering to getting out of bed to putting on shoes. One thing I could do, though? Lay in bed and study.

When I was around 34 weeks pregnant, my medical team and I began to grow unsure if I would actually make it to 38 weeks. I would often have an onset of labor symptoms, go to L&D to be monitored for hours, and most of the time, there were actually measurable contractions. We always reached the same conclusion, though: I could stay and have labor induced, or go home and rest to try and let the babies develop as much as possible. The doctor’s words after one of these episodes were literally, “Stay horizontal as much as possible.” I (of course) asked if I could still walk to school and attend classes, and he basically said yes, but that’s it.

Around 36 weeks pregnant, I was at the OB/GYN when my blood pressure reading was so high, that they wanted me to drive over to L&D to be admitted. My hospital bag was already in my car, where it had been for weeks, but I was still caught off guard and started crying. I didn’t feel ready to go to the hospital right then, alone, and my husband wouldn’t be able to make it for over an hour. I asked the doctor if I could go to my Constitutional Law midterm review session first. I had taken my midterm the week before, and would have no idea what my score was unless I went to this review session. The doctor just looked at me incredulously while I swore up and down that it wouldn’t take long, before she agreed that yes, I could go, but then I had to go to the hospital.

I rushed into the review session, grabbed my score sheet, and took a seat, delighted by what I saw: I had done really, really well on the midterm! That grade meant more to me than just an A on a test; it was confirmation that my previous semester of law school didn’t define me. Pregnancy had taken its toll on me, yes, but now that I was feeling better, I was also able to study better, and the correlation was obvious. Elated, I reported to the hospital as instructed, where after hours of monitoring, I was told that everything was fine and sent home. I circled back with my ConLaw professor later and joked that the review session had healed me.

The Twins’ Birthday!

By some miracle, I made it all the way to my induction date. Kevin and I had to report to the hospital at midnight, so I knew that right off the bat, we weren’t going to be getting much sleep. I read for ConLaw the night before, put my reading in my hospital bag around 11:00pm, and then we drove to the hospital, assigned readings in tow and all.

The whole birth process could not have gone any better. It honestly felt like some sort of fever dream! Even now, over six months later, I’m still in disbelief at how smoothly everything went (read more here). However, even though the twins did not need any time in the NICU, they were still so small, and the doctors wanted to monitor them carefully before sending us home. This meant that we were held hostage asked to stay at the hospital for four extra days after I gave birth. The first day or so was a whirlwind, but by the end of the second day, I was ready to go home. Thankfully, I had brought my laptop and some homework, so I got right to work.

On Wednesday, February 25th, two days after the twins were born, I emailed all of my professors to let them know that everything had gone exactly according to plan and everyone was doing well. I told them that I would be able to attend class via Zoom the following Monday, and asked for the links needed to attend class. Looking back as I write this, I’m a little in disbelief… like girl, maybe sleep??? Huh? Why was I worried about trying to go to class less than a week after I gave birth?!? It’s a little comical, but that’s just who I am, and this had been the plan from the second I found out I was pregnant. With that, I ordered some cheeseburgers from the hospital cafeteria and began my reading on equal protection.

A good friend had agreed to take notes for me in ConLaw, so in addition to being able to tune in virtually, I also got detailed, typed notes after every class. This was especially helpful because I was home alone with newborn twins while class was on, so I sometimes had to step away and, you know, mother. The notes he took for me helped fill in any gaps, and between that and having what felt like unlimited time to do readings because I never slept, I actually stayed caught up pretty well.

Within a few days, I decided to exclusively pump (read more here) and my husband took over all of the night feeds. We fell into a nice (exhausting painful grueling) rhythm of waking up every two or three hours, me setting up with my pump and my readings, and him prepping bottles and going to the nursery. Afterwards, we would take turns washing the pump and bottles, and then in a couple of hours, we would do it all again. I eventually just kept my stack of textbooks and a jar of highlighters on my nightstand, and I frequently answered emails between three and five o’clock in the morning. Again, this is one of those things where I look back and think, What the f*ck?!, but also, what else was I supposed to do? It’s not like I could sleep!!

Three weeks and one day after the twins were born, I went back to in-person school to take my ConLaw final and Advanced Torts final on the same day. Side note: apparently if you have three finals within 24-ish hours of each other, you can email someone at the school and have them moved around. My mind was obviously elsewhere, so the thought didn’t occur to me until it was too late. Three finals over two days sucks!! Don’t recommend!! BUT, it was so, so nice to go to school. To wear clothes that weren’t maternity clothes. To see my friends. Honestly, just to leave my house.

Thirty minutes into that first final, though… phew. The room was quiet, no one needed me, and it hit me like a brick that I hadn’t slept more than three hours straight since I gave birth. It was so hard to stay awake that I rushed through the exam just to make sure that I didn’t fall asleep. I can’t remember how many questions were on the final, but I do remember that I finished in under two hours and was the first one done with the exam.

After that, I had to rush down to the library to take my second final of the day. This one could just be taken from my laptop, so I had booked a study room with curtains over the window so that I could pump and take the final at the same time. Because I was only three weeks postpartum, I was having to pump every three hours, so I had to plan around my finals accordingly.

The school offered, several times, to allow me to take my finals online. Looking back, maybe I should have accepted that offer. But I was lucky enough to have an extremely easy and uncomplicated birth, one I healed very quickly from. Taking finals in person helped me keep my testing environment as normal as possible. Every final for all of law school, I eat the same breakfast, wear the same outfit, and have the same test-day routine. So much of my second year of law school had been out of my control and not what I had wanted, so to be able to take finals the same way everyone else did honestly felt amazing. Sure, it was the longest I had been apart from my babies since they were born, but they were okay and so was I. In a way, it was great practice for the next big challenge of my 2L year: residency.

Returning to Work at 5 Weeks Postpartum

My school has a residency program that every student participates in during the 2L year. There is a matching process that takes place at the beginning of the year, and every student is matched with a law firm, judge, attorney, or nonprofit, where they will work for an entire semester. Back in the fall, I had matched with a medical malpractice firm downtown, and my start date was March 30th, just five weeks after the twins were born.

I would have to be at work from roughly 9am to 4pm, Monday through Thursday, for ten weeks. On top of that, I also had a class at school Friday mornings. All of this meant that I needed a pretty complex childcare plan to make sure that I could be where I needed to be. My mom, my husband, my friends, and family friends all pitched in to help. I never, ever, ever would have made it work without them.

Before residency, I was pretty nervous. I had never met these people, and I shouldn’t have, but I felt awkward being like, “Hey, nice to meet you! I’m Megan! Where can I pump?” The babies drank exclusively breastmilk, so I was a little worried about being apart from them for so long every day.

Despite my fears, residency could not have gone any better. It went so well, in fact, that I began to hate school because I would rather be at work. When I was at school, I was unsure whether I was learning the law well or if I’d make a good lawyer. The nature of law school causes most students to be extremely competitive and compare themselves to one another, and I was no exception to that. Ever since my first year, I was constantly worried that I wasn’t good enough. But at work, I was able to draft demand letters, discovery, briefs, and full complaints. I interviewed and spoke with clients, helped prepare for depositions and trials, and debated different legal strategies with everyone else on the team. I loved every single aspect of the work, and it was the perfect confidence-booster I needed after an otherwise rough year. I still struggled with postpartum brain fog, but it felt much more manageable at work than at school for some reason.

A few weeks into residency, we finally got our grades back for winter semester. I had prepared myself for the worst, especially after how fall semester went. I reminded myself that I gave birth to two humans mere weeks before finals, and took that final off of almost no sleep. Then, I opened my grades.

I HAD DONE GREAT!!! To this day, I’m still baffled that I did better the semester I gave birth than the semester where I was pregnant, but that just goes to show how much I hate and struggle with pregnancy. But the grades were amazing, and I was elated!!! I felt like I had pulled off the impossible.

My brain was working.

I wasn’t dumb.

I was still capable of learning.

I was beyond capable.

And I was going to be okay.

I spent the rest of spring semester throwing myself into work while still trying to keep up in my one class. In my mind, I just needed to get through the last few weeks, and then I would have the summer to rest. I knew it would be my last summer “off,” because once I got a job, I would be working full-time, so I planned to spend as much time with my babies while they were small as possible. I didn’t have a summer internship lined up, and I was only enrolled for one class. By all accounts, I was set up for a fairly relaxing summer. So of course, I had to change that!

The Least Relaxing Summer Ever

I hadn’t planned on my residency being turned into a summer internship. I had assumed when the ten weeks were up, that we’d all say goodbye and they would breathe a sigh of relief that the office yapper was gone. But instead, I was invited to stay for the summer, working the same hours but as an intern instead of a resident.

I hadn’t known that I was going to stay at the firm over the summer when I registered for summer classes, though, so I had already registered for two classes: Secured Transactions in the first summer semester, and Medical Malpractice in the second summer semester. Before my internship was even offered, my academic advisor had cautioned me from taking two summer classes. These classes were only four weeks long, instead of the usual ten to twelve weeks, so they kind of feel like trying to drink out of a fire hose. My advisor, cognizant of the fact that I had two newborns at home, was worried that the intense, back-to-back classes would be too much to handle. She was probably right, but I did it anyway… on top of preparing to take the MPRE again in August.

My husband is the hero of the summer story, though, not me. He changed his work hours so that he could be home every day with the twins, which allowed me to go to work. It wasn’t easy to get home from work and immediately say goodbye to Kevin, who would go to work until nearly eleven o’clock at night. We were like ships passing in the night, and it was really hard. That’s still our schedule, and it’s still hard. But I’m forever thankful for a partner who would bend over backward to help me chase my dreams. We both know that law school is only a season, and if I succeed, our family succeeds.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

As summer drew to a close, I started to freak out about going back to school. My mental health had declined sharply once August hit, likely due to weaning and also being six months postpartum, and I wasn’t feeling like myself. At this point, I was really comfortable at work and loved spending my days with my coworkers, and my evenings with my family. But I wasn’t ready to head back to campus. Underlying my desire to just crawl into bed and never go to school, there was fear. I was worried that even though it was my last semester, and there’s not much that could go wrong, that something would go wrong anyways. I worried that I wasn’t cut out for full-time school. After all, my last “normal,” full-time semester was the Fall 2025 semester, and that went… terribly. What if this fall was a repeat of last fall? I wondered.

I’m only a week into my 3L year, so the jury is still out. My boss did offer me a part-time position at the firm until I take the bar in February, and escaping to work every few days has been exactly what I needed. But classes have also been great, too. As nervous as I am about grades and graduation and the bar — just like the rest of my classmates — I’m also trying to soak up my last semester of law school ever. I am looking forward to getting an actual paying job, having no more homework, and not constantly thinking, I should be studying right now once I graduate. But in a weird way, I am going to really miss law school, too. The end of law school will mark the end of a huge chapter in my life.

But that’s a story for another day. For now, my eyes are set on February 23rd.

The day I take the North Carolina Bar Exam.

The day the twins turn one year old.

That’s right: the same day.

Because of course it is.