NFP and Grad School

  • Thread starter Thread starter veritas2014
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
V

veritas2014

Guest
Hi everyone, and Happy New Year. Not sure if this is the right place to post this – I haven’t been on CAF in quite some time and have never really posted much here.

A little background before I get to my question: I get to marry the love of my life this coming June. He is 26 and I am 24. We are both converts to Catholicism, devoted to the teachings of the Church, and to each other, and we truly want to do God’s will in all things. He has a full time job now but wants to find one that allows for more opportunity/advancement/stability/closer to where we want to live right after our wedding. I am applying for PhD programs in history, and have an interview for a new part time job in a few days (pray for me!).

We are of course very open to what ever God wants for us. We are learning the Creighton Model of NFP and are loving the whole learning experience and we’re not even married yet! We have discussed and feel comfortable TTA for at least the first year of our marriage, while he gets settled in a better job and I get a feel for the graduate school work load. But recently we’ve both been really feeling that “baby fever” and are just so excited to become parents, when the time comes.

I’m not looking for advice as to what we should do, of course. Prayer, our spiritual directors, our own discussions, and the movement of the Holy Spirit will help us do that. **My question is two fold: how in general does one discern when it is the right time to TTC? And, have any of you CAF ladies had experience being pregnant/having children while in graduate school? **I’ve read several posts of situations where the husband has been the grad student, but haven’t found many for the opposite. We have lots of Catholic friends but none in this situation, really, so I am just curious to hear others experiences with this.

Please keep my fiance and I in your prayers as well as we prepare to enter fully into our married vocation 🙂
 
veritas2014 said:
Hi everyone, and Happy New Year. Not sure if this is the right place to post this – I haven’t been on CAF in quite some time and have never really posted much here.

A little background before I get to my question: I get to marry the love of my life this coming June. He is 26 and I am 24. We are both converts to Catholicism, devoted to the teachings of the Church, and to each other, and we truly want to do God’s will in all things. He has a full time job now but wants to find one that allows for more opportunity/advancement/stability/closer to where we want to live right after our wedding. I am applying for PhD programs in history, and have an interview for a new part time job in a few days (pray for me!).

We are of course very open to what ever God wants for us. We are learning the Creighton Model of NFP and are loving the whole learning experience and we’re not even married yet! We have discussed and feel comfortable TTA for at least the first year of our marriage, while he gets settled in a better job and I get a feel for the graduate school work load. But recently we’ve both been really feeling that “baby fever” and are just so excited to become parents, when the time comes.

I’m not looking for advice as to what we should do, of course. Prayer, our spiritual directors, our own discussions, and the movement of the Holy Spirit will help us do that. **My question is two fold: how in general does one discern when it is the right time to TTC? And, have any of you CAF ladies had experience being pregnant/having children while in graduate school? **I’ve read several posts of situations where the husband has been the grad student, but haven’t found many for the opposite. We have lots of Catholic friends but none in this situation, really, so I am just curious to hear others experiences with this.

Please keep my fiance and I in your prayers as well as we prepare to enter fully into our married vocation 🙂
Click to expand...
1). You pray. You and your spouse pray and discern if your education or career is primary to your family at any time.
2). My wife was pregnant while in a grad program with our fifth kid while working full time as a scientist. I’d actually say it focused her immensely.
 
veritas2014 said:
Hi everyone, and Happy New Year. Not sure if this is the right place to post this – I haven’t been on CAF in quite some time and have never really posted much here.

A little background before I get to my question: I get to marry the love of my life this coming June. He is 26 and I am 24. We are both converts to Catholicism, devoted to the teachings of the Church, and to each other, and we truly want to do God’s will in all things. He has a full time job now but wants to find one that allows for more opportunity/advancement/stability/closer to where we want to live right after our wedding. I am applying for PhD programs in history, and have an interview for a new part time job in a few days (pray for me!).

We are of course very open to what ever God wants for us. We are learning the Creighton Model of NFP and are loving the whole learning experience and we’re not even married yet! We have discussed and feel comfortable TTA for at least the first year of our marriage, while he gets settled in a better job and I get a feel for the graduate school work load. But recently we’ve both been really feeling that “baby fever” and are just so excited to become parents, when the time comes.

I’m not looking for advice as to what we should do, of course. Prayer, our spiritual directors, our own discussions, and the movement of the Holy Spirit will help us do that. **My question is two fold: how in general does one discern when it is the right time to TTC? And, have any of you CAF ladies had experience being pregnant/having children while in graduate school? **I’ve read several posts of situations where the husband has been the grad student, but haven’t found many for the opposite. We have lots of Catholic friends but none in this situation, really, so I am just curious to hear others experiences with this.

Please keep my fiance and I in your prayers as well as we prepare to enter fully into our married vocation 🙂
Click to expand...
Hoosier_Daddy said:
1). You pray. You and your spouse pray and discern if your education or career is primary to your family at any time.
Click to expand...
I agree with this.

For your second question. I was not pregnant during grad school but I was during my final semester of undergrad nursing school. I got pregnant over the winter break and was 24 weeks when I graduated. I won’t lie - it was challenging. I was dealing with the EXHAUSTION of early pregnancy, smell sensitivity, etc while doing clinicals. I ended up staying home with my DD until she was almost 2 and then entered the workforce. I will say this - it’s always going to be a challenging time to have a child. There’s always something that is going to make the timing “not perfect” but you refer to Hoosier Daddy’s 1st answer and you figure it out.
 
I had a new baby when I started grad school. I was amazed at the difference of maturity parenting lent to my studies. It was exhausting, but worth it. I do recall going to the library between classes and falling asleep. My DH would wake me up when it was time to go off to class (he was in school, too.). He worked full time and school full time. I was a grad student and a TA. We used a daycare on campus, so I could go and nurse my baby between classes as well or between office hours.
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
1). You pray. You and your spouse pray and discern if your education or career is primary to your family at any time.
2). My wife was pregnant while in a grad program with our fifth kid while working full time as a scientist. ** I’d actually say it focused her immensely**.
Click to expand...
^this 👍
 
I’ve never been to grad school, but my niece just got her PhD. She has a 3 year old, an almost 2 year old, and is pregnant with number 3. My nephew’s wife just got her PhD as well and she also has a 3 year old. My mom was pregnant with number 5 when she got her PhD. It really comes down to what you believe is most important for you and your family. Pray, communicate, and avoid selfishness. Congratulations on your upcoming wedding! May God bless you with many happy years together.
 
My husband has a number of graduate students that he works with, and parenthood barely seems to affect the guys’ performance, but the female grad students often flatline during pregnancy and for the next few years. Everything slooows down. This happens to very bright, very hard-working women–it can take them 3+ years to get back on track.

Plus, there can be unexpected medical stuff, like there was a mother of twins that we know who had them prematurely. That really knocked her out for a while.

My MIL was pregnant with my husband during graduate school. She has done very well, but by the time my in-laws were finishing their dissertations, their son was big enough to number the pages for them. (This was back in the day, obviously.) They freaked at the idea of their son getting married early in graduate school.

My husband’s department really makes an effort to support graduate parents and graduate moms (for example, giving suitable TA assignments), but not every department is like that. I would keep an eye out and talk to parents in your departments. If there are few parents (or no mothers) and/or if you never see them around, that will tell you something.

I suspect that (if this is a doctorate) that it will be easier to have a baby after doing the coursework, as that will tend to create more flexibility.

Early tenure track is also pretty brutal, so there’s not really a good time to be an academic mom.
 
I know that there are a lot of people who do this successfully- I can tell you that I would not have been one of them. I completed a Masters’ degree before getting married, and then I worked in a full time job up until right before I delivered. That was really hard itself and my job was pretty flexible. I worked from home, so if I needed to get sick I was right next to my bathroom and could go right back to work. The crippling exhaustion during the first trimester was not something I expected.

If you’re okay with the possibility of not completing your degree on time, or maybe not at all, that’s good, but if it’s something you really, really want to do you have to decide how you will feel if you never do it. Any number of things can get complicated- bed rest, a special needs child, or just the exhausting demands of parenthood in general, money issues, etc. I think some people are better equipped to handle it than others, and you know best how you think you could manage.
 
Lorelei12 said:
I know that there are a lot of people who do this successfully- I can tell you that I would not have been one of them. I completed a Masters’ degree before getting married, and then I worked in a full time job up until right before I delivered. That was really hard itself and my job was pretty flexible. I worked from home, so if I needed to get sick I was right next to my bathroom and could go right back to work. The crippling exhaustion during the first trimester was not something I expected.

If you’re okay with the possibility of not completing your degree on time, or maybe not at all, that’s good, but if it’s something you really, really want to do you have to decide how you will feel if you never do it. Any number of things can get complicated- bed rest, a special needs child, or just the exhausting demands of parenthood in general, money issues, etc. I think some people are better equipped to handle it than others, and you know best how you think you could manage.
Click to expand...
Right.

I know that I couldn’t have managed my MA pregnant or with a small child, because I barely managed it not-pregnant.

I have known a couple of women to sort of fizzle out mid-program once they start having children. Of course, they might not be very committed to begin with–I bailed on my doctoral program with an MA with babies not even being a factor. It was just HARD. I knew a few moms from that program (which was really tough), and the married ones were tired and also fed up with their husbands for not being more help.

If you have a baby, try to make allowances for appropriate childcare (in fact, that would be a good thing to be saving for pre-kids). The fact that one has kids at home and is doing school work at home does not mean that those two things combine well–especially when trying to do original work.

The grad mothers that I know that are doing OK often have moms that are available to help. I know one mom where grandma lived about two hours away and was available to come help. In another family, grandma comes from overseas to take care of the kids over the summer. My husband’s grandma spent a lot of time with him when his parents were in graduate school. How much help you can expect from your family will make a big difference.

Good luck!
 
I got pregnant in my final PhD year. I was writing up and the most difficult work was behind me. But my pregnancy was tough. I was swollen and had bad back pain so I couldn’t sit at my desk at all. I went on maternity leave and continued after my son was born. And then I quickly got pregnant again and had to deal with my post viva corrections. That took a long time, but I managed. All in all, my pregnancies and their aftermath added about two years to the whole thing. I got my degree but it was tough. My experience is not unusual, I know several students who had to slow down and it took them a long time to finish.
 
I don’t have a master’s degree.

But I think you would probably need to treat it as if you were going to work full time soon after the baby’s birth, and arrange similar amount of help. So a babysitter full time, or a daycare setting, or a willing grandma or aunt.
 
I can’t speak to having a baby in grad school. However, while in grad school I was working three jobs, one an assistantship that required both class attendance and grading, and had a cat who I had to get up to feed every 3 hours to feed at night. (Very long story there…) So, I’d say that I have some experience with trying to balance outside commitments while pursuing a master’s.

Short version: I dropped out after one semester. It simply wasn’t physically possible for me to work 50 hours/week, care for the cat, attend my and my advisor’s classes, and read and write as much as I needed to. Then-BF/now-DH and I were getting serious, too, and I knew it was time to leave when I found myself resenting him for calling most evenings, or asking me out for a nice date. :eek: I was sleeping perhaps 3-4 hours most nights, and just couldn’t keep all those plates in the air on such little sleep.
 
UbiCaritas said:
I can’t speak to having a baby in grad school. However, while in grad school I was working three jobs, one an assistantship that required both class attendance and grading, and had a cat who I had to get up to feed every 3 hours to feed at night. (Very long story there…) So, I’d say that I have some experience with trying to balance outside commitments while pursuing a master’s.

Short version: I dropped out after one semester. It simply wasn’t physically possible for me to work 50 hours/week, care for the cat, attend my and my advisor’s classes, and read and write as much as I needed to. Then-BF/now-DH and I were getting serious, too, and I knew it was time to leave when I found myself resenting him for calling most evenings, or asking me out for a nice date. :eek: I was sleeping perhaps 3-4 hours most nights, and just couldn’t keep all those plates in the air on such little sleep.
Click to expand...
Ooooh!

I started reading your post thinking that you were going to say, “…and I managed it all through good time management.” But no.

What you describe is roughly comparable to being in grad school and having a baby and no childcare.
 
Xantippe said:
If you have a baby, try to make allowances for appropriate childcare (in fact, that would be a good thing to be saving for pre-kids). The fact that one has kids at home and is doing school work at home does not mean that those two things combine well–especially when trying to do original work.

The grad mothers that I know that are doing OK often have moms that are available to help. I know one mom where grandma lived about two hours away and was available to come help. In another family, grandma comes from overseas to take care of the kids over the summer. My husband’s grandma spent a lot of time with him when his parents were in graduate school. How much help you can expect from your family will make a big difference.
Click to expand...
This is a good point, about childcare. Grad school and having a child (or more) with help from family or other childcare providers is very different than trying to do it all yourself. It’s probably very doable if you have a good support system. Right now I work 20 hours per week and have no childcare help, and I think grad school with no childcare would be even more difficult.
 
Xantippe said:
Ooooh!

I started reading your post thinking that you were going to say, “…and I managed it all through good time management.” But no.

What you describe is roughly comparable to being in grad school and having a baby and no childcare.
Click to expand...
It was…rough. To put it mildly.

Strictly from a safety standpoint, I fell asleep while driving at least 4 times that I can remember, always when driving back from the library at around 2-3 AM. On the bright side (?) at that hour, no one else was on the road, so I “only” hit medians/curbs…? Not, however, an experience I would recommend, much less with a baby in the back seat!
 
UbiCaritas said:
I can’t speak to having a baby in grad school. However, while in grad school I was working three jobs, one an assistantship that required both class attendance and grading, and had a cat who I had to get up to feed every 3 hours to feed at night. (Very long story there…) So, I’d say that I have some experience with trying to balance outside commitments while pursuing a master’s.

Short version: I dropped out after one semester. It simply wasn’t physically possible for me to work 50 hours/week, care for the cat, attend my and my advisor’s classes, and read and write as much as I needed to. Then-BF/now-DH and I were getting serious, too, and I knew it was time to leave when I found myself resenting him for calling most evenings, or asking me out for a nice date. :eek: I was sleeping perhaps 3-4 hours most nights, and just couldn’t keep all those plates in the air on such little sleep.
Click to expand...
I get your point but you lost me at cat.
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
I get your point but you lost me at cat.
Click to expand...
shrug

In retrospect, yup, I should have put the cat down.

However, I had no family and no close friends and was terribly lonely. That cat had been with me through a lot of pretty bad abuse, and as crazy as I’m sure it sounds, I couldn’t bear to let go of the only creature who had ever shown me much in the way of love, even though, yes, she was just a cat. That, coupled with the vet saying she might recover if I just fed her small amounts very frequently, meant that I was willing to do far more for her than any other animal I’ve subsequently owned. If he’d recommended putting her to sleep, I would have, awful though it would have been, but he didn’t.
 
Hey there. My wife was working on her PhD when we had our first child. There were a lot of factors that led us to try when we did, including: her schedule (she was working on her dissertation), her future plans and what that would mean for home life, and the state of my career.

One piece of advice I can offer is this: as you interview at different schools, really try to get a picture of how your advisor runs his or her ship. My wife’s allowed her students to bring their children in, didn’t care if they had to leave for doctor appointments, etc. Not every advisor is that way, and many places would highly discourage (or even prohibit) you bringing in your child. You will also want to find out if there’s any flexibility to extend your time for a year if you have a child.

Good luck!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top