The transition from Harvard undergraduate to single mother was a bit bumpier for Ocon. The months that followed her return to southern California sent her on a rollercoaster ride of the unexpected: the joys of motherhood, a bitter breakup and a custody battle that made national headlines.

Born on June 17, 1996 after 14 hours of labor, Bailey--named after Bailey's Irish Cream--lived with both parents before Ocon realized that her determination to return to Harvard was incompatible with Maggiore's "live in the moment" attitude.

Ocon moved out of their apartment for a few days, escaping to her mother's house. It was there that Ocon was served the papers filed by Maggiore, demanding custody of Bailey and charging that she had threatened to leave the state with his daughter.

"My first tendency was to nail this guy to the wall. But I didn't want to say anything that would go on the record about him that could hurt Bailey later," Ocon says, recalling those days when she was living on welfare and independently researching legal precedents for her case.

The custody battle that ensued pitted Ocon's right to an education against Maggiore's right as a father to see his daughter more often than a 3,000-mile cross country flight would typically allow.

"Tom's not the jerk that the newspapers made him out to be. He had every legal and moral right to think that it was in Bailey's interest to stay with him," Paul Ocon says. "But I don't think he was really mature enough to handle the responsibilities of being a father."

Long Beach, Calif., family law commissioner John Chemeleski agreed with Ocon's father, ruling that Ocon be allowed to return to Harvard--where a full scholarship offer was still valid--accompanied by Bailey. With her old classmates now planning senior theses and preparing for fall recruiting, Ocon returned to Cambridge in early August this year.

Payanzo, on the other hand, never missed a beat. In November, Yazzie had decided to move to Cambridge and help her raise the baby. The first day of winter break, on Payanzo's 20th birthday, the two moved into their apartment on Irving Street.

Moving in with Yazzie and awaiting Dylan's birth, Payanzo and Yazzie grew closer than they had ever been before.

"It went from being an almost casual, yet thoroughly committed, temporary relationship to suddenly being an indefinite and intricate, very close living-together situation," she says.

On Jan. 10, just three weeks after Payanzo and Yazzie moved into their apartment, Payanzo gave birth to Dylan. Her mother came to Cambridge for the delivery.

Payanzo didn't have much time to recuperate from her pregnancy. Weeks after the delivery, she started her second-semester courses.

Point of No Return

No matter how much Ocon and Payanzo tried to return to their normal college lives, being a mother changed more than just their time commitments.

"When I talk to my TFs, I refer to the other people in my section as 'the kids.' I guess it's the mother in me," Ocon says.