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My Autobiography

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Submitted By vbrooks1
Words 1924
Pages 8
Victoria Brooks
English 101, Section 02
June 17th, 2014
“Personal Literacy Autobiography”
(Edited for a better grade, fixing all grammar you edited)

I know the definition of a literate person is being able to read and write. If that’s what we are really writing about here, that would be rather boring. You would be reading autobiography after autobiography about how students learned to read and write in Kindergarten or pre-school. Clearly that is not what you are looking for. I have learned over years of writing classes, literacy is so much more than being able to read and write. Being literate also involves being able to write down every thought and feeling, in hopes to perhaps give the reader chills. They feel so into it like it is their own thought or their own feeling. Also, being a strong literate person, to me, is going into a horrible situation and coming out 10 times stronger and more motivated. Personally, I do not really have a list of individuals that made a big enough significance in my life to change it. Well, no one except my daughter. I believe my Daughter, Sophia, made me a more literate person. Having her was a huge, meaningful event that shaped me into who I am today. It all started summer of 2012. I had just graduated high school that June. I knew I had to go to college, but wasn’t really that into it. I just knew that it had to happen because my mom and grandma had always said I had to go to college to get anywhere in life. The summer I graduated I didn’t really go wild or party hard like everyone else had. The craziest thing I did was go to a club called “Pulse Nightclub”. Summer flew by and August was just around the corner, so I applied at NKU. I decided to go into the nursing program because once again my mom and grandma said I had to. I ended up not having a high enough GPA to get into the program. I took some general education classes to work on getting my GPA up to get into the nursing program. Around August 1st, I was feeling odd and just brushed it off. August 4th a friend had convinced me to take a pregnancy test, so I did. At first it said negative, but when I went back to it, it had changed to positive. That was the scariest moment of my life, or so I thought. I shared with my family over the next couple weeks, and found out I was exactly 6 weeks and 4 days along. I was determined to get through college now. I had a child on the way. My grandma was very disappointed though, she constantly said things like, “Your life is over! You need to just get an abortion! Don’t you realize being a fresh new college student you are not going to be able to experience college life like you’d like?!” She did not know what she was saying…she didn’t realize what an abortion was. (I looked up a video on what an abortion is, she cried after knowing what it was. So, even my grandma, at age 58, was still becoming more and more literate as time goes by) None of that really mattered to me though. Honestly it hadn’t really hit that I was really pregnant yet.
Around 8 weeks pregnant, my lower, right leg started to swell. I just brushed it off at first. I assumed it was just water weight. Then it started to throb and have shooting pains shoot through it every time I put even the slightest pressure on it. When this started happing I went to urgent care because I had thought I pulled something or maybe even fractured something somehow. Nope. They told me I had a blood clot. I wasn’t sure what that was really or how bad it was. I then called my mom as I left urgent care, “Hey urgent care said I need to go to the hospital to be checked out, they think I have a blood clot in my lower leg.” The response I got back wasn’t so calm and was rather frantic, “OH MY GOD! Are you sure? They said blood clot? ‘John you need to watch Brylan, I need to take Victoria to the hospital, and they think it’s a blood clot!’ “
Blood Clot: in easier understood terms a mass of blood cells that have gotten caught on the tissue inside of your blood vein. As more and more blood cells build up, it blocks the vein and turns into a clot. Only way to get rid of a blood clot is surgery or blood thinners. Blood thinners shrink the clot down to nothing so that none of the clot gets dislodged and moves. If you are too late and a clot gets dislodged and moves on its own, it goes to 1 of 3 places. Your heart, lungs or your brain. Either place it goes to, you will die instantly. At this point, I’m pregnant, emotional, and by the way she reacted I started crying. We went to the hospital, they confirmed the blood clot and treatment started right away. Two shots daily, once every 12 hours. After that it felt like my pregnancy was dragging on. On top of all that bad news, they tell me it is not recommended to drive or do much physical activity for a month of starting the shots. So, yepp, you got it, there goes college. FLOOP right out the window. At least for now that is. I messaged my professors at the time explaining what had happened and if there was any way I can do all the work from home and of course they all said no. I was too far into my semester to drop the course without it hurting my grades. I had to withdraw with an F in all my courses.
Months passed, the clot had thankfully disappeared. I was still considered high risk, the clot could come back at any time. Therefore, the hospital said when it was time, they would induce me. They wanted to make sure I was off blood thinners for 24 hours before going into labor. Finally, the hospital calls me and says we have to schedule my induction time and date. April 8th, at 6:30am. My mom, grandma, boyfriend and I all packed up and headed off to the hospital. It felt like I was in labor FOREVER. They broke my water at 8am, April 8th. Finally after many different techniques of trying to get my stubborn child to be born, she arrived April 9th, at 1:52am. That first moment I saw her, I held her, I was numb. Numb to it all. Was this really it? Is this how I am supposed to feel? Aren’t I supposed to cry or something in joy? I kept repeating these questions in my head as I held her. I felt horrible and couldn’t understand why I felt this way. I was so excited to meet her, for her to be here, in my arms finally, and now that she was…..I wanted her back in my belly…. Oddly I struggled with this for quite some time. The whole first two months. Every time I held her, changed her, or fed her, I’d look into her little blue eyes, at her tiny round face, and thought I know I love you, but I don’t want you. I would look at her and cry, not because I was happy, but because I was afraid….of her, of being alone with her. What’s wrong with me? Why do I feel this way? I AM SUPPOSED TO LOVE AND WANT HER UNCONDITIONALLY! But I don’t…. the whole first two months these thoughts tortured me. They made me feel horrible. I knew I wasn’t supposed to feel this way about my daughter, my baby! I shared these feelings with my mom the first couple weeks and she explained postpartum depression to me. My grandma kept telling me to give my rights away to my mom. It was a very hard, long two months, but we made it through thankfully. We are closer than ever now. Now you’d never even be able to tell I use to have issues with bonding with her. She adores me as I do her. Sophia is my little best friend and a VERY big mommy’s girl for sure.
August of 2013 rolled around and I felt I was ready to go back to school. I felt that I needed to go to some kind of fast paced school or trade school. I have a child now, I don’t have time to waste taking whatever classes. I need in, out, get my degree done! At least that’s what I thought. About three months into the nursing program I realized something. Nursing wasn’t for me, I wasn’t sure what was for me, but this wasn’t it. So, once again, I dropped out of college. At this point I felt like a complete failure. Dropping out of two colleges and I had a baby? What was I going to do? I felt horrible. I had a lot of family support though. After a few weeks of thinking about it hard, I realized I would just go undeclared until I could figure out what I was going to do. Around March, 2014, I started looking back into NKU and to see if since I had dropped out if it was even possible to get back in. Thank god they said it was possible, there was just a lot of paper work to do for my “failed” classes. Now, here I am, taking summer courses. Just taking my general education classes. I realized hey I am only 20 years old, I have my whole life ahead of me, just because I have a child does not mean I can’t take my time and get the education I want to get, become whatever it is I want to become! I am now more determined than ever to further myself in becoming more and more literate for my daughter, even though I think she made me plenty enough literate. A lot more than when I was in high school at least. About now, you are probably thinking to yourself, what does any of this have to do with making me more of a literate person? Well, here is your answer, you asked “What is literate to you?” Literate to me, as stated above, is being able to coming out of an enormous, life changing event a better, even stronger person. Being a literate person is more than reading and writing. Being a literate person is being able to express yourself through written words. Being able to have everything flow nicely together. Being able to get your written word across to other people! Being a literate person is being able to get your life changing story out there, all written down for anyone to read! Now you know, you know a story about me that changed my life for the better. Now you know some of what hardships I have been through and faced. You now know I have battled depression and conquered. Most importantly though, you now know my thoughts of a literate person and why I feel that I am a better, more literate person than I was summer of June 2012.

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