A woman completed her college’s final exam while she was in labor for nearly 15 hours.
Nayzia Thomas is a 19-year-old psychology major at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas.
When her water broke on December 11, she knew that her final exam was due and had a few hours to spare as she was only two centimeters or 3/4-of-an-inch dilated. So Thomas took out her laptop and put the finishing touches on the research paper.
“After my exam was finished we kind of just walked around the hospital, did pain management and tried to just kind of relax,” she said. “That’s really all you can do when you’re waiting for a baby to be born.”
Her son, Anthony, was born at 1:30 p.m. the following day. She’d later learn that she had earned an A on the paper, finishing the semester with a 3.5 GPA.
Thomas tweeted a photo of herself finishing her final, with the caption: “My mom took this pic & it’s the perfect explanation of my life. yes i’m about to have a baby, but final season ain’t over yet.”
my mom took this pic & it’s the perfect explanation of my life. yes i’m about to have a baby, but final SZN ain’t over yet 🤓📚 pic.twitter.com/7LyrDBE9iN
— nayzia’ (@naydxll) December 12, 2017
The photo quickly went viral.
Thomas admits that school was “difficult because pregnancy is not just physical. It’s mental. It’s emotional.”
Thomas credits her mother, Aisha Kelley, with teaching her how to persevere through difficult tasks.
“It comes from watching my mom. She has lupus and she’s a single mom. Looking at my mom being able to overcome that; it’s very commendable,” Thomas said.
