Only two months into my first postdoctoral position, I did something a good postdoc is not supposed to do: I got pregnant. I was thrilled to be expanding my young family, but I couldn't help but be apprehensive about how the news would go over among my science colleagues. As many of us already know, it is generally believed that science and family are not easily mixed; one usually suffers for the sake of the other.
This wasn't my first foray into the forbidden. I was pregnant with my first child while I was still a graduate student, but thanks to support from my mentors and family, I managed to graduate in just over five years. I had five published papers under my belt, despite the fact that I had stayed home with my new baby for about four months and never really returned full time. I was about to ...
