Dear Maternity Pants

Yesterday I pulled a pair of pants out of the clean laundry basket and carefully squeezed my body into the denim that I remember being a lot more forgiving a month ago - only to look up to see my adoring husband staring at me with a look that expressed both sympathy and confusion.

“Why don’t you wear your maternity pants today? They’ll be a lot more comfortable.”

The fact that he was brave enough to give this suggestion to his pregnant wife, tells you something about the man I married and although there was a 50-50 chance my pregnancy hormones would cause me to bite his face off for implying my jeans no longer fit, I simply pulled (with all my might) at the waist line to emphasize there was still plenty of room to be had and said “Nah, they still fit.”

My futile attempts at convincing Devin of this was met with a face that expressed so clearly “Do they? Do they really fit?” In fact, he is right, there is not still plenty of room and these are a pair of the comfy pants I kept around from my weight loss journey – I am not even looking at the size 8s I bought before our honeymoon because I have a feeling they too will betray me. So as I find myself feeling more like Violet Beauregarde by the day I am accepting the fact that my time with my beloved panel-less jeans is coming to an end and the days of maternity pants, and leggings, and tights, and flowy dresses are quickly approaching. 

Thus, here is an open letter to my maternity pants.

Dear Maternity Pants,

I have always thought you looked exceptionally comfortable, and the days that I stumbled upon you because department stores make a cruel joke of putting plus sized clothes next to maternity clothes, I thought you resembled a socially acceptable form of pajama jeans. I’ll admit you have your benefits, but you also have some major drawbacks that have me attempting to stuff myself into my familiar pre-pregnancy jeans.

Adding you to my wardrobe has left me feeling like I am learning to dress myself all over again, which is tough because I never really felt like I had a handle on my style in the first place. I was a frumpy dresser in high school, a convenient dresser in college (and wearing fashions that did not always flatter my body) and in grad school after losing 125 lbs I was in the midst of figuring out what I could and could not put on my changing body when I found out baby would make 3. So here I am, confused – again – about what fabric I am supposed to wrap around myself. I currently own three pairs of you and I’d l to address you all individually.

My Target Pair: You look great when you are all pulled up into the right position, and for that I thank you. Your problem? You’re just a bit too baggy in the thighs and crotch area and subsequently slip down throughout the day which leaves me having to hike you back up. You give me the odd feeling that maybe my butt crack is showing which is nearly impossible in maternity pants because the stretchy panel comes up to my boobs. Nearly. Perhaps I will grow into you and we will be fast friends, but for now I find you an acceptable go to when I actually feel like being able to breathe while wearing pants. 

(Is this me? Let me check. Nope because I have a foot of spandex covering my underwear.)

My Old Navy Pair: Thank you for being the correct size in both my legs and mid-region, however the jean portion of you just doesn't seem to come up high enough, so without an extra-long shirt I am left with a spandex panel covered belly exposed to the world. Which I am guessing looks something like this:

Plus you are "skinny jeans" which just seems like a horrible name for anything maternity related because I am not feeling very skinny at the moment and probably won't until I am not harboring a human in my uterus. And even then I will probably feel a lot more like Baby Huey than I care to admit. However you are pretty darn comfy and despite your listed transgressions I am pleased to be wearing you as I type this affectionate letter.

My Gap Pair: To be honest I haven’t even worn you yet because when I got you home and I tried you on I realized you were in fact a pair of 1970s bell bottoms. Not flared, not even extra flared. Bell. Bottoms. My ankles are swimming in fabric. Even Devin, who is a man with little opinion on female fashion responded with a "Woah! Those are some serious bell bottoms." Come on Gap, I thought I could trust you. You seemed like such a great consignment find that I didn't even worry about trying you on (not that there was anywhere to try you on at the barn sale where we found each other). Get it together Gap, my ankles need space but not that much space.

Wait. I hear your ankles can swell during pregnancy. Should I anticipate that much swelling!?

(Not an actual photo but might as well be because these pants are not messing around)

Despite your flaws I have to say there is something very special about slipping you on and pulling your spandex panel up over my belly, which has only just begun to pop but will certainly grow larger by the week. I love that each time my pants become noticeably tighter I am met with the fact that baby is getting bigger and taking up more space than they did the day before. Plus you do have your perks; at least I don’t have to deal with a button and zipper every time I step into the bathroom, which is often, because apparently growing babies also like to punch your bladder to pass the time, or so I read.

Love,

The lady whose stomach you will be charged with fiercely trying to keep contained for the next 5 months

Becoming a Mother in Graduate School: Funding

Before I got pregnant in December, I spent a long time searching for blogs that spoke on the topic of becoming a parent in graduate school. Much to my disappointment there was very little available and many of the articles that had been written about the topic were not quite glowing. I so badly wanted there to be a magical blog or article telling me it was ok, I wasn't giving academia the middle finger by choosing to start a family - which is a whole different issue I will address in another post - but such perspectives were rare and hard to find. So I knew that when we had a baby on the way I would try my best to share an accurate representation of my experience as a grad school mommy - which I am learning is not paved in gold,because in fact it's not paved at all.

My first draft of this post was really long so I decided to break it up into various topics. The first stop - funding, because this was something I diligently researched before getting pregnant with no fruitful outcome.  In fact before I got pregnant I emailed our HR person to ask about maternity leave, because I am a planner. I generally wanted to know what policy was in place and this was her response:

I would talk directly to your department regarding what time you will need off and also see if some of it may need to be unpaid.

Ok....

Then she sent me a link for some general information for employees. Which was not helpful in the slightest because 1) I don't count as an employee 2) The information she sent back only mentioned sick time, vacation time, jury duty, and holidays. 

This is where things get tricky. Despite the fact that as a PhD  student I receive all of my income from a stipend, I am not an employee. Which is fine by me, I mean call me whatever you want as long as my paycheck shows up. But that means things like sick leave, vacation days, and holidays mean nothing in my world. I took off two weeks for my honeymoon - I didn't check to see how many days I had available to take off. I didn't have to decide if some of these would be paid, if some would be unpaid, or if the fact that it fell over Christmas would mean I was able to use a holiday. I just told my boss that I would be gone and he said "Have a great time." When the holidays roll around our boss has no idea who will be in or what their hours will be. I decide with my lab mates who wants to cover what days and what days we will decide to close the lab down all together. This also means that when I work 7 days a week for 60 hours I get no more than those two weeks I spent on my honeymoon. I guess you could say we are salary in that way, but not really, because remember I am not an employee. 

So when it comes to maternity leave there are no real answers. How much time can I take off? Will it be paid or unpaid? Will insurance still be available to me? There are currently no policies in place at the University of Iowa for maternity leave as a graduate student- which is frustrating and means my answers to these questions are murky at best. Especially when a quick google search will tell you that other Universities have policies in place to support pregnant graduate students (examples of which can be viewed here, here, and here).

Thus at my current institution we are left with a problem wherein there is no consistency from one pregnant graduate student in my department to the next - meaning it's hard to ask for advice. If one person is supported by a national fellowship they will continue to receive their funding during maternity leave and will need to work out with their advisor how much time they can take off. If you are paid by your advisor (as in your are on a research assistantship) they may say you will receive no funding at all while you are on maternity leave. If you are paid as a teaching assistant, things are even more unclear and are dealt with on a case by case basis. 

I luckily, will be supported by a graduate college fellowship in the fall and thus will still receive a pay check for the time I am gone (likely 8 weeks). While I am thankful for this, it does not sit well with me that no one has taken the time to put a policy in place for graduate students who choose to also be parents. And whether they know it or not, not having a policy sends one message to me : This is your problem and graduate school is not a time to be starting a family. Perhaps that is reading too much into things, but for now I just can't seem to draw any other conclusions when the major research institute I am employed by hasn't considered the possibility that women in their mid-late 20's may consider starting a family. 

And although it may be shocking to learn that earning a PhD does not mean your uterus ceases to function - I hope the UI gets the message sooner than later.