Mommy's Story

The baby memory book has a section called "Mommy's story" about the birth. Here is what I wrote, adapted from some emails to my girlfriends, 'cause who has time these days to write blog posts from scratch!?!?

Well, the thing about babies is that even thought there is a lot of quiet time feeding and soothing, your hands are literally full. … and to make my point I just had a 30 minute delay in typing for a breast feed. 

I am very happy that I went into labour the day before my scheduled induction. Maybe it was that I spent Sunday reading the literature on induction and recommendations from around the world and Murphy's law kicked in. Or maybe it was the snack of Miniwheats - the food of heroes- I had at midnight. All the same, I woke up with cramps at 3:30am which progressed to really obvious labour by shortly after four. I was pretty excited, actually. I got back into bed with James and snuggled up and whispered to him “We are going to have a tinook today!”

James managed a normal morning bran flakes, run and shower while I rolled around on an exercise ball and did some work on my quilting project between contractions. We headed to the hospital about 9:00 and after about an hour in triage things were getting tough and I was getting pretty nauseous from the pain. What I didn't realize was that there was no real break. Contractions go from bad, to worse to bad again at 2-3 minute intervals. When they checked I was only 5 cm dilated and thought, "I can handle it now, but if I'm only half way there, there is no way I want to do this without drugs." Then I thought "If I am not going to win the one-mommy-upmanship contest, why suffer? BRING ON THE DRUGS!"

I spent an hour completely baked on nitrous but didn't really like that I was so drunk I couldn't make rational decisions or really express my needs. And my nurse was a little concerning. James was watching her like a hawk. So with a death grip on my nitrous mask, I got an epidural. Awesome stuff, that. I wouldn't say that it was all perfect- I don't like being out of control of my legs, for sure and I definitely was not feeling myself-  but at least it wasn't the pain making me sick and light headed and I could "rest" in the afternoon. Luckily, my nurse got switched out to one that was much better mid-afternoon. 

After about ten contractions worth of pushing, with James prompting me for crossword answers in between contractions to distract me, (what a great souvenir that is!), baby Alexander Robert Ashenhurst was born at 6 pm on Monday March 25, just as passover was starting. Over the din of the baby’s healthy wail, James got to yell out "It’s a boy" and we both wept. Later James told me that he didn’t “weep,” he just had tears in his eyes. (Pshaw. Don’t believe that for a second. He wept.)
I swear I publicly expelled every bodily fluid on Monday except bile and ear wax. And I may have thrown up enough for the bile. 

He is pretty big at 9lbs 6oz. and remarkably strong. By day three he was already holding his head up which I didn't think newborns should be able to do. He aced his Apgar scores; and his pediatrician noted “A perfect exam! He has red hair!” I should have known I’d give birth to an overachiever.  I guess all that eating healthy and exercising paid off for the little guy in utero.  I think red hair and freckles are his destiny. 

After the birth I was sick again, and very tired from the day and of course very wobbly since my legs were jelly from the epidural. As other moms know, there is a constant parade of healthcare professionals coming into your room which was really annoying. All in all, I was and am wicked sore from passing a giant baby, but am healing up quite nicely. By Thursday, mom and I already ventured as far as the Target to get some nursing bras now that I know that my pair of oranges are now grapefruits. I have a spectacular little pot belly which is no longer "cute" since there is no baby inside now. Hopefully that shrinks down soon!

My mom drove down and arrived only hours after we made it back from the hospital on Wednesday, thank goodness, and was super helpful our first night home when the baby was hungry and fussy all night and my boobs were not yet "in service". The next night went much better as I can now fill Alex's belly. 

When not sleeping in our arms Alex is in the Ashenhurst family bassinet and is the nineteenth member of his family to sleep in it.  During my pregnancy, I spent many hours sewing new coverings and a mattress for it in what turned out to be an epic feat of engineering, geometry and home economics. 

James is delighted to have a son and also to be able to name him after his dad. As I type, Alex is passed out on his lap. The Chicken and my wee Chicken Nugget. James has finally discovered a use for his otherwise annoying shaking leg: soothing babies. 

Judy and Pete arrived from Florida after a week. Grandma Judy spent two of “the happiest days of her life” holding and helping care for her first grandchild- even though he put on a spectacular fuss the one night and needed Tony the Vacumm running for 20 minutes next to the bassinet to calm him down.

Even up to the day I gave birth, I never was a baby person, and I hated babysitting as a teen and rarely did it. Yet here I am completely enamored with a squawking, pooping, nipple ravaging machine. Some weird biological thing happened the day he was born. I watched the same video about swaddling babies two weeks before birth and again a week after with my mom. I don't remember the babies in the video being so adorable!

Other people’s birthing stories are scary, I will completely admit and the video they showed us in my prenatal class made me cry it was so terrifying. However, I must tell you that with the epidural, the whole thing was actually much easier, better and less painful than I expected. It really wasn't that bad. I didn't even know it was time to push until they told me! My story here is honest and the way an uncomplicated birth goes. No drama, no hysterics. I didn't moan. I didn't scream. Healthy mom, very healthy baby.

I went in thinking no birth plan is the best birth plan which worked out for me. I was only mildly disappointed by not "going natural" and now I realize that is for crazy people. I also would have been happy with a C-section if that what was needed for us both to be healthy. Having James beside me to support every decision can't be overstated how important it was. All in all, it is one horrible – or in my case a pretty bad day that ended in something so incredibly beautiful and wonderful that it makes any pain, fear, nausea or discomfort pale in comparison. It is hard to believe something so perfect came from me.

Please, stop talking about it. You are making it worse.

In the last month, I have had a graduate student and an undergraduate student randomly show up in my office asking me about  my career choices. They look at me like I am some all-knowing guru, a holy-woman who is doing what they have been repeatedly told was near the impossible. Or maybe some new exotic species that defies the imagination. 

I am a 33 year-old chemistry professor at a major research university and I am seven months pregnant. 

The undergrad had been recently told by her (female) academic advisor that it is really difficult to be a professor and have a family. If she wants a family she should consider aiming for teaching at a small college or a pursuing a different career altogether.

This kind of advice really bothers me and it is supported by frequent newspaper articles about the challenges women in academia face and also by what seems obvious to the students; most of their professors are male. 

It's true, women in academic positions in STEM (Science Technology Enginnering and Math) fields are vastly outnumbered by men. Statistics show longer times to tenure for women, especially those with children. There are a host of other statistics that make it look like the glass ceiling is very thick. 

I'm on the graduate school admissions committee for my department and far fewer women apply than men. There is no question, women are scared away and discouraged from pursuing STEM academic a careers even as early as right after an undergraduate degree. They seem to think that they must choose one or the other: academia or family. There will be no balance. I am writing this to tell you, this is simply not true. 

Our young female scientists at my school apparently think this despite the evidence in the pictures in their professors offices. Although there are few STEM women professors around, most have children. My approximately twelve female colleagues in Physics, Chemistry and Engineering range in in rank form associate dean to lowly assistant professor (me). All of these women have children but four. And of those four, I'm pregnant and another has recently "pulled the goalie" so-to-speak. 

What is perhaps different from my generation- those who are pre-tenure now- and a generation of academic women who are a perhaps 10 or 15 years older is when we have children. Anecdotally, many previously have chosen wait until after obtaining tenure, putting them in their late thirties. This limits the number of children they have and putting them at higher risk for infertility, complicated pregnancies and birth defects. Discouraging prospects indeed. 

My generation, from what I've seen, aren't waiting. We are having children before tenure, in our early thirties, be dammed what everyone says about the way academia is.  We are in the thick of pre-tenure and we are going for it anyway. 

My school is giving me a whopping four months off (when standard maternity leave in the US is a piddly 6 weeks) and an extra year to apply for tenure. I can always "go up early" should my career forward itself at a non-child-rearing pace.  

Not one of my colleagues, grey haired or not, has made a disparaging remark about my reproductive timing or decisions. They generally seem very excited for me, and view my pregnancy and upcoming leave was just part and parcel of young professors and are picking up the teaching load while I am away. Many of my young male colleagues have been taking advantage of the same paternity benefits as they start their families. (In fact some of the grey-hairs seem a little jealous as they did not have the option of paternity leave when they were starting out.)

I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but holding down any career and being a mom is difficult. 

What I want to tell our young female scientists is that the most difficult part about becoming a professor is the cut throat path that is there whether you are male or female all the same. You must be a star at graduate school amongst a sea of other talented students; get and excel in a high level postdoctoral position; work like a dog and publish, publish, publish; write exciting, revolutionary and fundable research proposals and nail the interview, convincing your potential colleagues your are going to do excellent science at their institution, be a great mentor for students, be an inspiring teacher and be a colleague they will get along with. 

After running that gauntlet through your 20's, having a family and running a research lab is no worse. 

The system is not perfect. It is clearly broken. I only have to look around faculty meeting to realize how few women there really are. But careers are very long in academia with many not retiring but transitioning to emeritus and still are kicking around the department well into their 70s and even 80s. It will take a very long time, longer than most professions, for the environment to be gender balanced. The statistics are skewed by this long lag time and it is not being helped by the fact that women are simply not applying for the jobs.

From my side, I can see the universities and my colleagues making a concerted effort to make it possible for women to succeed in STEM academic positions. The truth is: never has it been easier for women in STEM fields to have it all. 

I stand on the shoulders of my predecessors who have fought for all of these changes in policy. But I think now we need to change our tactics. We have been talking up the challenges and statistics way too much recently.  Young women are dropping out of the academic track before they barely begin and I fear it is from perception rather than reality about how their career and family life can progress.

How exactly are we to make it normal for there to be female professors with families if we are scaring our young female scientists away? 

I too thought like these students. As I battled my way though the ranks in my 20s, I imagined that at some point continuing with academia would become impossible and I would be forced into a teaching-only or industrial career. I knew this could have happened because I simply was not up to snuff, or because of the family and societal pressures that are unique to women. 

But it never did become impossible. And here I am with a bustling lab, a rewarding career and a baby kicking me from the inside. 

Like all academics, I have sacrificed many things to pursue my career, but having a family is not going to be one of them.  

Stop telling our our female scientists that there is a glass ceiling in academia and that they would have to give up a family! Its not true anymore and all the whining is making it worse.