About family and science...

I'm struggling to know where to begin this entry. Because, you see, there is so much background that I know (as it is my own) and that you don't (as we've just met). So let me fill you in on some of the details. First, there are some distinct disadvantages to being a woman in science (WiS), particularly a woman in science that would also like to have a family. I'm sure it's easy enough to see, but really, when a WiS becomes pregnant, she has to plan, seriously PLAN, her experiments, her contact with potentially hazardous chemicals, her grant and manuscript writing. She must prepare to explain why there will potentially be a gap in her publications and/or productivity. She will undoubtedly need to stop teaching at some point, if this is part of her position as well. Men in science (MiS), while needing to plan for their partner's impending explosion, are not nearly as hampered by the extra thirty pounds and additional life growing in their abdomen.

Now, I would not trade the opportunity to bear my children for the world. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining that I have to do this. I'm just clarifying that a WiS has some extra concerns that a) MiS do not have, and b) women in non-science careers may not have.

So all through graduate school, whenever I was asked "When will you have children?" my answer was always a vague "Sometime after graduation." Now that I am post-graduation, that question is more difficult to answer. There are several options, all of which have been discussed ad nauseam by Mr. W and I.
A short synopsis:

1. Don't have children. Okay, so we didn't really discuss this. It's not an option for us.
2. Have a child during the postdoc.
3. Have a child pre-tenure while in an assistant professor position.
4. Have a child post-tenure while in an assistant professor position.
5. Adopt a child, at any of the aforementioned times.

In our ultimate 'life plan' we would love to have two children. So waiting to have the first child until I am in a professor position, post tenure, could potentially mean starting our family around the age of 37. And while this isn't old, with the risk of birth defects increasing with age as well as my serious concern with a huge generation gap there, I do not want to wait that long to start a family. And while adoption has always been an option for us, the expenses of it preclude it's consideration at this point in time.

So really, the choice has come down to having a child now, during my postdoc or in a few years during the first few years of a professorship. My postdoc position will likely be three years in length (having already completed nearly the first year of that) and is a steadily funded position in a good lab. I don't know where my next position will be, nor how rigorous the tenure requirements will be. And so, in the spirit of tackling the challenges we know about now, rather than (or maybe in addition to) the ones that lie ahead, Mr. W and I decided that now might be a good time to start a family.

And that is a roller coaster ride which deserves its own post.