A few weeks ago, PhD Candidate Charissa Campbell began a leave from the lab. From all of us at the PVL - we wish her well in her time away and look forward to her return next year!
by Charissa Campbell
Being a woman in STEM can come with certain challenges, including deciding if you want to start your family or not. Since women have to carry and be the primary caregiver for the first year it can be a difficult decision whether to put off starting that next step in your life. Luckily, there are a lot more benefits available to women who want to start their family while also being a graduate student. Knowing this, my partner and I decided to make the decision to start our own family after getting the surprise that I was expecting.
Last semester I had the amazing opportunity to travel to Geneva, Switzerland for the joint European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) and Division for Planetary Science (DPS) conference where I presented a poster describing the work I am doing on an algorithm that can directly calculate cloud parameters from the Curiosity cloud movies. Unfortunately, I have horrible luck when traveling and I always tend to get sick. This conference was no different. After a few weeks of nausea after returning, I got a bit concerned as normally this doesn't last that long. Further inspection led to my partner and I discovering that it wasn’t an illness, but I was suffering from morning sickness as I was pregnant. A lot of emotions came up as we weren’t sure it was the right time to start a family. However, a Women in STEM panel at EPSC-DPS discussed the difficulties of starting a family but that you shouldn’t have to put off your career to do so. After more research into what York could offer me for maternity leave, we decided not to put it off and to start our own family.
With more and more women entering the STEM fields, more resources are available to help those that have children or are thinking about starting their family. In most cases, conferences allow you to bring your child and have a dedicated area if you need some quiet space with them. Some even have grants to offset the care costs of a dependent to ensure that you are still able to attend and showcase your research. Most conferences have a Women in STEM panel who discuss obstacles and unique resources for us within our field. The ones that I have attended bring up the difficulties of starting a family while continuing research, but always recommend going ahead with it due to the increasing amount of resources available to help. Knowing this, I did plenty of research into what is offered for leave. If your research grant is through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), they allow 12 months of paid maternity leave for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. York also offers a small amount of pay for maternity leave with up to 12 months of leave. This means that I am still able to take a paid leave which helps significantly as I won’t have to worry about paying bills while being home with the little one. After considering this and timing of projects, I’ve decided to take 2 semesters of leave (Summer and Fall), from May till January.
My due date is end of May, so I worked during the majority of my pregnancy. I will admit it was quite difficult at times as pregnancy comes with its own set of struggles that can hinder you when trying to get research done. I unfortunately had extreme morning sickness (that shouldn’t be called morning sickness since it lasts all day!) that had me working more in the evenings as I was unable to make the commute into work during the day. As the baby grows it causes more pressure on the other organs, especially the bladder, resulting in having to run to the bathroom every 2 hours. This would happen at night impeding on the amount of sleep I would be able to get, causing extra exhaustion. Turns out pregnancy brain is a real thing as there were times that my mind felt incredibly fuzzy while doing simple tasks. Most days (or even weeks) I would only be able to focus on one task. Once the belly started getting bigger it became more difficult to commute to work each day where I needed to limit how much I carried so I wouldn’t strain myself. Luckily when I got to the point where walking started to get painful was when we needed to social distance and work from home as a result of the pandemic. Even though it sounds like it is horrible to be doing research while pregnant, it was still an exciting experience from feeling the first kick to finding out the gender.
From May till January I will be stepping away from the research group to focus on taking care of the little one. I will be honest that I am looking forward to the break from research to learn how to balance life with my little Martian.
Last semester I had the amazing opportunity to travel to Geneva, Switzerland for the joint European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) and Division for Planetary Science (DPS) conference where I presented a poster describing the work I am doing on an algorithm that can directly calculate cloud parameters from the Curiosity cloud movies. Unfortunately, I have horrible luck when traveling and I always tend to get sick. This conference was no different. After a few weeks of nausea after returning, I got a bit concerned as normally this doesn't last that long. Further inspection led to my partner and I discovering that it wasn’t an illness, but I was suffering from morning sickness as I was pregnant. A lot of emotions came up as we weren’t sure it was the right time to start a family. However, a Women in STEM panel at EPSC-DPS discussed the difficulties of starting a family but that you shouldn’t have to put off your career to do so. After more research into what York could offer me for maternity leave, we decided not to put it off and to start our own family.
With more and more women entering the STEM fields, more resources are available to help those that have children or are thinking about starting their family. In most cases, conferences allow you to bring your child and have a dedicated area if you need some quiet space with them. Some even have grants to offset the care costs of a dependent to ensure that you are still able to attend and showcase your research. Most conferences have a Women in STEM panel who discuss obstacles and unique resources for us within our field. The ones that I have attended bring up the difficulties of starting a family while continuing research, but always recommend going ahead with it due to the increasing amount of resources available to help. Knowing this, I did plenty of research into what is offered for leave. If your research grant is through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), they allow 12 months of paid maternity leave for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. York also offers a small amount of pay for maternity leave with up to 12 months of leave. This means that I am still able to take a paid leave which helps significantly as I won’t have to worry about paying bills while being home with the little one. After considering this and timing of projects, I’ve decided to take 2 semesters of leave (Summer and Fall), from May till January.
My due date is end of May, so I worked during the majority of my pregnancy. I will admit it was quite difficult at times as pregnancy comes with its own set of struggles that can hinder you when trying to get research done. I unfortunately had extreme morning sickness (that shouldn’t be called morning sickness since it lasts all day!) that had me working more in the evenings as I was unable to make the commute into work during the day. As the baby grows it causes more pressure on the other organs, especially the bladder, resulting in having to run to the bathroom every 2 hours. This would happen at night impeding on the amount of sleep I would be able to get, causing extra exhaustion. Turns out pregnancy brain is a real thing as there were times that my mind felt incredibly fuzzy while doing simple tasks. Most days (or even weeks) I would only be able to focus on one task. Once the belly started getting bigger it became more difficult to commute to work each day where I needed to limit how much I carried so I wouldn’t strain myself. Luckily when I got to the point where walking started to get painful was when we needed to social distance and work from home as a result of the pandemic. Even though it sounds like it is horrible to be doing research while pregnant, it was still an exciting experience from feeling the first kick to finding out the gender.
From May till January I will be stepping away from the research group to focus on taking care of the little one. I will be honest that I am looking forward to the break from research to learn how to balance life with my little Martian.
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