My Struggle

Everything with my pregnancy is still going great. I feel like I'm starting to have a little more energy, though that morning sickness is still ever present. I am getting more and more excited every day as the reality of all this is made more real in my mind. It's hard to believe the baby is already the size of a lime!

The part about all this I am struggling with most is the fear of losing my career; my ambitions; my dreams. I'll start from the beginning for those of you who may not know how I got to where I am today. In 2007 I graduated from University of Southern Maine with a Bachelor of Science degree in biology and a minor in biochemistry. While in college I worked/conducted research in a developmental biology laboratory for 3 years, I did volunteer field work on woodchuck behavior, I was selected for a grant to conduct an independent summer research project on juvenile woodchuck behavior, I was selected to go to Japan to conduct an independent study on the conservation programs in Japan, I helped organize an astrobiology seminary series for the University which included going to the annual conference in Washington DC to select potential speakers, and I was president of the biology club. So I did quite a bit.

After college I decided I wanted to go to graduate school, and after getting married to Robbie that summer, we packed up our framepacks and 2 suitcases and moved to Canterbury, England for a year. There I did a Master of Science degree in Conservation Biology. My dissertation project was "Mapping and predicting changes in elephant habitat use in a human-dominated rainforest landscape". This project involved going to Sumatra, Indonesia for 5 weeks where I traipsed through the jungle with 5 non-English speaking Indonesian men searching for elephant dung and tracks through the dense foliage. I also spent time in villages collecting additional data. Since about 99% of the time I was with people who spoke about 3 words in English, it was really quite an adventure. I ended up getting a distinction on my dissertation, which is the highest award offered, and a distinction on my overall degree. While in graduate school I also did some volunteer field work studying endangered newts, and did lots of traveling and exploring around England, Paris, Amsterdam, Ireland and Jersey.

Coming back from England with all this packed on my resume, I thought for sure I was on my way to achieving my goal of becoming a professor/researcher of ecology. So for the past few years I have been trying get accepted into doctoral programs, which was my next step. But this economy has not been kind to the fields of conservation biology and ecology. There are few positions available and those that are are extremely competitive. I have had several close calls. I had two interviews for the University of Wisconsin, after which I was selected for the position. But unfortunately the school cut funding for the department and the project ended up being dropped. I also had an interview at the University of Maine for a really cool position studying marsh birds. He had 200 applicants and only interviewed four. Unfortunately he decided to go with someone else who had more substantial field experience with birds. My other close call was at Victoria University in New Zealand. This time they had about 250 applicants, and interviewed 6. They ended up selecting someone else. I've met some of the people I'm competing with, and some of these people have so much experience they might as well already have their PhDs. Its crazy. There is such a bottleneck in this field right now.

So since I have been having trouble getting into schools, I've been working on pumping up my resume. I've worked at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge as a senior salt marsh intern and gained substantial field experience on salt marshes with vegetation, fish and birds. I've also had numerous teaching positions including being a long term biology substitute teacher at Massabesic High School (where I taught 6 classes for about 9 weeks) and being an environmental educator at Wolfe's Neck Farm (where I taught ages 4-adult about sustainable agriculture and the ecology of forests and salt marshes). Unfortunately, living in Maine I am limited to the number of ecology jobs I can apply to. This summer I had high hopes of finding another research position. Robbie and I thought long and hard about moving to where I could find work, but we decided instead to stay close to family and friends for a while and let him find a real job and move up in his career. So Robbie got his great job at IDEXX as a software developer and we finally have health benefits that we don't have to pay for out of pocket. I was not so lucky about finding a research position and ended up working where I do now, as a dog walker for Portland's Paws. I love the dogs and I love the work, but I miss using my brain and I miss biology. I try to let myself enjoy it since it is a pretty great job, my ambition just gets in the way. I was able to land a volunteer position at the Center for Wildlife which helps me to feel like I am keeping up with my field a little and making a positive difference in the world.

This brings us to the present. Robbie and I obviously decided to have a baby. We decided that since I am at a point where it would be easy to stop working for a while to have kids since I really haven't started my career that we should go for it. After all, we are young, healthy, fertile, and very excited and ready to grow our little family. And I am so excited and happy about this decision. I am also glad that we are in Maine where we will be able to start our family close to family and friends. Our hope is that in several years once our kid(s) start going to school, then I will start pursuing my career again. This means I will be at least 30. My new ambition is to get into veterinary school at that point. After all this time and experience doing ecology field work and stuff, I feel like at this stage in my life I might be better suited for a career as a veterinarian. I have steady hands, surgery and dissection doesn't make me queasy, I love animals and I think I would be good at it. Plus, I wouldn't have a hard time finding a good paying job after. So while I am pregnant and being a stay at home mom, I am going to be trying to improve my chances of eventually getting accepted into vet school. Because of my past degrees, I already have all the perquisite courses to get into Tufts (which is the closest veterinary school). Since grad school, I have also developed a lot of interest in trans-species psychology which one of the many things I could focus on as a veterinarian. I would also be able to indulge my love for the field of animal behavior, and or focus on conservation medicine or wildlife medicine. So none of my previous work would be for nothing.

I am just so afraid that I will never make it. This is my struggle. I am afraid that the babies will grow, and I will get older and no one will want me in their school. I'm afraid that I'll forget about my dreams, and after all that I've worked towards, I'll have nothing but memories of it all. I know that perhaps I will change my mind once I have the baby, and maybe I will have new dreams that don't include a career. But that scares me because I really want to keep biology and animals a part of my life too. So I hope to keep studying in the meantime, maybe I'll read biology books and magazines to our baby. Maybe we will volunteer to help with bird surveys and pull out invasive plants. Maybe I'll still get there. For now, I just need someone to convince me that it's okay to be a stay at home mom, and it's not "just being a a mom". That by staying home I am not just making a personal sacrifice, I am doing something wonderful for our baby and that he/she will grow up better and happier because of it.