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I will be finishing my last semester in the fall and baby no. 3 is due over Thanksgiving break (I will have a week off for break, go back for a week and have 1 day of finals the following week). This will be my second LO born while in the program (my second child was also born over Thanksgiving break, so I know this set up is feasible and I would rather finish while pregnant than with 2 LO's and a NB at home). I plan on entering the RN to MSN program following my ASN completion.

It is hard....both content and time management with having a family. My husband works an off shift, so I am alone with the kids in the evenings and most weekends and rarely have time to study the way I wish I could, but I am doing well in the program. I was working, but my second neutropenic and was having frequent hospitalizations and doctors appointment, so I had to leave my job so I could always be able to take her to the hospital etc (I exhausted all of my medical leave). So now I have to manage that and school, which can be hard...in my nursing program, and I think this is sort of standard, you are not allowed to miss clinical time or can only miss so much before you fail and so many failures before you must leave the program. The grading requirements are also different. Some require a min passing grade of 75+% others I have seen are as high as 85+%. Also you want to look at how many credits you can transfer once starting the program. If you need to take some non-nursing classes you might want to do them before starting the program at a CC or something that might be cheaper. Once starting my program you are only allowed to transfer 6 credits (3 for MSN) which a lot of people didn't realize and are now stuck taking classes at our school that is really pricey (it would be half the price for them elsewhere).

I have a BS in Marine Science and Biology so for me I really only had to take my nursing courses and a few other classes that didn't overlap with my majors before (nutrition, a medical ethics class), which helped with course load and only having to focus on theory and clinical. If you are able to I would suggest a second degree BSN program as they want all RNs to hold at least a BSN by 2020, so if you have to go the ASN route you will most likely have to continue to a BSN or MSN program. Unfortunately for me there was no Second degree BSN program close enough to home with a family, so I had to go the ASN route and bridge later.

Sorry that might be all over the place. Feel free to ask me any other questions!

@maybebaby: Following this, since I am considering this as well! I've been looking at ABSN programs, so it would hopefully only take 16 months after my pre-reqs (like you, I don't have a lot of science background. I'm an English teacher). I will have two come August, so I'm not sure of our timing on this. I've decided to work next school year, and then we'll figure it out.