Two Months: a Smurfilicious Update

Smurf is just over 2 months old now and weighs over 15 lbs.


Fig. 1. The double chin.


Fig. 2. Hand dimples, the cutest thing in the world.

He sleeps one longish stretch at night (9 pm - 2:30 am) and after that wakes up every couple of hours to eat. He also takes 2-3 naps per day, sometimes quite long ones. I was a bit worried about all the sleepiness, but it's not every day and the doctor says that's perfectly fine, some big babies just eat and sleep till about 2-3 months of age.

He makes good eye contact and has been smiling since about 6 weeks. He's recently started blowing bubbles (it's a milestone -- who knew?) He loves the older boys, especially the eldest one. Unfortunately, he seems to ignore my husband and my husband is upset about it, thinks the baby hates him. I think it simply has to do with the fact that my husband is around in the evenings when Smurf is grumpy and ready to hit the hay. Or may be some weird thing with Smurf and my husband wearing glasses. Either way, Hub and Smurf bonding has yet to take place.

Tummy time -- a difficult optimization problem. For those who aren't parents, babies are supposed to sleep on their backs to reduce the risk of SIDS, and you are supposed to have them on their tummies for "tummy time" to strengthen their neck and back muscles, which is necessary for crawling, sitting, walking. The problem is -- many babies hate it (see Fig. 3). All of mine did.


Fig. 3. Tummy time = torture time.

Now, since babies hate it, you are not supposed to do it when they are sleepy or hungry. So you may want to do it after they wake up and eat, only then their tummy is full and they spit up. So there's a small window when they are no longer sleepy, hungry, or puking and also not getting tired and hungry for the next round. Only in this small window you may actually want to enjoy your happy cooing baby, and not turn him on his tummy where he will start screaming... So far, I have had the most luck with just putting him on my chest instead of the floor. He doesn't mind it that much, but after a bit starts sniffing for the boob! :-) He can also roll over, or more accurately -- roll down -- from my chest and onto his back.

And to wrap up, a couple of gratuitous happy baby pics.



Fig. 4. Happy Smurf on his play mat.

Academic Women sans Babies 2.0

Here are the answers to the questions submitted to Hermitage's panel on Wimminz in Academia Q&A, now with 100% Fewer Babies. This time around she has two different professorial panels and a postdoc panel, go check them all out.

1. Are there any suggestions about how to look professorial as a young (and young looking and smallish) TT faculty?

2. For those of us who like things like pink, skirts, baking, sewing, knitting, heels, makeup, and other things girlie, how important is it to not do / wear / talk about these things lest we be seen as fluffy girls who can't do Science?

I am going to combine these two into one, since they are indeed two facets of a question "I look and act too much like a young woman, how do I make sure it does't hurt me professionally?"

"Looking like a professor" means being a white dude with glasses and crazy hair, so that's really hard to pull off for any woman without gender reassignment surgery. So don't worry about looking like a stereotypical professor. Just look like you and kick ass. I know a number of women, especially from Italy, France, and Spain, who are petite, very feminine, and dress really well. They are also phenomenal scientists and I don't think anyone is taking their looks as a signature of a feeble mind. I am sure you can talk about baking or knitting if you want to, although I don't think I have heard any of them discuss any particular hobbies in a professional setting.

Once your science (papers, citations, funding, awards) starts speaking for itself, it is absolutely irrelevant how you look. I know an American-born female professor who's probably no taller than 5' 1" and looks about 12 years old (although she's probably in her late 30's or early 40's), dresses very goofily and wears no makeup: however, her list of papers, grants, and awards is so impressive, she certainly does't have to prove anything to anyone through the way she looks.

Now, what to do until you establish a track record? Fake it till you make it. Wear whatever you want and don't worry what anyone else thinks. Or at least tell yourself that you don't care and tell anyone who asks or comments about your appearance that you don't care and that he/she shouldn't either. Young women overwhelmingly suffer from insecurities -- that's why faking it is key. Pretend you are confident so doors would open for you; once you have a track record, confidence will naturally come so you won't have to fake so much.

As for women professors: I would say wear whatever makes you comfortable. Being uncomfortable shows and you don't want that. One thing I recommend is to make sure your clothes fit well. That's especially important for women who don't have an ideal physique (most of us no longer do as we age, even if we once did). Also, whatever your clothing style, once you are a professor you can afford higher-end clothes, so go shopping. Get the more expensive of whatever items you like to wear (this also helps with making sure they fit well). Well-fitting good quality clothes, irrespective of style, will make you feel and look like you are comfortable with yourself and in control.

3. What can we do when other women deny there are problems being a woman in science?

When I read this question, I asked myself when was the last time anyone in real life (except my husband and perhaps a close personal friend or relative) actually took my concern to heart when I complained that I suspected someone had slighted me professionally because I'm a woman. The answer is -- I cannot remember. It's been a really long time since I complained to anyone from my professional circle in this fashion, not because slights don't happen, but because I have found that colleagues (male and female) really don't want to engage in this type of "what if".

The problem with discrimination against women is that any one incident happening to any one woman can have an alternative explanation. That's enough you make you really doubt your qualities and your sanity. Your paper or grant got trashed while the reviewer reveled in writing "she" and "her"? Well, maybe the paper/grant was just really crappy. You are requested to do way more service than your male counterparts? Well, I am sure that's because they really appreciate your contribution to the department since you are so good at it. You got passed up for a fellowship/scholarship/promotion? Well, maybe that other (white, male) candidate was really better qualified.

Since any one incident can have an alternative explanation, if you suspect gender bias and go to a colleague (male or female) for support, don't be surprised if they don't jump to agree with you or comfort you. Many of them will think (even if they are not saying it) that you are not good enough, that you are simply not passing muster. Don't be surprised by such thinking -- academic science is extremely competitive and people have huge egos. Showing doubt and insecurity, in my experience, usually does not fall on receptive ears. Pats on the back are very hard to come by, better get used to living without them.

However, bias against women is well-documented and real because many, many women have the exact same ambiguous unpleasant experiences happening to them. That is why it doesn't matter what any one naysayer says in response to any one or a host of your anecdotes. It is a fact that over the course of your career you will most likely get some (or quite a bit of?) friction under your professional wheels because you are a woman. Life is definitely too short to try to convert naysayers. If you suspect that someone is biased against you professionally, don't waste time going around looking for validation; assume they are indeed biased and try to minimize their influence on your career (I am talking about unconscious bias and the virtually imperceptible inequalities it creates; egregious violations of your rights to a safe work environment or sexual harassment should always be reported). Focus on surrounding yourself with supportive people of both genders and keep looking and going ahead. (See more survival tips here.)

4. It seems to me that often women don't have as strong professional networks as men - the kind that gets built over shared interests (sports or drinking). People seem to gravitate towards others like them. What specific advice do you have for establishing and maintaining network with men as well as other women?

I am in a very macho field so my network consists almost exclusively of men. Now, I will eat and drink anything and don't mind going to a sports bar or any other bar or restaurant. I don't follow sports and barely follow politics, so I don't partake in these types of conversations, but usually even in an all-men professional group there will be talks of other conferences, people we all know, developments in the field, travel, university or company politics, families, so there are plenty of topics where I can take part socially. Most men in my field are moderate drinkers and family men and really aren't all that wild or all that scintillating as dinner conversationalists. I also stir the conversation towards talking shop when I need to, and it is usually well received. I guess I am old enough that networking is easier as we are all getting old and boring -- dinner, one drink, then back to the room to sleep or work.

When I was a grad student, my male grad student brethren were a bit more wild in terms of drinking and ogling women, but I can hold my liquor and have a fairly high threshold for comments about the racks of random women passing by, so it wasn't a big deal. Even then, most conversations were about sports, current politics, movies, travel, our advisors. I guess we were pretty boring then too.

I would say just go out with people you meet at conferences, don't think about it too much. You can nurse your Coke or a vodka-tonic all night, most people don't care. Take part in the conversation when you can, otherwise listen or chill and people-watch. If you are comfortable, people will be comfortable around you. I routinely go out to dinner with groups of men and no other women; long ago I was very uncomfortable, now I don't even notice. I remember a recent grant program review (it's like a workshop), where I ended up I renting a minivan at the airport because the rental car company was out of compacts and midsize sedans; it turned out well, as I could drive a whole bunch of us (me and 7 middle-aged men) out of town to a steak house for dinner at the end of the day, so we didn't have to take multiple cars. And none of them even complained that a woman was driving! ;-)

Appropriated

I just found out that "the Federal appropriation is ending" at the end of September and I can no longer use the funds on a grant of mine that is supposed to expire in April 2012 (we're in the no-cost extension year) and has some $30 K left. Why did this happen? Apparently, the SPO (Sponsored Programs Office) gets a list of grants for which the appropriation lapses and that's it; your grant is done and there is nothing the agency or the SPO can do about it. Usually it does not happen until the grant actually expires...

The SPO person told me that I had already been informed about all this in late June; for all I know I might have been, but the arrival of Smurf makes my recollection of this period foggy at best and I certainly cannot find the email.

This is all very inconvenient, as I planned on seeing a student all the way to graduation with this money. Now I have to find a way to spend $30 K in the next month or lose it; ideally, much of it can be done with salary transfers so I don't actually have to spend the money, but there are also some constraints there (e.g. I don't want too much money transferred to another eligible grant as it may negatively influence its no-cost extension which I plan on requesting in the next few months), plus transfer requests for any expenses more than 90 days old require a ton of paperwork so are best avoided... If all else fails, I guess my computer cluster will be getting new nodes, stat.

No, this ordeal does not help with the tension. It is, however, very typical for a faculty job at an R1: whenever I start to think I have some control over my work schedule and my funds, there is some fire like this that needs extinguishing yesterday. Maternity leave, my a$$.

Interesting Posts at "Unqualified Offerings"

Over at Unqualified Offerings, Thoreau has two interesting new posts:

Things I can only teach you in research

The problem with summer research programs

I encourage you to check out Unqualified Offerings for a variety of content. Thoreau is opinionated, insightful, and funny on any topic he discusses.

Less Than Full Disclosure

After weeks of playing phone tag, I have finally connected with a program manager at a DoD agency. I don't know him and his program is new to me, but it looks like it may be a very good fit. It was one of the most pleasant and productive conversations I have had of this kind in a long time. The spin of the work may have to be a bit different than what I commonly write for his agency, but I am actually excited because he's much more interested in the theory and numerics than the usual suspects I correspond with. We agreed that I would follow up with a white paper (a white paper is a 2-3 page long mini-proposal, where you pitch your idea in all its glory) in a few weeks, and we'll take it from there; if he likes it, I will make a trip to DC to make a presentation in person.

It turns out, however, that I am swamped with work already. Several manuscripts long overdue for submission, plus three white papers with collaborators and one proposal resubmission, all of which actually have hard deadlines in the next couple of weeks. I can postpone the manuscripts further (apologies to my poor, very patient students) but not the white papers or the proposal. Considering that I can only work the odd hour here and there around the baby, bottom line is that the white paper with the new manager will likely take me significantly longer to complete. Probably mid to late September, and this is the best case scenario. However, if I leave the new program manager just hanging there for many weeks, it's really bad form. It's bad enough that I will have to delay submission, but it would be worse yet if I delayed it without telling him about it. So an email is certainly in order.

The real reason for the impending delay with white paper submission is, of course, that I am swamped with pressing deadlines (that's something I can disclose), but the essence of not making the agreed time frame is that I am on maternity leave (not formally, but for all intents and purposes -- I am taking time off and there's a baby to take care of). I most certainly don't want to seem like a flake or like someone not interested in his program. However, I am very reluctant to mention maternity leave; it brings up the personal whereas our relationship should be all professional; it makes me look like I am asking for special treatment up front, showing a weakness.

Would you or would you not mention that you are in fact on maternity leave, so working really drastically reduced hours, when telling the program manager that you
will be sending him promised materials several weeks past the agreed date?

Collaboration Dilemma

I am an expert in computational Technique A. A Colleague in a different field, one that usually has little overlap with mine, is an expert in
computational Technique B. Together, we developed a pretty cool and powerful
technique that combines A and B self-consistently, let's call it technique AB.

I teach a graduate course that trains students in Technique A, Colleague teaches a course that trains students in Technique B. All my students take both my course and Colleague's course, so all my students are at least proficient in Technique B. Colleague's students don't take my course.

Colleague and I are not friends, just friendly colleagues. I admire Colleague but we have never been able to get past superficial pleasantries. I suspect Colleague doesn't like me very much personally and that is OK, I am not sure I like Colleague either; our lifestyles and personal priorities are just very different. Regardless, we have done some nice work together and have similar work ethics, even if I am annoyed by Colleague's need to have the last word on everything (so do I, hence the annoyance) and Colleague's general unavailability. Overall, the relationship is somewhat complicated (more on it below).

Now the dilemma:

Another colleague from a different department -- let's call this colleague BigWig -- who's in a field much closer to mine, is working on a white paper for a large proposal. BigWig is aware of my work on combined Technique AB and asked if I would be interested in participating. The work I should do would essentially require me to employ Technique B, the full Technique AB is likely not necessary (I don't think BigWig is aware of this technical detail).

Now, I am competent in Technique B and can do the work, but the real expert in Technique B is Colleague. So I can do the work needed, but Colleague would probably be faster; however, I have no idea if Colleague would even be interested, or if BigWig would even be comfortable working with Colleague (I am not sure they know each other directly).

So, what do I do? Here seem to be the options:

(1) Just say I would love to do it and participate in the writing of the white paper alone. If invited to submit the full proposal, then:

Option (1a) Participate in proposal writing without Colleague and plan to do the work alone if proposal gets funded. If it is necessary to solicit Colleague's help, include Colleague as coauthor on papers, but supplant Colleague in the proposal writing stage.

Option (1b) Lobby to include Colleague (with funding) in the full proposal, provided Colleague is interested. Then do the work together.

(2) Say that I would love to do it, but that I am not the real expert and refer BigWig to Colleague instead. As I said, there is no guarantee that Colleague is interested or that BigWig wants to work with Colleague.

The problem with (1a) is that I feel like I am stealing Colleague's expertise, even though my group is competent to do the work. However, in the past Colleague has proceeded to take part alone in a proposal where we originally were supposed to be together, so Colleague is no bleeding heart. Also, I have suggested multiple topics to Colleague where we could employ Technique AB on interesting problems and go for new funding, Colleague says they're interested and most definitely want to participate, but then are unavailable for months to even discuss it over the phone; essentially, Colleague is not interested in furthering our work with Technique AB but sure as hell won't give me the green light to go do it myself.
On the other hand, I fear (1b) and (2) make me look naive, especially in the light of past history with Colleague, while (2) may even damage BigWig's proposal if Colleague dawdles with responding or just won't do it.

Dear readers, what would you do?

Relax

Around this time last year I wrote about my inability to disconnect from work while on vacation. This year was no different, even though I have a new baby to keep me occupied pretty much 24/7.

In contrast, my husband spent lots of time playing with the older kids (in the pool and at various fun parks and fairs) and he was also able to finish one of books from
"A Song of Ice and Fire" series (the book series behind the awesome "Game of Thrones" HBO show; btw, he says the books are fantastic!). My husband actually had a vacation.

I planned on reading as well and not checking email (or blogs for that matter) but was utterly unsuccessful in my plans. Even though I am on maternity leave (well, sort of; it just happens to be summer so I don't have to teach; he nonexistence of maternity leave for faculty at my university is a topic for another post), and quite busy with the new baby, I constantly think about work. (Part of it is that, as you nurse around the clock, you have a lot of time to think and not do much else.) I think about the proposal submission schedule (which one to the NSF in the Sept/Oct submission window and which one to DOE in October and when will I finish the white papers that I need to send to the DoD program managers I have spoken with this summer, and how do I get a hold of that one manager with whom I have been playing phone tag due to poor cell phone reception at vacation site...)

And my students and postdocs have been traveling and giving talks, and that one student who doesn't listen squat has sent me a presentation to look over 3 hours before his talk, and I know he won't practice because he never does and he sucks at presenting the big picture, and yes of course he had no questions afterwards because no one can follow what he says, and my blood pressure boils again, and the paper we are about to submit is 20 double-column pages and I want to cry just thinking about going through it yet again because he has made nontrivial changes and made it 4 pages longer than what I insisted was the final version... And the large multi-PI grant will be funded, but not at 100%, so what do we cut, or better yet whom do we cut, and another grant was supposed to start in July but the agency administrative person is on vacation so collaborators and I have to keep paying students off of other grants while the darn agency person sunbathes...

My husband criticizes me how I do nothing but sit at the computer (that's when I am not nursing around the clock or trying to get some shut-eye), why don't I read or relax. Why don't I pick up one of the books from his series? I honestly don't think that I can relax enough to commit to reading such a large amount of fiction any more; long gone are the days of me effortlessly devouring the volumetric kin of "War and Peace". Even blog posts that are too long make me twitchy.

I have some sort of ADD in which work thoughts permeate every waking hour, every coherent thought. The worries about funding are real and imminent, the pull from students and collaborators never ending. The field is moving fast and it is easy to become irrelevant.

How do you detach, how do you relax? How do you prevent work from infiltrating your every pore and taking over your life?

This is, of course, what Frankie Goes to Hollywood has to say on the topic:

Serves You Right

This is a repost of a column I wrote last year for Inside Higher Ed; the original appeared here. The comments are worth checking out, as they are quite different from the type of feedback one gets in the scientific blogosphere. The column was also posted on this blog a few days later, and this posting with comments can be found here. While I tried to make the advice as general as possible, it is aimed primarily at people from research institutions, simply because that's what I know best.
----------------------------------

Serves You Right

Research, teaching, and service are the defining trinity of a university professor's job. Their relative importance depends quite strongly on the type of academic institution and one’s career stage. Understanding how to strike a balance between institutional requirements and one’s own career interests can sometimes be tricky, and young faculty are often in danger of overcommitting to activities that do not benefit their long-term career prospects.

Most tenure and promotion criteria at universities state something like "In order to receive tenure, a candidate must demonstrate excellence in research, teaching, and service." In reality, this means that excellence in research is absolutely mandatory for promotion and the level of excellence you achieve is in direct correlation with how easily you will get tenure. Provided your research record is spotless (i.e., you received a lot of external funding if you are in a science discipline or another where that’s the norm, published many papers in top journals or books with respected publishers), graduated some Ph.D. students, and gave many invited talks), the university will be fine with good teaching and adequate service. It doesn’t work the other way: excellent teaching or service do not get you promoted in the absence of a stellar research program. Bad teaching may result in tenure denial, though.

But can't you have an outstanding research record, as well as outstanding teaching and outstanding service? The answer is "Yes, in principle," but nobody will believe you. The problem is that, if you are devoting too much time and showing too much zeal toward either teaching or service at a large research university, your colleagues will wonder what it is that you are not doing instead (i.e., why you are not spending all this time on research). Unfortunately, in order to be considered a serious enough scholar in many departments in large research universities, you have to manifest a slight level of disdain for teaching and service. (How this bodes for the quality of undergraduate education is a topic for another column, or perhaps a few.)

While the quality of research and teaching can in principle be measured, through the number of papers or amount of grant money or teaching evaluations, service is a vaguely defined category that has the potential to drain a junior faculty’s energy with poor return.

So what is service and how much service is enough?

Service is a set of faculty duties that demonstrate good citizenship in the department, university, and the broader scientific community. Therefore, we can roughly divide service into service to your institution and professional service to your scholarly community.*

Service to the institution can be further divided into departmental service and service outside the department. Departmental service requires a fair bit of time, and it includes serving on various committees (e.g., undergraduate and graduate student admissions, facilities, curriculum, student advising), serving on students’ master’s and Ph.D. defense committees, or serving in an administrative capacity (e.g., being chair). Service to the university outside the department also involves being elected to serve on various committees, but these are often open to tenured faculty only. On tenure track, it is reasonable to assume that most of your service to the university will be in fact service to your department; which makes sense as the department is your champion in the tenure process.

Professional service to the broader scholarly community comprises activities such as reviewing research papers, serving on the editorial board of a journal, serving on organizing and program committees of conferences, mail-in and panel reviews of grant proposals, as well as serving on the board of a professional society or a federal funding agency.

The level of department and university service for a junior faculty member should be fairly light. I recommend that most service activities be skewed toward professional activities in your broader disciplinary community, which, besides being service, have the additional benefit of enhancing your research program and your visibility in the community. For instance, reviewing papers enables you to stay abreast of latest developments in the broader field, being part of technical program committees for conferences gives you visibility and enhances your network, serving on grant panel reviews strengthens your ties with the program managers and helps you feel where the field is moving.

Find out what the absolute minimum of service is that the department requires and stick with that. Often, this means you will serve on one committee, and try to pick one that you either feel passionate about (e.g., facilities or curriculum planning) or one that does not require a lot of time. If you are really passionate about serving your institution, I advise that you somewhat curb the passion until after tenure. Try not to commit to more than one additional committee in excess to the required minimum. Serving on the master’s and Ph.D. defense committees for your colleagues’ students is extra, and these will help strengthen your bonds to the faculty in your sub-area; however, these activities should also be practiced in moderation.

Sometimes junior faculty feel that they owe it to someone to put in excessive amounts of service. The reasons for this are different: for instance, women are sometimes pushed into extra committee roles because committees need gender diversity or it is perceived that all women like service because they are stereotypically nurturing and caring. If you are a female, and even if you love service and happen to be nurturing, I recommend you fight tooth and nail to not perform any more service than your male counterparts. This will not only free up your time, but will also establish that you are not a pushover, which is important for your future standing in the department.

Another example is when a junior faculty member feels vulnerable, such as when he or she is the trailing spouse in a spousal hire, or when the hire is a member of a minority group and thinks people will perceive him or her as a beneficiary of affirmative action. In these situations, some tenured faculty feel the new hire is not really meritorious and the new hire often feels that he or she needs to perform extra service in order to get into the colleagues’ good graces and demonstrate good will. If you are in this situation, the worst thing you can do is pile on all the extra service tasks; not only will this course of action detract from your research and result in confirming naysayers’ doubts, but it also makes you seem insecure and hungry for approval and will only exacerbate any ill will the colleagues may harbor towards you. I know this is hard, but you have to keep telling yourself that you have as much right to have your faculty position as anybody else and that you do not owe anybody anything above and beyond what every other tenure track faculty does. Be friendly and civil and do your share, but be firm and protect your boundaries.

In general, while on tenure track at a university, it is a good idea to be a little selfish. Your goal it to get tenure, and that means the primary focus is on developing your research program and the secondary one on honing your teaching skills. Regarding service on tenure track, find out the minimal requirements for an assistant professor in your department. Stay close to that minimum for the duration of tenure track, even if you burn with desire to serve more. Instead, devote more time to professional service that brings visibility to your work, and enhances your research program and funding prospects. If any free time opens up after trimming unnecessary commitments, spend it with your family and recharge. Once you have secured tenure, you will have plenty of opportunities to take on additional service roles and engage more deeply in faculty governance at your institution.

------------------
* Outreach to the broader community is sometimes cited as a separate category from research, teaching, or service. For instance, in tenure guidelines at some universities, outreach is scored separately for candidates who have a significant outreach component in their portfolio. On the other hand, for most scientists and engineers outreach to the broader community is an inherent part of the research and education activities, and is even mandated by some funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation. Therefore, while outreach to the broader community is very important, I would say that it is not universally considered to be a part of service.

Ep-Endure-All

In a comment a few posts ago, Alyssa suggested I share the birth story. I immediately felt a bit defensive: on the one hand, I tend not to be able to remember all the details as other women seem to; on the other hand, and perhaps more importantly, because I had an epidural. See, in 2 out of 3 of my deliveries I had an epidural (the 1st and the 3rd) and there is a bit of shame associated with having painkillers when delivering -- it's one of the many ways we women judge and put down each other and ultimately judge and put down ourselves. You are supposed to go drug-free, that's the only route approved by the "I'm a woman hear me roar" movement. Anything other than having a completely natural birth is not womanly enough. So I was embarrassed for months after my first delivery because I had the epidural, even though I had a very good reason (it ultimately helped me avoid a C-section). It's amazing that it's the second thing several of my female friends asked me -- the first was about the baby specs, the second was -- did you get any painkillers. Before the last delivery, even my mother gave me a condescending speech on all these wussy young women who take the epidural... (But then again my mother is never short of ways to not so subtly put me down. I am a dad's girl, in case you haven't noticed.)

With my last delivery, I had an epidural because I wanted to. As my husband would rationally put it (paraphrasing) "Why would you endure so much pain if you don't have to? There is pain management available, just use it." But I must admit I sometimes wish I hadn't because there is a part of me that feels like a failure because I did, especially because the labor was fairly short. Yes, I am apparently as shallow and judgmental as the next person. I openly admit (well, as openly as you do under a pseudonym) that I feel quite conflicted about my own pain management choice.

So here's a brief overview of my three deliveries, they all felt different to me, but all resulted in 9+ lb healthy babies. For the uninitiated, I promise to go light on the gross. But, just in case... *hands out virtual barf bags*

Baby No 1: Year 2000, baby weight 9 lbs 1 oz, labor duration 21+ hrs

Contractions started at 8 am, admitted to the hospital at 3 pm, at only 3 cm dilated. (N.B. The purpose of contractions is to dilate and thin out the cervix; also, once the cervix is 10 cm dilated, to push the baby out and subsequently the placenta.) Doctor started advocating for pitocin (N.B. pitocin is synthetic oxytocin, to strengthen the contractions; after delivery oxytocin promotes mom-baby bonding, nursing, uterus shrinking) but I wouldn't budge. At 9 pm I was only at 4 cm dilated and said OK to pitocin, but, at midnight, after 3 hours of extremely painful back-to-back contractions on pitocin, I was failing to progress -- still at 4 cm and the baby was showing signs of distress. At this point it looked like I would be having a C-section unless I manage to progress (N.B. failing to progress -- cervix not dilating fast enough). I had the epidural administered at midnight, had a nap, and by 5 am I was at 10 cm dilated and delivered vaginally after pushing for maybe 10-15 min. So, in my experience, when you are in too much pain, it can hinder labor. Epidural enabled me to relax and labor finally progressed. I am certain that I would have ended up with a C-section if I hadn't taken it.

A few random bits:

-- The doctor who delivered (whom I had never seen before) was an asshole. Not only did he push pitocin too enthusiastically for my taste, he did so by proxy (I didn't see him at all till it was time to push the baby out). Also, as I was delivering, he told me not to make faces (i.e. grimace while pushing). WTF?!

-- I spent the entire time hooked to monitors of different sorts. Having had any birth plan would have been completely laughable. No one ever asked what I wanted.

-- My first delivery was the only delivery my husband witnessed. One "perk" of being a foreigner with no family or close friends nearby is that you have no one but your husband to watch your older kids when you deliver Baby 2 and onward.

Baby No 2: Year 2007, baby weight 9 lbs 2 oz, labor duration 11+ hrs

Came home around 6 pm, started making dinner, my water broke. Walked around to induce contractions (nope, did not finish dinner). At the hospital with regular contractions at 9 pm. Hubby and older son went home for the night. I delivered without drugs a bit after 5 am. Hell, it did hurt. But I totally know now what it means when people say "you will feel an unbelievable urge to push." I only pushed for about 10 minutes, some 5-6 contractions, so that wasn't too bad. I also found out that episiotomies (an episiotomy is a cut in the pelvic floor meant to ease the passage of the baby and prevent irregular tearing) are out of fashion now (no longer done routinely, as they were at the time of my first delivery); now I had a huge irregular tear which, even though stitched up, prevented me from sitting without pain for more than a month; understandably, any pleasurable activities involving the pelvic region took way longer to resume.

Random bits:

-- The best thing about delivering without an epidural is instant mobility. I was able to hop into the shower shortly after the delivery; with the epidural, you don't fully feel your legs until it wears off. None of my babies were groggy after the epidural, so in that sense I felt no difference. They all nursed well right away.

-- While I know my husband is sorry he missed this delivery and the next, there is something to be said for laboring without family in the room and being able to focus solely on yourself while you are in pain. While I would have hated being alone during the first delivery, where everything was new and scary, I was OK on my own with this one and the next.

Baby No 3: Year 2011, baby weight 9 lbs 9 oz, labor duration 6+ hrs

(Obviously I remember this one best).
At 4 am my second son started yelling for a glass of water. By the time I got to him, he'd gone back to sleep, but now I was having contractions; had he not woken me up I probably would have gotten another hour or so of sleep. By 5 am, the contractions were 4 min apart, I called the doctor's office and agreed to meet the on-call doctor from my OB's practice at the hospital around 6 am, then took a shower and went to the hospital. At admission, I was already at 5 cm, the doctor said "So you are going without epidural?", I said "No, I actually want one." There was definitely a hint of disapproval with the doctor, but she went and ordered one. My husband went back home at 7ish to be there when the kids woke up (it was a Saturday).

Getting the epidural was an adventure in its own right. An anesthesiology resident (a guy) was going to administer it, but they needed to round up an attending. They were pretty slow finding one, but eventually two came in, also both guys. These three anesthesiologists were the only male hospital staff I saw during the entire hospital stay -- I am sure in there somewhere is a post about how anesthesiology is much more macho than say OB? Hmm, I have a nagging feeling I may have read something about this recently...

Anyhoo, the resident starts fishing round my spine, sending electric shocks down my left leg. Not good, perhaps I should have called the whole thing off then and there. Then at the instruction of one of the attendings switches the inter-vertebrae spacing and manages to administer it. Still, the numbness ends up being uneven, with my left side numb and my right side barely so. So you could say I had a semi-epidural. A "semidural"?

About 10:20 am I was ready to push, and, in a single push, Smurf the Ginormous was out. Yey semidural!

Random bits from delivery No 3:

-- A scary bit: The nurse who took care of me kept reporting that I had a fever even before the peak of labor, and that the baby had a fever after birth. It turns out the thermometer was not calibrated -- when she finally suspected something was off after I was cold to the touch and still read a 100 fever. With a new thermometer I read normal. The dangerous downside is that she disrobed my just born baby to cool him down and he didn't need cooling; he could have gone completely hypothermic because of the stupid thermometer! This still infuriates me when I think of it. Good science practices -- such as calibrating one's goddamn instruments -- are good science practices, not sure why they don't routinely spill over into applications.

-- If you consider having an epidural, consider getting a temporary "No Fishing" tattoo on the small of your back.