Psite's Story

I initially vetoed the idea of sharing the birth story of Psite.  After all, the original intent of this blog was to share stories as they relate to academic life.  Somehow the story of my first child's birth didn't seem to fit.  But now, three weeks later, I've changed my mind.  After all, we hear a fair bit about the many women in academia who struggle with the decision whether or not to have children and, if so, when.  And we hear about difficulties in juggling motherhood and professional life.  But I personally have not heard much about the transition between childless professional to academic mother. 

As a scientist, I found much of my pregnancy to be frustrating from the standpoint of gathering reliable information about "what to expect."  I wanted data, not anecdotal stories or gushy stories about the "wonders of motherhood."  In the end, I relied on one book that did a fair job of drawing on research to present what seemed to be a realistic depiction of pregnancy, labor, and delivery.  Most importantly, it refrained from using words such as "normal" to talk about the average woman's experience.  Rather, it focused on what they reffered to as "uncomplicated" labor and delivery, but then described a range of different ways that it all can play out.  Above all, it stressed that every case is unique. 

So in the end, there I was, nearing my due date and hoping for an "uncomplicated" labor and delivery.  In my mind, this meant little to no medical interventions, deep breathing and relaxation techniques in lieu of pain medication, and a vaginal birth.  And with that image in my mind, I prepared for my first child.  As if I were preparing for my dissertation defense, I planned (as best I could) for every curve ball that could be thrown at me.  I packed my suitcase with racquet balls, relaxing music, massage oils, extra socks, an exercise ball, print-offs listing various birthing positions and the advantages/disadvantages of each, and on and on.  I threw in food for my husband, swim trunks so he could be in the birthing tub with me, and spare clothes.  I practiced breathing, squatting for inoridinate amounts of time, Kegel exercises, and stretching.  I was ready.

Did all of this fussing pay off?  Now, with more regular hormone levels and a few hours of sleep under my belt, I would say yes.  I did, I had an "uncomplicated" labor and delivery.   In the heat of the moment, though, I would have disagreed.  I had such a narrow definition of what "uncomplicated" meant that the small variations in my labor and delivery left me feeling like a failure, that I had somehow compromised my own beliefs and wishes.  As a scientist, I should have had a more liberal idea about what "normal" or "uncomplicated" meant -- that what is included in a standard deviation is quite a large range of experiences. 

So I have decided to give a snapshot of Psite's birth story.  Mostly because I think that many women in academia live by the same mantra by which I was raised, and continue to live -- if you work hard enough anything is possible.  As academics, this often gets taken to the extreme as we deprive ourselves of sleep to finish cranking that last bit of data, writing a lecture, or editing a manuscript.  And yet, as mothers, we have to let up a bit on this idea.  Our children and our bodies are much less predictable, and there is a lot that is out of our control.  And in the case of labor and delivery, most of these variations can be included under the blanket descriptor of "uncomplicated".  Now, with over 3 weeks perspective, I can happily report "yes, we had a long but perfectly uncomplicated delivery and both mom and baby are doing fine."

Psite's Birth Story

Wednesday:  OB appointment.  11 days until D-Day.  Menstrual-like cramps all through previous night.  Pelvic exam reveals 3 cm dilated.  I kick it into gear and finish grading papers and edit a manuscript.

Thursday:  Crappy night sleep, up every hour.  Another long night of menstrual-like cramps.  Get out of bed to 6:30 am alarm.  Gush of fluid falls onto floor.  Call birth center, told to come in.  Spend 2 hours at birth center and get sent home.  Leak fluid all day and crampy.  Stay home from work.  Submit manuscrpit, write letters of recommendation, get Grandma's room in order.  Eat homemade risotto. 

Friday/Saturday:  Still crampy and leaky, didn't sleep well.  Initial contractions are starting, only I don't know that is what they are.  Stay home from work again.  Clean house, pack Ginny's overnight bag, sew duvet cover, knit Sam's fish hat.  Lay down for nap,  awaken at 3 p.m. with pain and soaked lounge pants.  Hesitant to feel like a fool and be sent home from the birth center for a second time, hang out at home for a few more hours wondering if water has broken and if what I am feeling are really contractions or not.  Quick call to the hospital results in orders to come in -- soon.  Contractions anywhere between 5 minutes and 20 minutes apart (my body had not yet fallen into any discernible pattern).  Make Sam eat supper and feed Ginny.  5 pm head down the street to MeritCare.  Admitted by 6 pm.

We are escorted to our birthing suite where we fill out paperwork and are "debriefed", so to speak, by the nurse.  She tells us that the on-call OB will probably want to start me on pitocin since I am still only 3 cm.  This seems like a great time to unveil our birth plan, which basically says we want as few interventions as possible.  I don't want pitocin yet; I prefer to see what my body willdo on its own.  But, long story short, I labor until 6 am and never make it past 6 cm.  Worried that I will be too tired to push later on, I finally allow the pitocin drip. 

Although my contractions certainly strengthen and increas in frequency, I am still making  slow progress.  Despite the initial optimism of our (third) nurse to deliver by noon, at 10 am I am completely exhausted and still only at 8 cm.  At this point I am convinced that this is a sign of a delivery on its way to becoming "complicated".  I worry I won't have enough energy to push and will end up with any number of interventions, the worst being a C-section.  I long for a 15 minute break to clear my head and regain focus, but know it is impossible without medication, which I also don't want.  In the end, the exhaustion gets the better of me and I reluctantly ask for anepidural.  I feel as if have failed, or my body has failed, I'm not sure which.  Disappointed in myself, I apologize to Sam and weep as I wait for the effects to kick in.  I am sure things are only going to get worse, and that my labor will slow down further because of the epidural and I will have to get the C-section anyway.  And I worry that Psite will be affected and will be slow to latch and nurse.  At that moment, I think everything is going wrong. 

30 minutes of napping later, I have much better perspective.  Despite my fears, the epidural does not leave me completely numb to the birthing experience.   Although it numbs most of my left side and some of my right, I can still feel the contractions increase in strength to the point where I find myself needing to focus my breathing to make it through. I am relieved, actually, to still be able to feel the contractions and to move my legs. I wanted to be an active part of delivery and to be able to push with my contractions.

The nurse checks me again shortly after noon. I am certain that given all the pain, I will be finally be dialated enough to push. But no. And our 24-hour window is closing, with the message that the on-call OB will push for a C-section if things don't change. My delivery nurse, thank goodness, will have none of that. She says that after all I have been through and how hard I have worked, she wants a vaginal birth as much as I do. And so, another intervention of sorts. During one of my contractions, she flipps the edge of my cervix up and over the baby's head and tells me to push -- hard. It worked. The head moved through enough so that we can finally start pushing with the contractions. And boy do we push. We make such progress that the OB, who had just left the building thinking she had several more hours, is called back to catch our little Psite. At 4 p.m., after more than 24 hours of labor, our lives are permanently changed.  We become PARENTS.

Ready to Rumble?

If there are stages of pregnancy like there are stages of recovery, I think I've gone through just about all of them (in no particular order). Disbelief, indifference, joy, self-doubt, excitement, panic, nesting, acceptance, and now... let's get this show on the road!

After the fall semester came to a close and we retreated home to MT for the holidays, I felt panic set in. With a double teaching load and close to 300 students, I had had no time for anything -- research, hobbies, sleep, let alone time to think about the Psite and what I needed to do to feel "prepared" for parenthood. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe there is anything one can do to truly prepare for one of life's most significant events. But anyone who knows me, knows that I am a planner. My ducks like to be in a row. And suddenly I found myself 7 months pregnant with no ducks in sight, let alone lined up neatly.

Where am I now with ~5 weeks until D-Day (delivery day)? I'd like to say "ready", more or less. I tried to inventory all the ducks, and quickly realized that there are far too many to keep track of. So, I'm settling on just a few -- we have diapers, the car seat arrived, I knit a hat for Psite (it will be FEBRUARY in FARGO for God's sake!), I'm packing my hospital bag, and my Mom booked her tickets. The rest, well, it will slowly get taken care of (or not). It's kind of like a game of hide-and-go-seek. I can dimly hear Psite counting in the background, but don't know exactly how fast or slow. But I think I'll be OK when s/he suddenly cries out, "Ready or not, here I come!"

Surely You Understand...

I had stopped by T’s office unexpectedly, most likely to get a signature on graduate school paperwork or some other tedious hoop-jumping event. Before leaving, T told me about a recent department head’s retreat he had attended. He had found one session particularly thought-provoking, a session presented by an associate professor in the psychology department on the science of unconscious bias. She had shared the results of a variety of published studies providing evidence of the subtle gender biases that, even amongst the most progressive individuals, still play out in all facets of academia from mentoring, to hiring, to evaluation for promotion and tenure. He remarked on the results of one study regarding the evaluation of teaching by students. Apparently, one study had shown that students, independent of gender, tend to evaluate female instructors more harshly than their male counterparts. Although the study had not gone on to identify the cause of this difference, the authors provided multiple hypotheses to explain the phenomenon. For instance, women are more often associated with mothering or nurturing roles. Therefore, students are more likely to evaluate female instructors who “tow-the-line” with regard to grading policies more harshly because they are not fulfilling the expected role of nurturer. Whereas a male instructor with similar grading policies is more likely to be viewed as just “maintaining high standards” of his students.

I remember wondering if, as a student, similar unconscious biases had influenced my own evaluations of instructors. I also remember making a mental note to look the study up, to examine the research methodology, and possibly replicate the study in the sciences. But I quickly turned my attention back to my own research, and the arduous task of dissertation writing. It wasn’t until this semester, over 2 years later, that I really found myself thinking about this research again.

At the beginning of the semester, my body had not yet started to display to the world that I was pregnant. By the end of the semester, however, I was approaching my 32nd week and was clearly showing. My “baby bump” had become an explicit advertisement of motherhood. And coincidentally, I began receiving requests from my students that were… well, just different than what I had encountered the previous year teaching the same course. I first received an email from a graduate student enrolled in my course. He wrote to me, rather boldly, with a “proposal” as he called it. He explained to me that he had not been able to attend my class regularly because of his pregnant wife’s OB appointments. As there was a participation component to my course, he proposed that he be evaluated using a different grading scale that omitted participation. He felt this was a fair proposition, and noted that surely I would understand since I was also pregnant.

Another student emailed me after the final exam asking me to please consider the fact that she was a single mother when assigning her final grade. She was performing poorly prior to the exam, and was certain she had bombed the exam and as a result be on the border between a C and a D in the course. If she did not achieve a C she would be forced to retake the course, setting her back in her program an entire year. Surely I would understand how difficult it must be as a single mother? Couldn’t I make an exception?

It wasn’t that I had never been asked to “cut some slack” for one student or another. But these requests were more direct and tailored toward me as a mother-to-be. At first I was angry and unsure how to respond. I thought of all kinds of snide replies. Like replying to the graduate student by saying, “Actually, no, I do not understand. As you duly noted, I am pregnant. But I didn’t miss any classes due to my OB appointments.” Or to the single mother, “No, I couldn’t imagine how difficult it is to be a single mother. I only know what my own mother shared with me of her own experiences as a single mother, as she worked her way off of government assistance while supporting two small children.” Then I questioned whether or not I was being insensitive, after all, what if I had been in their shoes as a student? Anyone can have a bad semester. Should this one semester, this one course, really have that much impact on any one student’s future?

In the end, I denied their requests for special accommodations – I towed the line. Right or wrong, I applied the same evaluation criteria to these two students as I did to the other 248. But I haven’t stopped thinking about their requests, or rather, the rationale behind their requests. How, if at all, would their actions have been different if one of my male counterparts had been teaching instead? More importantly, does it even matter?

The Secret Handshake

One day, very early in my pregnancy, I received a small package in the mail. Delighted to see something other than a bill or one of my husband's sailing magazines, I quickly tore it open. A flat bundle of tissue paper emerged, and in it was a delicately painted bit of metal in the shape of an expectant woman. "To the world you may be just one person. But to one person you may be the world," decorated the woman's flowing skirt. I reached into the envelope again, and this time withdrew a card. In it, my friend explained that she had received this same gift during her first pregnancy. She had decided to pass it along to me, to welcome me to the "motherhood" as she called it. It was as if she had taught me a secret handshake, and in doing so invited me into an inner circle that would continue to be a source of strength and inspiration throughout the following months.

What may seem like a small gesture to some has become a reminder to me of the graciousness, generosity, and compassion of my friends. The friend that sent this to me had been trying to get pregnant for several months, something I was completely unaware of when I first shared my news with her. Despite her own struggles, her response to my pregnancy was selfless; she rejoiced for and with me. And since then, she has continued to be my advocate . She is just one example of the numerous women in my life whose qualities I try to emulate (often with only moderate success!)

I don't think my fellow members of the motherhood realize all that they've done for me or what I anticipate they will do for me after my life officially changes forever with the birth of my first child. Or maybe they do, and that is why it is such a powerful yet unspoken alliance amongst women. On days such as today, when I find myself in the quiet of the early morning, or late in the sleepless nights, when I face all my fears about being a mother, a wife, a professional, and a friend, I ultimately find solice as I reflect on all that the women in my life have accomplished in these very same roles. To my mother, my sister, my dearest Tucson friends (with and without children)... to ALL of you, thank you.