Introduction

I’m working on my PhD dissertation in Evolutionary Genetics. I also have a little baby girl who's not a baby anymore -- she's almost 2yrs old. And my husband is climbing the corporate ladder, which keeps him plenty occupied. This blog is to try to document my struggle through the PhD and follow what I end up doing afterwards.

Before I had my baby (LM for this blog), my husband and I had been working on opposite sides of the country for a year: I was working on my PhD (that I'd been working on for 3 yrs or so) and he had just broken out of academia by getting a job working with intellectual property management in science. It was so hard for him to break out that we did indeed end up on opposite sides of the country. LM brought us back together, thankfully!

I moved to live with him, and worked via internet with the help of my amazingly supportive lab members and advisor. Once I had LM, there were complications. I had an emergency c-section and she ended up in the neonatal intensive care unit for 2 weeks. Things were quite tough, and LM had trouble both with breastfeeding and formula. Needless to say, my dissertation suffered.

We moved to a new apartment when she was about 6mo old. I was able to start digging into my data seriously again. And then we moved, again. My husband got another career breakthrough and we moved to the other side of the country. Note to self: moving is expensive and time-consuming.

To bring you up to date, LM has been sick off and on, has asthma, and my husband got yet another job, but this one is overseas. Climbing the corporate ladder is fun and exciting, but requires quite a bit of support from family, which we’re lucky to have. LM and I are living with some of my family while he gets things set up Over There. Did I mention that it's hard?

LM's been sick for a month now, it being winter, and I grab what moments I can to work on that dissertation of mine. My advisor and I communicate by phone and by email. My committee really needs to see me before we move overseas, where I plan on continuing my dissertation in the same manner.

My last trip to school had to be postponed since LM was sick again and I didn’t want to leave her without her mommy, without her daddy, and sick. I haven’t rescheduled yet, but need to soon.

She’s probably going to wake up soon, so I’ll finish here and leave more for next time.