- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
Austin Babies
dapo2004
member
Graduate student parenting question
dapo2004
member
Hi, my name is Danielle. My fiance and I are about to get married and we've started talking about family planning. I am currently finishing up my Master's and I am entering a Ph D program at UT in the fall. FI has a stable, full-time job and we really want to start a family, but we're trying to figure out whether having a baby during the Ph D program is plausible. Any other graduate student moms out there? If so, what has your experience been? Is it doable?
Any advice or input would be appreciated.
Thanks.
planning bio
"My favorite color is fluorescent beige."
"My favorite color is fluorescent beige."
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Graduate student parenting question
I am not a mom, but I am a grad student working on a PhD. I have intentionally chosen to wait to become a mom until I finish my dissertation, because I feel like I personally would not be good at balancing both - I fear I would give up my dissertation in favor of putting my all into being a mom. Finishing my dissertation is really important to me, so it is coming first right now.
I think it really depends on your program, though. Women in my program (linguistics) have started a family along the way to getting the PhD, but for most of them it has translated into them finishing later. For those that weren't adversely affected, it seems that they got pregnant eight months before their defense date and had their baby right after they defended.
My observations though have been that there is no perfect time and that you just make it work. After the dissertation there's the tenure process which is no picnic either. So you can't necessarily time it around an ideal point in your career path.
DH and I were married when he was in his graduate program. Maybe because we were recently married and in a 'new' phase - but it would have been incredibly difficult to have a baby during that time. He was studying/in class all the time and we had to plan out time for eachother and put it in his schedule. Being a first time mom in the midst of that didn't seem ideal. Although I have some mad 'baby fever' - we're going to give him at least two years in his career before we start trying for baby #1.
Obviously, you're in a different situation - but there is my 2 cents. Good luck in your phd program!
"The House We Built."
A journey of building the dream.
I didn't, but I lived w/ two people (first w/ my BFF and then w/ my husband) who were working on their PhDs.
I think a lot of it would depend on your program and their expectations. How long is the program? What is the typical work day like?
Both my old roommate and my husband were working on postgraduate degrees in science (Pharmacology and Toxicology, respectively). Their programs were to run for four to five years. Sarah worked straight through and finished in four, no problem. The first two years were when she took her classes and did her lab rotations and she was putting in 12-15 hour days once her labs were done.
Jon did his classes and labs and then decided to serve in the Marines for two years, so (with the blessing of the program director) it ended up taking him six years to finish. Same thing w/ him- he would start his day around 10 and work until 2-3 in the morning.
But, every program is different. I worked w/ teachers who did their PhD work while teaching.
Yep, libbyann's right. I'm a grad student & mommy of twins. However, I haven't yet had the experience of trying to be both at the same time, and to be perfectly honest, it was never my intention to be both at the same time. But stuff happens and here we are. Thankfully I've finished everything but a little bit of data analysis and the writing. I was given two semesters leave of absence, which is a rare blessing for grad student mommies. My boys are going into daycare this summer so I can finish that up and be done. Finally.
I started typing out an incredibly long-winded response but realized this is all going to depend greatly on, like mcurban said, your program and the flexibility & expectations of that program. I can tell you about my own experience and that of several friends & acquaintances who have also had kiddos during grad school, but it might be better to do it over email or a phone call. If you'd like, you can email me at my screen name at gmail.
gabrielle20 is another mom on this board who recently finished her PhD. She might chime in too
My husband is currently working on his PhD at UT - he's working on his PhD in neurobiology. He puts in crazy hours - usually goes into work at about 9AM (after dropping our son off at the caregiver's) and doesn't get home until about 10PM. Some nights he's there until 2AM. Every once in awhile he'll get home as early as 8PM. he also works most weekends - even if he's at home he's holed away in his office.
It has been really rough but we are getting through. It might depend on the program, as pp mentioned. If your FI has flexible hours it might be feasible - especially if he's willing to pick up a lot of the slack. With the hours my husband puts in, we honestly don't get any time together as a family and our lives are pretty chaotic. I also do all of the cleaning, shopping, cooking, and put DS to bed every night. If your husband would be able to understand that you might have a crazy workload and limited time to dedicate to your family, and he would be able to pick up a lot of the "chores" it is possible.
Let me know if you have any other questions. Oh my husband is hoping to finish his program in about 5 years - he has about 2 years left. So we had our son when he was 1/2-way through his program.
Hopefully you'll find something that works out for you!
Sorry, I probably should have put more information about the program in the initial post. It's a five year program in the history department. The first two years are primarily course work- very similar to what I did in my Master's program. The third year is preparation for my qualifying exam. The final two years are researching and writing (including traveling to Paris, Brussels, Congo-Brazzaville, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo). I don't have to TA until the third year, which isn't bad. From my experience at Cornell, the first years of coursework left my schedule really flexible and I was able to do most of my work from home except when I had to go to campus for a seminar three times a week. I think UT's program is very similar in that manner.
I have ADHD, and I know that I cannot take my medications while I am pregnant or breastfeeding, which wouldn't be a huge problem during the coursework years, but I know that I absolutely cannot write or research without it (I learned that lesson this year while writing my thesis). Thus, it would make it incredibly difficult to try to have a baby in the last two years of the program.
"My favorite color is fluorescent beige."