I recently defended the first three chapters of my doctoral dissertation. For those of you not familiar with the process of writing a dissertation, it involves coming up with a feasible topic and writing a short proposal (a process that took me a year), getting that proposal approved (which took another few months), writing the dissertation’s first three chapters (which took another year), and then meeting with one’s three committee members to defend the chapters and the topic.
Why did this process take so long? you may ask. Oh yeah, I just happened to have had a baby right in the midst of the process. Funny how that can throw a wrench into the best-laid timetables.

Don’t get me wrong…I love my children. I wouldn’t trade them for anything. But honestly, I started to go a little crazy after the baby was born. I was not only trying to coax a feasible topic out of that proposal, but I was also trying to teach online classes, from home! With a baby who wouldn’t sleep out of my arms!
Long story short: I quit the teaching. I became a full-time mother/research academician. I finally found the dissertation topic that had been so obvious that it was overlooked, even as it had attached itself to my breast: The myriad challenges of being a working mother. And, oh yes, I learned to do all of the above with said baby attached to said breast.

Which brings me to the dissertation defense. One of my committee members wondered how I was able to make so much progress on such a project. (Strangely she didn’t seem to feel that 2+ years was very long. Did she have experience with working and mothering too?) “You really don’t want to know,” I replied. “Let’s just say that you find creative ways to do what you have to do.”

Don’t we all?

By the way, I did pass the defense. And do continue to write with said baby attached to said breast…