Yes!

YES yes yes!!!  I'm so dang excited, I could hardly shut up last night and fall asleep because I kept talking to Jose about what we were researching all day... online graduate degree programs!!!!  I can't wait to be a student again!!!
My heart is about to burst from the excitement.  Let me begin by saying that in undergrad, I changed my major 5 times.  Yes, FIVE!  I feel like I didn't quite fit anywhere.  I wanted to be an elementary school teacher, but I also loved to write.  So I did English and minored in Applied Learning and Development, and figured I could become a teacher later.  
Then... I had kids.  That was not a setback or an inferior choice.  In fact, I'm glad I had them because I don't think I would've really figured things out without them.  After having Mirabel, I tossed around the idea of going on to study child development a bit more.  Maybe become a school counselor.  I really loved all of my child development classes/labs.  I've also wanted to open up a bakery, a gluten-free one.  But at the end of the day, I wouldn't feel right just baking cakes and cookies all day.  Yes, baking desserts for people can make the world a happier place, temporarily... still wasn't feeling it all the way, though.  And, hey, I may do it later on in life, but...
HB2 happened.  Not only that, but I've always been very passionate about many of the issues behind it.  In middle school/high school, I would visit care pregnancy centers with my mom, sometimes we'd volunteer.  I've wanted to counsel there for years.  In college, I looked into becoming a counselor there...but then other things came up.  The desire to help has always been there, and lately that desire has become more of an, "I need to do this, no excuses!" type of thing.  After HB2, I knew I couldn't make anymore excuses.
There are going to be a lot more babies born into a variety of difficult circumstances.  My favorite quote comes to mind,  "It is easier to build strong children than repair broken men" (Frederick Douglas).  What else comes to mind?  So many other horrific events that have happened lately, all related to the break down of family and insecure parental attachments, maybe not in obvious ways but definitely related.  From the heartbroken mothers on "I'm Having Their Baby," who can't keep their babies because they have no familial support system, and who find themselves struggling because their own parental relationships were likely not where they should be... to boys brainwashed by terrorism, whose mothers are not who they should be, or where she should be.  (I read that Rolling Stone article, and it has break down of family written all over it, definitely among other things.)  
All of this, yes all of it, coupled with the convictions stirred up after reading the book I mentioned in my last post... Not to mention, a study that Jose discussed with me that was brought up in a different book he is reading.  It's a study that mentions how children can grow up psychologically stable in spite of difficult extenuating circumstances if the attachments with their mothers are secure (a mothers role is so much more important that society thinks!).
And I won't get over the fact that I have been blessed and spared myself--can't ignore the motivating force behind a personal testimony.    
Have you ever felt like everything was pointing you in a certain direction?  Or I should say that God was just showing you so many things, all related to the one thing you just can't ignore anymore?  That's how I feel right now.  And I'm not scared anymore, that's how I know it's the right thing to do.There will be Math (ahhh, yikes!  My brain was not made for it).  There will be tears; late nights; tests.  There will be situations that I cannot improve--all of these situations I will have to leave in God's hands.  I will say, though, he has made a way and will make a way.  
We've done research over the weekend, and I think we've found the right program.  To sum up future plans, basically I will get my MA in Marriage and Family therapy, then I will find a way to get an internship that specializes in child-parent psychotherapy (CPP).  I will be doing this over the course of the next four years (because I will be going at a snail's pace, still taking care of my kiddos ;)... and one day, I hope to do a few other things, but for now I'm just embarking on the first step of this adventure by enrolling in a statistics class. (Please keep me in your prayers!!!  Thankfully my hubby is a math wiz, so I've got a great tutor that I can pay in cookies. ;)  (I know stats may not be a big deal to some, but, seriously, if you know me...you KNOW this is a big step for a math weenie like me. ;)