Having Babies, Going up for Tenure

During the long year I deliberated whether or not to try for a second child, tenure and the academic clock featured heavily into my concerns. It wasn't so much that I thought I wouldn't get tenure if I went ahead and had another baby, but that I wanted to figure out the best time to try, in relation to the tenure clock. While the academic ideal would have been to turn in my stuff for tenure and start trying, I knew I couldn't wait, given that it took me a year to get pregnant the first time (and that would put me at 37.5 at the beginning of the process). The worst possible situation, from an academic standpoint, I thought, would be giving birth just before I go up for tenure (more on that momentarily). The other worst case scenario, which isn't controllable if you are having sex but is very controllable when you have to make appointments to see a doctor, was a due date in October or November, which would essentially mean splitting leave across two semesters, or barely getting any leave at all. I finally decided that since I couldn't really control when I got pregnant, other than by skipping months that looked like poorly timed due dates, what I needed to do was get my tenure work done. Basically, I wanted another book manuscript circulating before I did my first ttc cycle. My timing was off by a couple weeks, but I did get my manuscript in the mail before I got the results of my first pregnancy test back. That's not to say I haven't done anything in the past year—I've had a number of acceptances for critical articles, personal essays, and poems, and have a number of other small projects (that will hopefully turn into bigger projects) in the works—but that other than having that book accepted, I'm in a good place (I think) for tenure. (What my chair keeps saying is that the book is a "slam dunk," while he'll need to make a stronger case for me in his letter if I go up based on what I have [which does exceed minimum standards for the department].)

Here I am, a full year into this process and if I get what I most want (that damn October IVF to work!), I'll give birth a couple weeks before submitting my tenure portfolio for outside readers. I've since realized that really isn't a big deal. So I'll get it done in May, instead of waiting until July. I'll apply for an internal grant for next year to hopefully supplement maternity leave but if I don't get it, oh well. I'll make whatever deal I need to make to take an entire semester off, even if that means teaching summer school or doing extra committee work or whatever. Because the bottom line for me is this could not wait. I started this process at 35, and now I'm looking down the barrel of 37, which my doctor keeps saying is the significant age of decline in terms of fertility. Both Dr. Gorgeous and Wonderful Former RE made it very clear I needed to do IVF sooner, rather than later, and to do it before I hit 37.

On some level I'm anxious about tenure. It's not a guarantee, particularly in this economic climate, although no one in my department has been denied tenure in recent memory (some with CVs that aren't as strong as mine is now, a year out). I'd like to earn tenure, and I think I'd like to stay here if not for the rest of my career, for a good while. The problems in my program will, I hope, be solved after a few retirements and new hires, within the next five years. And at one point, my chair talked to me about becoming the administrator for that program after tenure. It would appear to be in my program's best interest for me to stick around for a while, so while I have to say I'm anxious, I also know that I'm doing all I can. Books getting taken is largely outside my control, so long as I'm doing my part in terms of sending them out (umm, feminist press, are you planning on getting back to me any time soon?).

Right now, I'm excited about going back to school and focusing my energy on writing and reading and teaching. My courses are new-ish, in that I have taught them before in very different incarnations but am very familiar with the books I'm using. Prep shouldn't be a big deal, but, oh, is it going to be a heavy grading semester! With LG going to kindergarten, I suspect much of our routine will be disrupted (even though she'll be at school or daycare roughly the same amount of time) but, you know, I'm looking forward to that, too. I want to get pregnant, and I want to be done with ttc. The question is if the former doesn't happen, will I decide to stop doing the latter?