Archive for January, 2008

A few months in review

admin January 11th, 2008

So I haven’t posted in a long while. Its funny how that makes me feel guilty even though no one knows who I am, and my readership pretty much consists of my husband who knows everything that is going on with me anyway. But just in case someone wants to read this later, or finds this website helpful or instructive, I feel compelled to post on recent events.

I’m pregnant. And on the whole, I’m very excited. This was something done mostly intentionally, though I really didn’t think it would happen so quickly. To that poor other woman out there for whom it is taking a very long time, I am very sorry. I am that lower outlier screwing with the average.

Why did I do this? I thought and researched and decided that now is the perfect time. I want to be a younger mother. I have friends my age with fertility issues. My husband has a good job and I am looking to start something new. I will have my PhD as backup. I don’t want to wait until the unknown of some most likely even more stressful postdoc. Now is the time.

I am very relieved and very lucky that my advisers are incredibly supportive. This might have something to do with the fact that I will have graduated by the time the baby arrives, but I think perhaps standards for young academic women might just be coming around. They want to see women like me make these decisions and succeed. I could take this sentence back tomorrow, but they both strongly support me reaching the top of whatever career I choose, and me taking a good long time off to have fun with the new baby. I was scared to death to tell them, but it has worked out perfectly. They were both happy about the news, congratulated me, and then talked as normal about my thesis, graduation, and how they could help me after I left.

I still think I want to be a science writer, so this also gives me the perfect “excuse” to take off for several months to give it a go. I just can’t wait. My only worry is that the combination of the newness of the career and the newness of the mother role might make things difficult. Still, enthusiasm is a powerful motivator, and I have never been so excited. I feel like I have put myself into some forced labor camp for the last 5 years and now, finally, I am going to allow myself to do what I really want to do.

The one thing I worried most after getting pregnant was the loss of control. While I’ve been wanting a baby for a while now, once it was confirmed I had the sudden realization that this was something that could not be undone, no matter how much I wanted it. If you really hate your job, you can quit. If you really hate your husband, you can get a divorce. You can move, sell your house, find a new family for your dog (if you HAVE to), throw out your wardrobe, dye your hair, and estrange yourself from friends and family. But you cannot (not ethically, morally, or legally) suddenly decide that you don’t want your child once it is yours. You can’t leave it on a doorstep. You can’t tell the baby you just don’t want it anymore, that this was really a big mistake. And you can’t choose. The baby I have will be the baby I have. You can choose your job, husband, dog, and wardrobe. You get no control over this baby. And that, for me anyway, is terrifying.

What I realized that I was most afraid of was not the child, that little person who I could take on walks and play with and talk to, but the baby. I am afraid of a perpetually screaming, inconsolable, energy sucking, libido killing, nipple biting, red in the faced baby. I was afraid that sleep deprivation coupled with constant screaming would make me hurt myself, my husband, my child, or something else I hold dear. That it would induce a deep depression. I am terrified of depression. I had a good long look at it once, and I will do whatever I can to keep that daemon far away. If you are reading this and having these fears, I heartily recommend “The Happiest Baby on the Block.” It is a book all about soothing your baby in the first three months. Of course I have no actual proof that what is in this book will help me at all once the baby comes, but I believe it will, and that makes me feel SO MUCH BETTER.

So here I am, a rat in the maze. Let’s see how far I go.

Thank you Jenny F. Scientist

admin January 11th, 2008

And here I steal a post, a very amusing and strangely familiar post from Jenny F. Scientist over at http://naturalscientist.blogspot.com/

“Dear In-Laws,

Thank you for all the lovely Christmas cards. The picture of us at Lawyer Cousin’s wedding was also nice. The letter exhorting me to accept the healing power of Jesus? Not so much. Let me remind you once again: I am a practicing Jew. NEVER. Thank you.

As you have all heard, Dr. S finished his PhD. No, he is not now getting a ‘real job.’ He has HAD one for the last six years, and now he has another one. I am not ’still in school’ as you conceive of it: I work in a lab all day. No, we have not had ‘classes.’ For years and years. I will do physical violence to the next person who utters a phrase involving ‘real job’. We work twice as many hours as you and think at least ten times as much. We work. All day. In labs. Are those words small enough for you?

Surprisingly enough, Dr. S actually wants to stick around here in SnootyTown until I finish. Fancy that: a wife who works. I know it’s a novelty to you, but try to wrap your little minds around it.

You will be shocked- shocked!- to hear that I am NOT PREGNANT. I will NOT be pregnant soon, this spring, or even this summer. When we finally decide to breed, it will be unrelated to your archaic notions of a woman’s place. And while we’re at it, I’m not ‘really a Scientist now! Part of the family!’ just because I changed my name. Y’all will always be no relation of mine.

Although I forget from year to year, it’s always lovely to be reminded how some of you think your narrow, circumscribed experiences are comprehensive. It’s thrilling to know that

1. living in small town Ohio
2. going to college in small-town West Virginia . . . . and then
3. living in small town Ohio

has given you a complete understanding of academia and of scientists! All the same, working at an R1 is not ‘just the same’ as teaching high school in rural Ohio. In fact, people are not ‘exactly the same everywhere’ either. Multi-million dollar grants involve more work and politics than your requisition for more chalk. But it’s nice to be reminded that I know nothing about my experiences, which you’ve never had. You and your B.A.

I try not to mention it during the holidays, but you are all fat. Very fat. While some people are genetically inclined to be larger than others, the fact that Aunt K. lost 40 pounds when she started eating a vegetable every now and then seems to indicate that it’s not ‘in your DNA.’ Eat a fricking vegetable. And Dr. S is not starving to death, he’s simply not FAT. Also please stop trying to feed me animals. Meals for which nothing died are still tasty and nutritious.

Yours until next year, when I am leaving BEFORE the yearly on-a-Saturday family reunion full of ham and rabid hypocritical Republicans, so help me,

Jenny F. Scientist”

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