THE PHD FAMILY - My postpartum journey and how I bounce back
This is part of THE PHD FAMILY series dedicated to my journey as a scientist mama pursuing her doctoral degree.
I’ve heard about postpartum depression before becoming a mom, which made me watch with an intention on my mental health after our first baby was born. The first month of new motherhood was rough, but it’s okay. The first month of turning to work was nerve-wracking, but it’s okay. Ten months later, I passed my PhD candidate exam - exhausted and sleep-deprived, I still had the hope everything would work out just fine.
What I didn’t realize is that postpartum problems can happen at any period.
There came the winter, a season when babies being sick and vulnerable – and this would also go into my file of things we pay attention to every year. The days followed were constant struggles between a clingy baby and work responsibilities. More often, if the call from preschool notified the spiked fever, I’d end up tearing back from the lab to fetch my son. When the ear infection got him all week restless, I was already behind on sleep and losing sanity due to almost all night up to his crying.
In the meantime, the PhD responsibilities didn’t seize. For the semester, I was required to fulfill the teaching responsibility besides regular work. At the time, I was fully consumed by all the roles and had zero idea how to get help and support.
One day I managed to arrive at the lab only to drive back immediately to pick up my baby because of a recurred fever. After arranging my husband to get home early, I tried to return to the work. Driving for almost two hours already for the day, however, leaving me a hard time to spare any energy on any task. The measurement did not go well, and I’d even bothered to troubleshoot. For the very first time in my PhD life, I debated to drop out. Sit in the room staring at the whatsoever data on the screen, How do I get through? I asked myself, with frustrating tears in my face.
Reflecting back, I’ve come to realize things that I tried to adapt later in my PhD life.
Recognize your resource and unapologetically use it, whatever it means to you.
It takes a village to raise a child. As a typical nuclear family, my husband and I, the team of main caregivers, are the ones who can identify and request the village to help. To us, we finally come to the decision of inviting our parents to keep us company for a few weeks. The traveling is costly, both financially and physically, but the quality time we’ve spent together turns out tremendously precious.
In later days, we’ve used babysitters for holidays or just a couple of hours so that we can take a break. With time and experiences, we find it easier deal with parenting and routine management. The life of PhD family is not easy, but slowly it becomes manageable.
Communicate with your adviser or colleagues about the situation.
After the almost-wanted-to-give-up moment, I emailed my advisor and spilled out the circumstances. It’s not a message to smooth out the guilty feeling but to communicate that a certain of expectation would be challenging to meet. Fortunately, it ended up with an attentive response that gained me the space to recover.
I have since tried to stay in close communication. For me, it reduces the frustration that’s out of my reach because worrying would not be helpful changing the outcome. A lot of times I hesitate to talk about the struggles - is everyone sick of me venting? But this is life with little kids, and we make sure to try to make it work.