Balancing Act

A Pregnant Pause

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By Irene Garms

With 18 months left to go before finishing my Ph.D., I discovered that I was pregnant. I had a dissertation to write, a language examination to take, and a lot of teaching commitments -- followed by a job search that was likely to take months or years. All of that was going to have to happen either while I was pregnant (i.e., cranky, nauseated, and enormous) or a new mother (i.e., tired and distracted).

But as much as all of that scared me, the most intimidating aspect of my newly altered future was the most immediate one: telling my committee.

It didn't matter that I was 25 years old and married. It didn't matter that all of the members of my committee were talented, engaging people with whom I had never had an unpleasant conversation. All of them were men, and I just didn't know how they would react.

What terrified me was that our working relationship would change. As soon as they found out I was pregnant, I feared they would cease to see me as a serious, committed scholar. And I was nervous that, if the reaction was negative, I wouldn't be able to respond in a chipper, professional way. It seemed entirely possible that, instead, I would simply burst into tears, which was how -- courtesy of brain-addling hormones -- I was handling every setback, from a missing library book to burnt toast.

I found out I was pregnant just before Christmas, so I had plenty of time over the winter break to think about when I should tell my committee. Most of the maternity books suggest you wait until the 16-week point to alert your employer. But I didn't want to wait that long; the necessity of speeding up my progress on my dissertation meant that I would need my advisers to respond to my drafts and give me feedback more quickly than usual. When school reconvened at the end of January, I would be about two and a half months along. I decided I would allow a couple of weeks to get my courage up, and then talk to each member of my committee individually.

That synopsis doesn't at all convey the magnitude of my worry. I woke up in the morning and worried about it while I sat in bed eating Saltines. I worried about it while I was wrapping Christmas presents, writing syllabi for the upcoming semester, and trying to figure out where we could fit a crib in our two-bedroom apartment (which looks more like a library).

I read What to Expect When You're Expecting, The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy, and every other book I could find on the subject, in between the books I was supposed to be reading for my dissertation. And the whole time I thought about what my committee was going to think of my divided attention. In my mind, they were asking me the questions that I was asking myself, "How can you possibly expect to finish your dissertation on time? Didn't you think about this at all?"

Even if I could figure out the best time to tell them, the question of how to bring it up was not easy to answer, either.

For starters, my relationship with each of them was fairly professional; we talked about my research, about books, literature, and teaching. I didn't chat with them about my personal life, nor did they tell me a lot about theirs. And because they were men, I felt (unfairly) that they wouldn't understand my situation; most of them were parents themselves but they hadn't been the ones who grew enormous bellies and had to find a way to dress professionally when none of their pants fit. They probably took a couple of weeks off when the baby was born and handed out cigars, I thought.

That turned out to be both sexist and untrue, but the fact remained that I had seldom heard any of them mention their children.

The first Big Talk ended up being much easier than I had expected. Our department was conducting a job search, and when I showed up to hear a candidate give a job talk, one of my committee members was just packing up in the room after teaching a class there. No one else had arrived yet, so I decided to seize the opportunity. (At the very least, I figured, the conversation would have a time limit, because the entire department would be arriving sooner or later.)

"How's the dissertation coming?" he asked, as he erased his notes from the blackboard.

"Well, it's coming along OK," I said. "I have a proposal draft to give you." I paused. "My schedule has changed a bit, though, because I'm expecting a baby in late summer. So I'm going to have to get more done before then than I'd been planning on."

It was hardly the polished, professional statement I had been hoping to make. I had imagined myself outlining the ways in which I was going to prevent the pregnancy from interfering with my academic life and setting forth my new plan for finishing on time and keeping everything rolling. But it didn't matter.

My adviser grinned widely and said, "That's the best news I've heard all week. That's great. Congratulations."

I thanked him, feeling so relieved that I didn't really know what else to say. "I was worried that my committee might be uneasy about it," I said, figuring that it was just as well to air my concerns.

"Oh, no one will think that," he said, dismissing my worries with a wave of the hand. "Anyone who would think that isn't worth worrying about, but there's no one like that on your committee anyway." He smiled. "You're on fellowship next year, right? So it's perfect. You can just wake up, play with the baby, write your dissertation while the baby's napping, and then play with the baby some more. It'll be great."

I laughed. I have a whole other set of neuroses that involves worrying about writing and parenting at the same time, but his conviction that my committee would be supportive and his delight at the news were all it took to alleviate my terror of telling the rest of them about it.

It reminded me that I had assembled this group of professors for a good reason: I liked them. They were smart men, interesting men. I know many students who dread their committees, dislike their directors, or have grown to despise their advisers, but I don't, for which I am grateful. I worry enough about whether they think my work is good, original, and worthwhile, without adding the stress of personal conflict.

In the end, my entire committee took my news in stride, offered congratulations, and paid me the compliment of assuming that my academic life was proceeding as scheduled and that I would let them know if things changed or if I couldn't handle it.

Maybe I lucked into a great committee. Maybe academe is much more humane than it's made out to be. Either way, my academic plans seem more manageable now that I know my committee is in my corner.