The logistics of having a kid and a career

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I am 26 years old and have been married 3 years to a man I’ve been with since I was 19. Sr. Olives is currently a 2nd year Ph.D. student in clinical psychology and tomorrow I’ll be starting a two-year graduate program in clinical social work.

We want kids. We’ve discussed having kids for several years now, ‘‘when we’re ready.’’ When we first had this discussion as undergraduates, we felt neither financially nor emotionally prepared.

Now the only thing holding us back seems to be that little piece of paper. We were initially looking into international adoption and bought several books on the subject. This would be my first choice but in order for us to accommodate the nearly $30k of expense and the rather unpredictable timeline, this wouldn’t be a realistic possibility for at least another 5 years.

I don’t want to wait 5 years. So I’m thinking, ok, maybe I can give this child-bearing thing a shot. This is the first time in my life I’ve ever seriously considered giving birth. There are a few things I like about the idea, for example the mostly predictable timeline and the general biological wonder of it all. I don’t particularly look forward to being pregnant or taking care of an infant, but my hangups about these things wouldn’t affect my love for my child. I am the sort of person who can get into anything full speed ahead once it’s clear that’s the way things are going to be.

So after careful consideration Sr.Olives and I have concluded that the ideal time to have the baby would be immediately following my graduation. At that point he will be in the final phase of his education and will be paid a decent wage. He is also guaranteed funding for an additional year, which means he would have the luxury of working on a part-time basis during the first year of our child’s life. Regardless of what he does, I would work part time while the baby is still a baby, and resume work full-time once the kid is school-age.

Since I don’t want to be wrapping up my degree in my third trimester of pregnancy, this plan means I get pregnant in just a little over one year. :eek: I would then have the kid in the summer or fall following graduation.

My predominant concern, or frustration as far as this goes, is that as much as I want kids, I also want to apply myself professionally in my chosen field. I’m totally aware that women do this on a regular basis, I’m just not sure how they do it. One reason I wanted to work part-time during the early stages of the kid’s life is to keep one foot in the professional world so I don’t seem so out of touch when I’m ready to get back into the swing of things. One thing I want to make abundantly clear is I’m not dropping $100k on a first-rate professional education for nothing. I still have ‘‘I can do anything’’ stars in my eyes.

I’m aware of the statistics as far as women with kids and career advancement goes, but I think I have two things working in my favor:

  1. My husband is one of the most enlightened egalitarian beings on the planet, and he’s not just blowing smoke up my ass when he says he is going to sacrifice as much as I must for our child. He has already put his money where his mouth is in terms of splitting up household duties and the like, so I believe he will be there to support me 100% of the way.

  2. I’m not going into big business or law, I’m going into social work, a field mostly dominated by women who probably have kids. I’m guessing (though I’m not certain) that I’ll be likely to get more understanding and support than the average professional woman in general.

Other than these two things I probably have going for me, I’m rather clueless. Is it even possible to get a job when you’re pregnant? How long is maternity leave, generally? How much does pregnancy really interfere with the ability to do basic things? My Mom was a student in mechanical engineering when she gave birth to me, and she didn’t miss a single day of class (she had me over spring break.) I’d rather not have a kid while I’m still in school, but I wonder if I’m exaggerating how bad it would be to be a 3rd trimester student.

I guess I’m just looking for any and all feedback and personal experiences on having a baby while maintaining professional goals. Actually, even if you’re a SAHM I’m interesting in your experience because I have no idea what I’m doing and to be honest I’m a little freaked out.

Thanks so much,
Christy

2

I am not a parent and I have absolutely no desire to have kids myself, so my advice to you is purely from that standpoint.

You say that you’ll be graduating in 2yrs and plan to get pregnant in a year so that the baby comes after graduation. That’s fine, but have you considered the impact on your health right from the start? It’s not just giving birth and caring for your baby afterwards, there’s the emotional rollercoaster of pregnancy hormones and the potential for long-lasting ‘morning’ sickness that goes along with it. You may be lucky enough to sail through pregnancy barely noticing a blip on your hormonal radar, but equally, you might not. Studying whilst pregnant and feeling ill is not going to be fun.

I have friends in the social work field, they are all for qualifications etc but there is nothing that beats experience. If you have a baby immediately after graduation and can only work part time, your work experience will be severely limited by that, and in the future when you want a full-time position, it is likely to count against you.

My other concern is that if you are looking for work and are obviously pregnant, whilst an employer cannot discriminate against you, they will also be putting you way down the list of choices for the simple reason that you will be doing very little work before you’re looking for maternity leave/benefits. In other words, you will be far more of a financial drain on their resources than you would be an asset.

I realise all this is harsh and unfair, but I think you need to give some very serious consideration to where pregnancy will place you in the pecking order when it comes to looking for work after graduation - there are some unpleasant realities that have to be faced.

Good luck!

3

I had both of my children while I was still in school. My daughter was born the week after final exams; my son was born during the summer before my last semester of graduate school.

Is it even possible to get a job when you’re pregnant? I’m not sure about this one. I didn’t interview while I was pregnant - and actually didn’t look for a position until the last semester of graduate school, after my son was already born.

How long is maternity leave, generally? I don’t know the answer to this, either, as I’ve never had the luxury.

*How much does pregnancy really interfere with the ability to do basic things? * In my case, none whatsoever. I carried on with everything I normally do, up to and including chopping wood.

I wonder if I’m exaggerating how bad it would be to be a 3rd trimester student. I had zero problems being a 3rd trimester student. I’m not sure exactly what you’re worried about. Your question reminded me that when I used an on-campus bathroom, it was amusing to see the other coeds all scramble up against the wall and flee upon seeing my huge belly. :stuck_out_tongue:
I think right after you graduate is a good time to have a child, because you won’t have to deal with the ‘new employee taking maternity leave in the first year’ kind of thing. I’m probably biased about that, since it worked out so well for me.

When I started my career, I was 29 years old and working in a strange new city. My kids’ dad was not around much for the first year, and we got divorced the next year. I had found a nice day-care and made new friends, so I just kept truckin’ on along. Once you get a routine going, it’s not that difficult.

Perhaps you elaborate on some of your concerns? :slight_smile:

4

Um, perhaps you would elaborate. Gah!

5

ScareyFaerie, I appreciate the concerns you raise and that is basically what I’m concerned about myself. I think it’s possible to overcome having limited work experience (and limited experience is definitely better than no experience at all), but I’m sure it will be more difficult. I’ve always been blessed in the application/interview department so I’m hoping if it comes down to that my natural strength at applying for things will mitigate the damage of having to work part time at the beginning of my career.

In addition, I will be working an internship over the next two years and it has been made clear by my supervisor that interns are frequently placed in paid positions within the nonprofit network I’m working for as a student volunteer. Another advantage I may have here is already knowing the people I will be working for. I would imagine it’s less risky to hire someone who is pregnant if you’ve seen their hard work over the last two years and already have a good working relationship with them. And it’s not exactly like I’m choosing a high-powered career track, or expect to make much money. I just want to feel useful doing something I enjoy. I am content to start small and prove myself over the years.

That said, if what I’m essentially being asked is to choose between having a career and having children, I will choose children. I would rather not have to make a choice, though.

NinetyWt your experience is certainly encouraging and may move me to consider timing the birth even closer to my graduation. Since I already have some wild hormone issues that seem to be tamed only by the pill, I guess I’m a little nervous about what pregnancy might have in store for me. I am one of those people who is generally physically prone to illness, so I have to assume by default that some unexpected problems might come up.

Then there is just the mental health aspect of it all – I have long struggled with anxiety and depression, particularly during major life transitions, so I have to be aware that pregnancy and having a child will probably exacerbate those issues. I am perfectly capable of coping with those things when they come up, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to make things any harder than they have to be. On the other hand, the duties of school might serve as a nice distraction from my worries.

Either way, I’m smart and tough, so I will probably be okay.

I do have a total n00b question for you though. At what age is a kid ok to be left with child care professionals? Am I exaggerating the need for time off during the early years? I always just took it for granted it was best for the kid for one or both parents to work part-time for the first 5 years or so.

6

*At what age is a kid ok to be left with child care professionals? Am I exaggerating the need for time off during the early years? I always just took it for granted it was best for the kid for one or both parents to work part-time for the first 5 years or so. *

I have not seen any evidence that it is damaging for kids to be cared for by others if you work full-time. However, even though I more or less had to, if you can swing it, it probably is better for the child if you can work part-time. My two kids (now 24 and 21) are both fine, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they wouldn’t have benefitted if I had been able to work part-time.

My daughter was about 12 weeks old when I went back to classes; my son, only about six weeks old. In each case they weren’t in a traditional day-care, but being cared for by an individual who ‘kept kids’ in her home. They were six months and three years old, respectively, when I moved to Jackson and began my career - that’s when they started going to daycare proper.

Scaerie brings up a good point; not everyone has an easy pregnancy. Would taking off a semester (during the first trimester) be impossible? That would give you some indication of how things would go.

Regarding the career part - I was just another young parent with kids at my workplace. I do not think it adversely affected my career at all. Twenty-plus years out, I’m respected in my field of work and run my own company. I do not have to advertise my services, about half of my business comes through word-of-mouth. The other half I subcontract from friends who run a similar business.

7

Oh, regarding the hormones - my brother’s wife has “wild hormonal” issues such that she takes that pill where you only have 4 periods a year. Brother says that his wife is much better when she’s pregnant.

Hopefully you would be the same, but you know, it’s so different for different people that you’d just have to try it to find out.

8

I’m hoping you’re right about the hormone thing NinetyWt. My Mom had worse problems in that department than I did, and she said pregnancy was kind of a blissful vacation away from it all. Hopefully I will follow in her footsteps.

Man. I’m excited! I appreciate all of this input, it’s giving me a lot to consider.

9

My advice is just to get a LOT more advice. Preferably from people who have been through what you are considering (or close to it), and who also KNOW YOU personally. Everyone’s different.

Mrs. Ripop and I have 2 kids and it’s challenging to be good parents, even though she’s a FT SAHM, and I made a good salary. Kids are not an accessory. We waited a LONG time, until we really finally felt we were ready, and I’m extremely glad we did. I honestly can’t imagine doing what you’re proposing, but I’m Not You, so more power to you. It’s difficult to convey how much work children are, though, and how important it is to not go into this without knowing as much as you possibly can determine.

Do you have family nearby that can help? That makes a HUGE difference. We don’t, and it makes it a lot tougher. But if you do (say, grandma can watch the kid(s) while you go to school), that can be a huge help.

Also I don’t know where you live and what job prospects really are for either of you, but in my experience (both parents and various friends are/were social workers of various kinds), it is very unusual for SWs to be well paid, although it can be an incredibly rewarding vocation in other ways. Can you get by without your income with a kid? What about with twins? Triplets? What if your child has special needs? What if you get divorced? Can you contemplate how you’d deal with your husband goes back to school again or takes a low-paying teaching job, and you’re no longer together? I’m not saying you should stress out over the unlikely situations, but give it at least a moment’s thought. Are you prepared to never actually start your career, and dedicate your life to being a SAHM? Do you think there’s a stigma associated with that? If you do, and end up doing that, are you going to have resentment? These are NOT far-out scenarios… in my wife’s circle there are multiple instances of pretty much everything above.

Best of luck with whatever you decide!

10

Moving from the mindset of adopting to giving birth has got to be pretty dramatic, even if one seems easier than the other (pregnant women and mothers may now laugh). What would you do if got pregnant before you’d intended? What will you do if you can’t get pregnant as quickly as you’d like, or not at all without medical help?

Regarding #1, your husband sounds great and like he will be your rock whatever you choose. However, no matter how much he wants to share the experience with you, warts and all, biology will leave you with the brunt of the work, at least early on. He may bottle feed the baby while you rest, but your body will (likely) be producing the milk, among other things.

As for maternity leave – depending on where you work and for how long, you may not be entitled to anything, or at least not much. Paid parental leave is still not standard in the US. It sounds like your chosen field and career may be more sympathetic towards women with children and a career, but there’s never a guarantee. Idealy you could look into a company or institution’s policies before applying.

11

That was certainly an advantage for my SiL. She decided to get pregnant in a way similar to what you’re planning; in her case, at the end of her Medical Specialty Internship, which had taken place at the local hospital. That meant doing it at the time where she was to get into the local rota for substitutions; amazingly, she got called a lot more often than people who either weren’t known locally or were known to have something other docs and nurses didn’t like (from the one who lived outside the area and ran out of the office asap to the one who would reorganize the files of the people she was subbing for). Have I mentioned that the people who run the subs list have their offices in the hospital?

You have no way to know beforehand whether you’ll have a good pregnancy or a lousy one, or even whether you’ll be able to get pregnant. But I happen to know that you tend to plan for the worst eventuality, so just don’t forget the part about hoping for the best :slight_smile:

12

Heh, my only bit of advice is to discard the notion that everything can be planned and coordinated in advance on some sort of convenient schedule. That is just bound to lead to disappointment and heartbreak. Sadly, one’s own biology isn’t always as predictable as all that, as many would-be parents have discovered.

13

Plans are useless…planning is everything.

First, intending to get pregnant does not mean getting pregnant…predictable timeline would have me with a fourteen year old and a twelve year old. I have an eleven year old and a ten year old. I wish you the best of luck, but assume two things - if you start early believing it will take some time the baby will come immediately when it isn’t convenient. If you start with an “ideal” time in mind, you’ll have the five years to save for that adoption and you’ll end up going that route because you’ll struggle to conceive.

My belief is that to raise kids, you can have two people working full time, but only one of them can be ambitious and interested in having a career. If you take turns on who that will be, neither of you will have a career because there are plenty of people doing the ambition thing full time. And regardless of how ambitious you are, you both may need to throw ambition out the window if the child has special needs.

My belief is that if you are going to do daycare, early is as good (and in some ways better) than waiting. An infant accepts daycare as they accept everything in this big new world. A toddler has definite ideas about how the world works. And I don’t believe there is that much you can do to “mold” a baby - a toddler might be malleable (mine seemed to come with built in personalities, but then, I let them have their own personalities - warts and all) so if you were going to take some time off, I think it might be more useful later than earlier.

We’ve done it, but really only because we had THREE adults and full time daycare. My mother was a HUGE help when our kids were little.

I’ve gotten a job while pregnant, but it a low unemployment situation where I was an established professional and in demand. It was me, or someone who wasn’t even vaguely qualified. Maternity leave is generally six weeks paid - but that’s generally, there is no obligation to provide it at all depending on your employer (there is for bigger companies - non-profits or governmental agencies I don’t know about).

Pregnancies vary greatly from woman to woman. Some women spend six months on bedrest, some keep up their 5k a day running schedules until the day they give birth.

(Also, consider expenses - we ended up with two quickly - the second a surprise. Our daycare bill - ten years ago - was $1600 a month. Call around. While there may be some truth to “don’t wait until you can afford it” there is also some truth to “knowing can keep you from ending up boxed in.”

14

Based on my experience with my wife and daughter,

  1. Your desire to “Time the birth” is sheer fantasy. Trying to have it happen when you graduate might work. Or it might take six months more. Or a year. Adoption is really no easier, for the most part, so accept that you might not be able to time this all that well.

  2. Maternity leave is dependent upon your job and the laws of the jurisdiction in which you live. In Canada, it’s very generous. In Alabama, it sucks. Some employers offer benefits, some do not.

  3. A healthy pregnancy is physically irritating, but for the most part will not prevent you from doing most jobs unless they involve moderate to heavy lifting. You may find it hard to get by in the first trimester with morning sickness, but it won’t STOP you. If the pregnancy goes poorly, well, you may be on bed rest long before the birth. That’s unusual, but possible.

  4. Full time day care won’t hurt your kid. It’s up to you if you’d rather work part time for five years but it’s not necessary for your child’s well-being.

My wife seems able to maintain a career with a kid. WEll, she’s looking for a job right now, but that’s not related to have a kid - that’s related to a hostile takeover wrecking her old employer.

You might want to better define, however, just what you mean by “having a career.” Some people have careers at 40 hours a week. Some people are obsessed with their job and want to work late every day.

15

The best thing I can tell you is just to know that it can be done.

My wife and I are 28, and like you we got married when we were 23. We had our first baby earlier this year. She finished college before we met (did it in 3 years with honors-- we are VERY different people :)), and is well settled into a career, but I am still going to school full time. It’s tough, and money and time are both precious, and the people who say they will help really won’t (or aren’t the type you want help from), but it’s not torture or anything. People do much harder things all the time.

Don’t get too hung up on plans because things WILL change, more and faster than you can imagine. Things from your financial and living situations to your goals, hopes, desires, your friends and family, your job, etc etc etc. It’s a whirlwind time.

It can be done.

16

I’m going to speak as a currently pregnant SAHM, who has two kids already, and once had a thriving career, but gave it up for various reasons, only one of which was kids.

One: Timing:
You can try. I can tell you that including this baby, I have never gotten pregnant while trying to get pregnant. I’ve only gotten pregnant while trying not to. And always at the WORST possible time. Even this baby is a Nuva Ring surprise, literally 12 years after I had my last baby and thought I was done.

Two: Pregnancy and working through it:
With my first pregnancy, I ended up on special care for the last two months for pre-enclampsia. With my second pregnancy, I didn’t even know I was pregnant until I was 5 months along, and it never affected my behavior/life adversely. Pregnancy #2 was the dream pregnancy women talk about, where you gained the perfect amount of weight, never had any problems, and could keep up with everything. With this one, I’ve got a partial placenta previa (which is resolving itself, so shouldn’t be an issue much longer), and gestational diabetes. It’s a much harder pregnancy all around, and I’ve been unable to keep up with many things I normally do. For you, remember that you are not guaranteed a perfect baby, and a lot of pregnancies end badly for various reasons. The longer you wait to have a baby the pregnancy method, the more likely you will have a baby with something like Down Syndrome or Spina Bifida. Also, pregnancies when you are older are much harder on your body. Everyone’s pregnancy experience is different, and some have easy ones, some have hard ones, some have an easy one then a hard one. You’ll never know what your pregnancy is going to be like until it happens.

Three: Job:
Most jobs fall under the varying federal laws that require them to hold your position open while you go on maternity leave. Good luck with that. One, finding a firm that will hire you if you interview while pregnant is nigh on impossible. Two, some firms will find a nice reason to let you go shortly before you give birth, on an excuse that has nothing to do with the pregnancy, especially in difficult job climates. Having to pay out your medical insurance, etc. for the time you’re not actually working could be considered a hardship from an employer’s point of view. I will say MOST employers do not do this, but the requirement is that they keep a space open for you that pays the same, and has generally the same job description, not that they keep YOUR job open. They can, and sometimes do, move you go from “administrative assistant” to “receptionist” or the equivalent sorts of “lateral transfers”, legally, because they’re not shorting your pay or benefits. That change in title can cost you down the road.

Also consider days off of school, illnesses, 3AM emergency room visits, and the possibility of a not-perfect baby. You will also find that if you have a child, all the best intentions in the world aren’t going to make your husband’s employer treat his job the way yours will treat you. It’s easier for females to get time off for sick children and so on, which is very not fair, and needs to change, but is the way it is. My husband had a lot of trouble getting time off for child sick days, etc., because it’s perceived as Not His Job. Your experience may differ.

As for school, I can’t say how well you will do in timing and school. It would very much be problematic if you went into labor in the middle of final exams, or the night before. There is also a symptom of pregnancy colloquially called “pregnancy brain” that affects a small number of women, and causes short term memory problems. I’d suggest you know as much as possible about human gestation before making a decision. It sounds like being pregnant and a new mother isn’t the dream for you, but just being a parent at some point. You may want to consider saving for the adoption or trying out fostering.

Four: Daycare:
Find a good one. Good ones will take infants as young as 6 weeks, and the earlier you start daycare the better, as mentioned. Changing the status quo on a 6 month old is scary and confusing to a child. Sign your child up for daycare while still in utero, because that may be the only way you get a good slot. Make sure it’s somewhere you trust and somewhere you can afford. They should let you visit, let you meet other parents, etc. You may have difficulty finding affordable daycare. Some daycares charge more than minimum wage pays. Every so often, it truly is cheaper to be a SAHM than a worker.

As has already been mentioned, only one of you is likely going to be able to do the dream career thing while you have kids at home. You can either have one of you wait until kiddo is doing the college thing, and be “behind” in the career, or you can try to swap it out. Swapping it out often doesn’t work, because both of you are held back a bit. Also, despite having an equal outlook on life, childrearing, and everything else, you need to assign an “emergency contact” kind of person. This will be the go-to parent for “Your kid just threw up at school and is running a temperature. We need you to come get her immediately,” times. The schools are not going to call you and your partner round robin. They’re going to use one number. The Go-To parent is going to have job difficulties related to child emergencies, and going to have a harder time advancing, so this parent should probably be the delayed-career-focus parent.

The advantage of one delayed career is that once kiddo is in college, the other parent is securely established, and should be able to help the less-established person. Another is that one parent will be getting better jobs, which also generally mean better salaries, comp time, benefits, etc. These things really help as a child grows. The delayed career parent funding can be allocated to savings, retirement, kidcare, etc. And SAVE. Things go horribly wrong without warning, for anyone, but when you have kids, it’s not just you anymore. It’s much harder to move back in with mom when you have babyBoy.

Conclusion:
A lot of these things are fairly obvious, but some people never consider them. Many of these are relevant whether your child is biological or adopted. You sound like a level-headed person, and I hope you get the outcome you desire. I wish more level-headed individuals were deciding and choosing parenthood or non-parenthood, instead of throwing up their hands and saying “well, whatever” or “oops”. The best I can say is Do Your Research, and make a joint decision. Best of luck to you, no matter what you decide.

17

Thanks everybody, these are very helpful and thought-provoking responses.

On the contrary, these are exactly the issues I have to consider before taking on such a huge commitment.

Yes, we can definitely get by on one income alone. We don’t have a mortgage to pay, just a modest (well, modest for the east coast) rent. Both vehicles are paid in full. The only debts we have are student loans. I’m aware social workers don’t make much money, though to be honest the $45k annual median salary I have to look forward to is tons more than I’ve ever made or had in my life. Clinical psychologists tend to make a lot more than that. I am considering pursuing a doctorate in clinical social work to augment my own pay, but I would not be eligible to apply to that program for another 5 years, with or without kids.

I’ve given such things thought since before I could physically bear children, which is why I have always intended to have my degree prior to bringing children into the world. I need to know that no matter what happens I can support myself and my kids. None of these situations would come without hardship and sacrifices, but I understand that is part of the risk of having children.

Yes, I am prepared for that possibility. Yes, I believe there’s a huge stigma associated with it and it would be a difficult adjustment for me to make as I have spent most of my life with an academic mindset; I thrive on structure and concrete goals and deadlines. It would require some cognitive restructuring, but no, I wouldn’t resent my child for it. I would never subject a child to that pain. I would deal with it, and probably pursue my interest in writing fiction while I’m at it. If that seems like a kind of blase attitude, I certainly don’t mean it to come across that way, I’ve just always been a highly adaptable human being. If leaving my career turned out to be a consequence of our decision to have a child, I would not only accept it, I would throw myself into being the best damned SAHM I could be. My basic life philosophy is to embrace whatever is.

Now this is going to be a real hardship. We currently live in Jersey and most of my family lives in Michigan. Even if I did live near family, I don’t have many family members stable enough to leave children with.

It is my fondest hope that we put roots down quickly in this area, I can befriend fellow social-workers and maybe at daycare fellow new Moms. We are going to have to build a network of some kind either way. There is no telling where, geographically, we are going to end up, as it mostly depends on my husband’s job. Possibilities include Philadelphia, Chicago, and my adopted hometown, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Yes, it has been a dramatic mindset shift, though I don’t propose one is easier than the other. Both of them have their difficulties, it’s just that giving birth has the sort of difficulties we will be better prepared to deal with at that time in our lives. I can see getting pregnant later than expected, but getting pregnant earlier than expected would be statistically improbable. We use two methods of birth control. Every time. It’s not failsafe, but it’s a hell of a lot more reliable than people who rely only on the pill. If I got pregnant say, right now, I’d be pretty shocked, because* damn*, what are the odds?

If I had difficulty with conception I suppose I would just have to revert to my original plan of adoption, and deal with the setbacks as they come. I have no interest whatsoever in pursuing fertility treatment.

I certainly hear those who are advising I not get too attached to my ‘‘plans.’’ My husband and I are both planners; he’s probably worse than me. We get that life doesn’t always follow the plan, and we can adapt, but we’ve gotta at least try. It’s who we are. :smiley:

18

It can all be done, of course it can. A couple of things from my experience that might help in some way.

I was in the final year of a Bachelor’s degree when I was pregnant, plus working full time. I had a number of problems with my pregnancy but nothing as extreme as bed rest or even bad morning sickness. However (and this seems to be very common) the mind-numbing exhaustion which is a feature of the first and particularly the last trimester sometimes made life extremely difficult. I ended up deferring my final exam for six months just because I could not get information to stay in my head long enough to revise. Be prepared (without wishing for it, or assuming it will happen) for you to struggle phsyically and mentally at times during even a ‘normal’ pregnancy and try to think through a contingency.

I went back to work part-time when my daughter was six months old - maternity leave seems to be much more generous in the UK. I found a childminder who she adores (again, the childcare options seem to be very different here) but still the guilt half killed me and I don’t think it will ever go away completely. I started a part-time Masters degree just before her second birthday, so now I study part-time, work part-time and look after her.

None of this would be in the slightest bit possible without the support of my partner - neither of us have any family locally, but we’ve developed a good strong support network to help out. Even so, it seems to me, someone has to be the ‘go-to’ guy - the one parent who will always be the default choice to do the covering for childcare holidays, taking holiday to cover the child’s illness, leaving work dead on time to collect the child on time and so on and so on. Somebody has to take the final responsbility for all that stuff, is all - that and the thought processes that go along with the logistics of looking after another human being: have we got enough nappies? are there enough bottles sterilised for all tomorrow’s feeds? what time is the clinic for her vaccinations? is there enough fresh bread for her sandwiches tomorrow? is her school uniform clean? Again, it goes on and on - and this is the stuff that just can’t slip through the cracks when you have a child - somebody has to cover it.

My husband is fantastic - truly he is. He does most of the cooking and the laundry in our house and always has done, we split the household chores. He is a superb hands-on father, I could not wish for better. And yet… I’m the bottom line with our daughter. I’m the one who stops things falling through the cracks and sometimes it’s tiring. And as a consequence, at least for the time being, my career is secondary to his. I can’t travel as much as my job would theoretically demand, I can’t stay late or come in early for meetings - not without a bunch of forward planning anyway. I do believe that my current career has suffered because of this, and if I wasn’t mid-way through a career change that would really bother me.

Sorry - this has turned into a much longer post than I expected, but that’s my experience. Oh and planning your timescales for pregnancy? good luck with that :slight_smile:

19

Regarding maternity leave:

First, find out whether your employer pays for maternity leave. I wouldn’t expect it if you are in the US. Do you have short-term disability insurance? If you don’t have it through your work, you may want to consider AFLAC or something similar. It needs to be in effect before conception if you want it to cover maternity leave. You should be able to get six weeks of short-term disability pay out for a vaginal birth with no complications, or eight weeks for a c-section.

When I was planning for getting pregnant, I got AFLAC in addition to my employer-paid short-term disability insurance, plus I hoarded as much PTO (paid time off) as I could.

20

I was lucky enough to work from home and be well-established in my career before I had my (surprise) daughter.

In fact, I was promoted right before I discovered I was pregnant. This promotion was something I’d been working towards for many years, and I was ecstatic to get it. It was a major achievement for me…and now I’d gladly give it up to be “just” a SAHM, something I would have snorted at before. This shift in my priorities has been one of the biggest adjustments for me, and something that might happen to you, too. You might think about what will happen if you just don’t want to go to work.

I had a very easy pregnancy and have a happy, healthy, easy-going baby…and it’s STILL a lot of work. I never realized how demanding it would be…and again, I work from home and don’t have to juggle all the load that a lot of parents do.

Yes. It’s there all the time, 24-7-365.