Taking the bar exam is hard enough, but one Illinois woman took it to the next level by having a baby in the middle of the test. Brianna Hill, a recent graduate of the Loyola University School of Law in Chicago, knew she would be pregnant during her bar exam, but she wasn’t expecting a huge curveball in timing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She thought she would be 28 weeks pregnant when she took the bar. However, due to the pandemic, the test was pushed to October and she was going to be 38 weeks. She joked about taking the test from her hospital bed.
… The remote version of the test is four 90-minute sections spread out over two days. Hill said the exam is proctored so you have to sit in front of the computer the entire time to make sure you aren’t cheating. She thought she felt something about 30 minutes into the test and actually thought, “I really hope my water didn’t just break. But I couldn’t go check and so I finished the first section. As soon as I stood up when I finished, I knew my water had broken.” But even the realization of going into labor didn’t stop Hill from accomplishing her goal: “I took my break, got myself cleaned up, called my husband, midwife, and mom, cried because I was a little panicked, then sat down to take the second part because my midwife told me I had time before I needed to go to the hospital.”
… Hill got to the hospital around 5:30PM and her new baby boy arrived just after 10PM. The whole time Hill and her husband were talking about how they both wanted her to finish the test. So, the next day, hospital staff provided Hill with an empty room to finish the test and put a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door. Hill took the rest of the exam in that room and even nursed her baby during breaks.
… Hill hasn’t received her bar exam results, but she already has a job lined up.