Balancing Motherhood & Work
The common saying is that there is never a “good” time to start a family. There are always financial constraints, job situations that could be better, and too many personal commitments to make room for raising one or more children. Even so, I definitely did not plan on becoming pregnant less than a year after graduating from vet school. The plan was to wait a couple of years so that my husband would be finished with his graduate program, I would feel a little more stable in my career, and we would have two incomes to offset the costs associated with student loans and having kids.
Several months after starting my first job as a veterinarian, I realized I had been feeling different in recent weeks and took a pregnancy test. I vividly remember standing in the bathroom at work, staring at the plus sign on the test with my mind racing. How was I going to tell my husband? We had talked about children in our future, but not now! How was I going to tell my employer? I hadn’t even been working there for 6 months yet and now I needed to talk with them about taking maternity leave 9 months from now! How would I even afford unpaid maternity leave? With my husband in school, I am the only source of income for our household. We live in an area with a high cost of living and we are just starting to pay back my astronomical student loans, not to mention paying for my husband’s tuition. How am I going to raise a child when I am already struggling with finding balance in my life?
My husband was extremely supportive of course (why would I ever doubt that?) and we decided to wait until the end of my first trimester to tell folks at work so that we could be more certain that the pregnancy would “take” and so that I could be prepared with a plan when I talked to the practice owner.
This plan was quickly derailed when I started having severe morning sickness and could not attribute my frequent bathroom trips to food poisoning or the stomach flu any longer. Surprisingly, the male owners of the practice were congratulatory and didn’t react one way or another when I told them that I planned on taking 8 weeks of maternity leave with 2 weeks of part-time work before returning to full time. I had expected the worst because I am a new grad and a new employee and I hadn’t started meeting my production goals yet. The apparent lack of judgment on their part made me even more determined to prove that I was not going to let my pregnancy get in the way of being a productive contributor to the practice.
Pregnancy has been great for helping me to rearrange my priorities and start taking better care of myself. I have always been the type of person who puts everyone else’s needs first. I used to work through my lunch break and make phone calls and write up my morning charts. I’d stay late researching cases and writing up my afternoon charts. Regular meals were often lost in the shuffle of a busy day. Exercise was sporadic – more of an added bonus if I managed to find some extra time.
Now that all of my actions have a direct impact on the growth and development of my fetus, I have had to make many changes that I probably should have made long ago. Eating well and eating often are high on my priority list. Every morning I line up my Tupperware containers and fill them with healthy snacks to graze on throughout the day, in addition to making myself a healthy lunch. I have learned to maximize every moment of down time in between appointments to return phone calls and write up my charts as soon as possible after seeing a patient. Therefore, I can use my lunch break to focus on eating and taking a walk. Getting out of the office and exercising in the middle of the day is a great way to recenter and regroup before seeing afternoon appointments.
I am learning how to delegate more, how to say no when necessary, and perhaps most importantly, how to make a separation between my personal life and my job. As a result, I am generally able to take a full lunch break and leave at a reasonable time in the evenings with all of my charts written up and all of my phone calls made.
It is ironic that an event that has the potential to further complicate my life has actually brought more balance to my life. I only hope that I can continue to shift my priorities and remain a good veterinarian while being an attentive wife and mother.
What do you do to stay balanced in your life? If you’re a parent, how do you balance work/home?
