When the time came for her to apply to colleges as a senior at Long Beach Polytechnic High School, Ocon seriously considered only Ivy League institutions.

"I was pretty arrogant," Ocon says. "My back-up schools were Duke and Notre Dame."

Ocon also applied to and was accepted by three of the nation's military academies. But when her eyesight deteriorated and Ocon learned she would never be able to fly fighter jets, she came to Harvard expecting to concentrate in government and prepared to make the most of what she felt would be the experience of a life-time.

"Let's just say I was a little overstimulated as a freshman," Ocon says. "I had to know everyone in my class. I spent more time on extracurriculars than my school-work."

Within a semester, the Thayer Hall resident had coxed for men's heavyweight crew, completed the Harvard bartending course and won the "Outstanding Speaker Award" in a first-year event sponsored by Harvard Model Senate. Weekends were often spent in New York, going to West Point balls with her then-boyfriend.

Ocon's enthusiasm continued well into her sophomore year. She was playing rugby, was excited about her social studies tutorial and was adjusting to life in Eliot House. But around the middle of October Ocon found herself missing classes, too tired to pull herself out of bed.

"When I found out I was pregnant, my world changed," Ocon says, her face growing flushed with the memory of a clinic nurse confirming her worst fear in October of her sophomore year.

"I laughed--an insane laugh--out of shock. I kept thinking that this just couldn't be true," she adds.

Initial denial was Payanzo's method of coping as well. She had deferred admission to Harvard in the spring of 1994 because she needed a break from the pressure of deadlines and duties. An unexpected pregnancy and the baby she decided to keep were evidently not going to give her that.

Originally from Congo (formerly Zaire), Payanzo went to high school in Williamsport, a small town in Pennsylvania.

"I questioned the ultimate value of pursuing a linear track of learning, feeling that self-education might prove less limiting and more applicable," Payanzo says of her decision to defer.

Her travels during the next two years took her to Idaho, Northern California, New York, Missouri, and finally Phoenix, Ariz., where she decided to settle down and work for a year. Her mother met her there, and together they moved in with her mother's friend from college.

It was in Phoenix where Payanzo met Yazzie, introduced to her by a mutual friend. The two soon started dating.

In April, Payanzo decided that she would finally accept Harvard's admission offer and come to Cambridge in the fall of 1996. Around the same time, she also started to suspect that she might be pregnant. But she didn't take her symptoms too seriously.

When they persisted into August, she told Yazzie that she might be pregnant, but kept the information from her mother. Both Payanzo and Yazzie tried to postpone thinking about the pregnancy for as long as possible.