During her freshman year at San Jose State in 2016, Fatima Lopez Sandoval became pregnant but was still determined to graduate on time in 2019.
“I wanted to make sure that when I graduated, I did it with a child and with hard work and determination. [With] absolutely no [assistance],” Lopez Sandoval said. “I was never ever given extensions, I never had to make up the work. I didn’t want to feel different because my situation was already different.”
She said she knew from the beginning that she had to shrug off any prejudice or stereotypes about teen moms and demonstrate that she earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology with hard work and persistence.
“I want to make sure that I make a difference in childrens’ lives and in my own child’s life,” Lopez Sandoval said. “I want her to see that, ‘Yeah, mom graduated. Yeah, mom has an amazing job and she is doing what she wants to do.’ ”
Before giving birth to her daughter Bella, Lopez Sandoval’s mother-in-law referred her to RealOptions Obria Medical Clinic, a nonprofit clinic, where she received an ultrasound and prenatal appointments.
After giving birth in August 2016, she took the fall semester off. The following semester, RealOptions clinic contacted her to inform her of Spartan Mamas, an almost decade-old club at SJSU.
Spartan Mamas and RealOptions work together to provide student mothers with childcare resources. Lopez Sandoval said these resources helped her get through school and helped her graduate.
She was able to secure child care at SJSU in Fall 2017 through the Associated Students Child Development Center on 8th Street.
“I was just very, very glad to have had childcare at SJSU,” Lopez Sandoval said. “I was able to join clubs [such] as Spartan Mamas or other moms’ groups around campus too, so I was really able to balance out, like, my student life when I was at San Jose State, and my mom life when I
would come back home.”
Spartan Mamas is currently organized by club president Grace Perlman who was part of a similar club at her community college.
“We [Spartan Mamas] table every week, and we give out free pregnancy tests and within every packet of pregnancy tests, there’s a little coupon for [a] free ultrasound,” Perlman said. “So if [a pregnancy test] does come back positive, they’re able to go to [a RealOptions] clinic and get
a free ultrasound.”
Brianna Baxter, outreach manager for the RealOptions clinic located in The Alameda, said the nonprofit and Spartan Mamas are collaborating on a pamphlet that supplies a roadmap of different services available and how to attain them.
In addition to medical services and childcare classes, Spartan Mamas hosts events. SJSU Spartan Bookstore scholarships help relieve some of the stress that academia and motherhood engender.
“We kind of go based on what they want, what they’re craving to do,” Perlman said. “We even [have] a babysitting night where they can bring their kids, and then they can all go out and do something while we watch their kids.”
Lopez Sandoval said her identity as a student mother heavily influenced her academic pathway. Along with her sociology degree, she declared a concentration in social interactions and a minor in child and adolescent development.
She said she wants to work with student mothers in the future to help them navigate through that precarious life change.
Citing her own support system through her family and university, Lopez Sandoval acknowledged her success is not a universal story.
“Somebody else, who maybe doesn’t have the same family help and who doesn’t have a university or even a high school [which] will provide childcare, they won’t have the same outcome as me.”
Lopez Sandoval is currently unemployed because she is an undocumented resident.
“I busted my ass to obtain a good GPA standing in school, a well-deserved diploma that is just sitting there,” Lopez Sandoval said. “It’s very frustrating.”
Lopez Sandoval has been in the process of getting a U visa since her senior year of high school. The U visa is a nonimmigrant visa for people who have suffered some sort of abuse in the U.S. and are willing to assist in the investigation or prosecution of criminal activity, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
“Currently, [USCIS] is reviewing that the abuse I encountered is enough to obtain the visa,” Lopez Sandoval said. “I will know within the next few months if the evidence I provided is enough.”
She is also in the process of meeting with an academic advisor at SJSU to start her graduate education.
With recent complications because of the coronavirus pandemic, RealOptions Outreach Manager Baxter said that the medical center is still open but only has essential clinical staff on site and has had to limit some resources such as parenting and childbirth classes.
Baxter said that maternity and child care supplies are still provided during this time, but the clinic is taking precautionary measures to avoid the spread of the coronavirus.
“Right now, it just works a little bit differently,” Baxter said. “Basically, we ask patients who need those things to give us a list and then they’re pulled out and given to them so they don’t have to come all the way in the clinic.”
