Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education

Stephanie receives the judgment from the child support hearing; the ruling is mostly in Jamie‘s favor. Stephanie decides she will appeal the decision, but she needs someone who can appear on her behalf. She finds a lawyer in Portland who needs a $900 retainer.

Emilia goes to spend spring break with her dad. During the night while Emilia is away, a drunk person tries to get into Stephanie’s house; Stephanie’s roommate leads them away. Stephanie goes to therapy with Emilia and learns that Emilia had taken something from her teacher. Her teacher then went through her pockets looking for it; this strikes Stephanie as particularly inappropriate and invasive.

Stephanie wonders if she should send graduation announcements to her family and is sad that she is not close enough to her family members to send them announcements. She is excited to go to a party of MFA students, where she is surprised to encounter Judy Blunt. Judy sees Stephanie’s pregnant stomach, and Stephanie thinks Judy is judging her. Stephanie is certain that this is the reason she is rejected from the MFA program. She also thinks that her tattoos led to her rejection from the program. Emilia is pleased that Stephanie will not go to grad school since this means she will get to spend more time with her mom.

Stephanie has 13 days before the last day of college and a month and a half before her due date. She is extremely excited to see Emilia be awarded the student of the month. She and Emilia proudly take photos together and go out for pizza and ice cream.



Stephanie goes for a job interview but knows that she will not be hired because she is visibly pregnant. She is disappointed that she does not know how to use her degree and wishes that the practical aspects of “the real world” were taught more in school. She starts posting more of her writing online and nervously prepares for her graduation ceremony. She is very excited for her baby shower. Stephanie attends an event with her friend and wins a $250 gift card for groceries, and she and Emilia are ecstatic. Stephanie and Emilia wear matching dresses to her graduation ceremony. The graduation speaker is the person who started the company Submittable, the portal through which submissions to literary journals are entered.

Stephanie is pleased to find two jobs that she can do while wearing an infant: entering events in community calendars and switching out flyers at the YWCA. She enlists 10 friends to be on the roster of people who could potentially take her to the birth center when she is in labor. Five days before her due date, Sylvie (who has four children) tells her she is unavailable. Stephanie decides this is the end of their friendship. Stephanie’s cousin Jen arrives when it is time and takes her to the birth center, where she learns that she is four centimeters dilated. She gets her membranes stripped, which is incredibly painful. Stephanie hopes that she will get to work with a midwife named Autumn instead of Julie, whom she finds judgmental.

As contractions get worse, Stephanie calls the midwives and the birth center. Stephanie’s water breaks in her friend Michelle’s car. Another friend brings Emilia to the birth center. The contractions speed up, and labor happens very quickly. She has a tub birth. After she births the placenta, she starts to hemorrhage, and the midwives call 911.

Once she is stabilized, she breastfeeds Coraline. Her friends and relatives help her with the baby and with Emilia.