I immediately stopped drinking, something I had become accustomed to doing every weekend. I forced myself to quit smoking cigarettes, which I had been doing since I was 12. I didn't even think about taking another pill, which I had done occasionally since my mother died. I didn't want to let anything hurt my baby. The next thing I did was try to re-enroll in school. That school year they dropped me for missing too many days. I decided that going to school wasn't as important as getting a few extra hours of sleep. I gave up. Even after pleading with counselors and telling them my situation, the school wouldn't let me start mid-year. I couldn't start until next school year. I would have been a sophomore in my senior year and would not have been able to finish school before my daughter was born. This made me angry. My daughter would be less than a month old when I was supposed to start school. How could I leave her? I thought about not going. How difficult would it be for me to get a GED? My boyfriend quickly put that idea aside. He explained to me that I had to get my diploma. He wanted both of our son's parents to have college degrees. I wouldn't take the easy way out. We managed to find a nice apartment in Ottawa. I paid a little over 6 months rent upfront with the settlement money I received from a car accident. After I used most of it