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78 UMKC L. Rev. 1019 (2009-2010)
Two Pink Lines

handle is hein.journals/umkc78 and id is 1027 raw text is: TWO PINK LINES © Melissa N. Anderson* Two pink lines. That's how I started my first year of law school. I was pregnant. As I attempted to process the information my mental flow was interrupted by a loud knock on the bathroom door, Mom! Maggie hit me in the face! followed directly by my little defendant yelling back It was an accident! I did a quick calculation in my head and realized that I would be due to give birth to my sixth child one week before final exams in the spring of my 1 L year. I promptly peed my pants. My husband Jared and I had just moved our entire family, including five children ranging in age from six and a half years to nine months old, from Arizona to Texas. Jared was a non-commissioned officer in the Army and had requested to be sent to San Antonio for three years because it was one of only a handful of Army bases located in the same city as a law school. I had exactly three years to finish law school or my family would be separated. A pregnancy in my first year was not enough to make me take the year off given the sacrifices that my family had already made. Besides, I was firmly of the opinion that my husband and I could raise our little family while I attended graduate school at the same time, and do well at both. That would have worked out fine had the military not had other plans. My first class on my first day was Property I, taught by a professor with magnificent white hair that only a seasoned lawyer could have earned the right to wear in public. His pot-bellied stature and slow Southern drawl would have lulled me right to sleep with the rest of the class, except that I had a nasty case of morning sickness and needed to skip less-than merrily from the room to avoid puking on his bundle of sticks. While I loomed over the toilet, trying to keep my hair out of my own vomit, I couldn't help but think, Who cares? It's just a silly fox. I learned early that my law school experience was vastly different from those of my classmates. While many had ample time to study late in the library or go drinking on the weekends, I spent my nights bathing children and my weekends studying on a park bench while my children played with daddy. I studied contracts at my kitchen table while teaching my oldest how to subtract, my youngest to stop licking the window, and the three in between that high- heeled shoes are not for whacking each other in the spine. I stole precious study moments reading my children to sleep at night from Learning Civil Procedure. Old Dittfurth sure could write a bed time story. I must admit that I did have one breakdown. One solitary, all-out breakdown. My husband came home early, unusual for a soldier, and gave me the dreaded one liner, We need to talk. The world, and law, stood still for a single moment. He had orders for Iraq and would be leaving the next semester. I put aside my studies for a moment, just a moment, to explain to five sets of wondering eyes what war is and why daddy was going there. Attempting to explain war to a child was more difficult than explaining the Rule Against Perpetuities to a law student. And both tend to cause a great amount of tears. . St Mary's School of Law, San Antonio, TX. I would like to thank my supportive husband and our beautiful, crazy children. I would not be where I am without you.

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