Career versus baby

[Redheadlondon]

I feel terrible writing this because it goes against EVERYTHING I try to stand for at work for working parents. But…

I am trying to conceive but really worried it will totally derail my career. I’m working towards a Managing Director promotion that would have me settled for life. But … I’m 34 and started to worry if I don’t start now, with some uterus abnormalities and PCO, it could never happen or take years.

Anyone else had this feeling?

@Redheadlondon I believe you've mentioned that you have a husband.

For women with a partner (male or female) the person in that role will be the determining factor in their experience of motherhood.

I think it was Sheryl Sandburg who said that the most important career decision a woman makes is who to have children with.

A good partner will make life easier, a bad one will make everything ten times harder and can actively sabotage you continuing with your career. Just look at the boards on here to see the countless women who not only have a full time job but have to do EVERYTHING else as well.

Of course if you don't have a partner, then that support might be a grandparent or friend... but OP you have a partner. So he is very relevant to this.

I think there is no denying that pregnancy and maternity leave does set women back, but I think it's what we do afterwards which probably makes the most difference.

A lot of mothers don't return to full-time for years following maternity leave and I'd imagine that makes far more difference than the temporary time off for maternity.

I'd say crack on with TTC, with the aim of going back full-time after - then if it doesn't feel like that's what you want when it comes to it you are free to make that choice :)

I'm 35 in a male dominated industry. Luckily I've got a good career and I'm happy to stay at my current level for the next few years. TTC definitely impacts me career wise though. I may well have followed up on interesting opportunities inside my company and externally if we'd not been TTC. Companies don't advertise their maternity packages to job candidates and it probably wouldn't go down well to move then get pregnant. I've got my first IVF round coming up and am fully expecting to spend the 2 weeks (minimum) of meds trying to do my job whilst feeling unwell also.

How long have you been TTC? Your answer might also depend on where you are with your fertility process and what you're happy with. If you're looking at IVF soon you could always freeze all and come back to it in a year or so and at least you'd have some younger eggs to start with. It depends how open you are to the risk of not having children too. How many kids do you want? Do you have low amh? Would you use donor eggs? Or adopt? (All rhetorical if you don't want to answer). Ultimately though it's all a gamble (even starting now) and in my experience once we started trying I just wanted a baby and so then I want the best odds I can have. I look back at previous promotions I've gone for or new roles and see there are many opportunities and many of them that seemed so important then I barely remember now. I'm expecting having kids and keeping up my job to be hard though and probably cause my career to stagnant for a while, but that's ok to me.

Unless you can afford a nanny then your partner will be very important. Honestly op, one of your careers will suffer. If your kid takes ill and has to come home from daycare, can/will your partner leave their job to pick the kid up and take care of them for a few days? Or if the kid has trouble in school, can one of you leave to deal with that?
Plenty of women find they have to leave their career entirely because their partner values their own job more and something has got to give. Reverse wise, would you expect your partner to be able to quit their job if need be?

Honestly it doesn't sound like you're that fussed anyway...or even that you've remotely considered the reality of the impact a child wpuld have kn your life atm. 'Oh my friends kids are cute'...haha..ha...hahaha. Yeah that totally outweighs you ruining your body, having to be stitched up from fanny to arse after a birth, potential post natal depression, sleepless nights for the next two or three years. And setting your career back/potentially having to leave your job.

Just because other people are doing something, doesn't mean you have to. If you don't really, really, really want kids then don't try for them.

I am a women who is both a mother, TTC and a managing director. I’m 36 and have been TTC for the past 18 months (fell pregnant in month 1 with DS). If I was you I’d crack on with conceiving and use your career as a pleasant distraction from the TTC journey (which is not always as well planned as we’d like it to be).

There is no reason why you can’t have it all, I won’t lie and say it’s easy, it’s not, but I’m living proof that it is possible. I’m sure you can pick your career up after you have a baby, if that is what you want.

As someone who has always been very career driven, the hole that not having a baby creates is far bigger than the hole that having a career can fill. Your child will be around you for the rest of your life, a career won’t.

I got pregnant at 22, I have a very successful career and was a senior manager by early 30s, hope to be at director level well before 40. Being a parent hasn't held me back at all (just made it a bit more stressful ha)

It’s possible to have babies without taking your foot off the gas. I had 2 3 month maternity leave and it honestly hasn’t been a issue. It’s not right for everyone but you don’t have to step back, particularly if you have a supportive partner and can afford good childcare.

If you're as well qualified as I think you are, given what you've said, I'd have the children now and come back. I got to a high level career wise and after having my kids it was easier to get back into a role. The qualifications remain valid. Your fertility won't.

Same here, completely agree.

Don’t give up on the idea of having both - just recognise that teamwork is key and you also have to be prepared to forge your own path and not conform to expectations. There are still too few women in top leadership roles which in some ways (in the right organisation that values diversity) makes it easier for us to determine how it is going to work for us. If you’re not empowered in that way it’s not the right organisation.

That was me attempting to agree with DoubleHelix79…

Oh my goodness, I totally empathise with the concerns about what you give up! That has always been a big factor for me. Both in terms of career and lifestyle to be honest; do I want a child enough for it to trump all the other things I want from life!? Or, am I being overly constrained in my thinking of what I can have/do/achieve while being a mother? It’s a tricky area and I try my best to be a bit pragmatic with it all. I am a huge advocate for driving for a workplace where women (and, indeed, men as well) don’t have to choose one path or another. But the reality is that there will always be things that are sacrificed (willingly or otherwise) when we make choices about the direction we want our lives to take.

I actually had a bit of a reality check last month; I was on contraception but my period came 2 weeks late. I was convinced I was pregnant. If you’d asked me before I would have expected to be really conflicted to find myself in that situation. But, in reality, I just felt ok with the potential implications for other areas of my life.

I wasn’t pregnant. But that nailed it for me. I learned a lot in those couple of weeks about what really matters to me and what I think matters. So I had my implant removed and am now actively trying to conceive! (Very big deal for me to get to that point!).

Sorry, this is so long. But I’m excited to come across someone who is speaking openly about the concerns and internal conflict I’ve struggled with. It feels sometimes like the message is “you will regret not having children, work isn’t really important”. But on this side of it, when your career is (validly!) important to you, it’s not that simple

I may well have followed up on interesting opportunities inside my company and externally if we'd not been TTC. Companies don't advertise their maternity packages to job candidates and it probably wouldn't go down well to move then get pregnant.

I completely agree with this and genuinely feel there should be some kind of legislation brought in where there is a blanket maternity policy for all companies - eg once a worker has been there for x amount of time, their pay is even 3 months at 90%, then whatever the company's own policy would be - so that women know the minimum of what they would be moving to. Something like this would be so much more beneficial than statutory maternity pay for many.

It is such a barrier to moving jobs for people to not know what the maternity package will be. It is never shared in interview/hiring processes and obviously you can't ask. Most women don't take jobs purely to rinse the maternity pay, but it is a factor in many women's minds when considering new opportunities, even if not an immediate concern.

I am effectively stuck in my current job until after I've had a child now as I can't risk moving somewhere else with a crap maternity package. My previous work place was only 6 weeks at 90% and then statutory, I can't afford to go somewhere like that again. So my hands are pretty died.

If you want children, get on with it now. We started TTC at 34, took until just 37 to get a live one all the way until birth. It's only now I have my DD I realise what I actually love doing and I can assure you it is not the office job I thought I loved or the company I ran with my co-director.

@Roselilly36

There is no comparison between the two, baby is much more important than career IMHO. If you are lucky enough to have a baby, you will look back at this post and realise how insignificant it is. My two DS’ are adults now, being their mum has been the best thing ever, I would do it all again if I could, no regrets. If you want a baby, those feelings will get stronger. Wishing you lots of luck.

Just for the record, I think this is bullshit. I love my DC and I also very much enjoy my career. If anything, I'm more driven than before. I've developed my post DC career quite nicely on 4 days a week.

Also, yes, a DH who does his share is essential.

There is no comparison between the two, baby is much more important than career IMHO. If you are lucky enough to have a baby, you will look back at this post and realise how insignificant it is. My two DS’ are adults now, being their mum has been the best thing ever, I would do it all again if I could, no regrets. If you want a baby, those feelings will get stronger. Wishing you lots of luck

I agree this is total bullshit and really harmful diminishing a woman's feelings, my career is a big part of who I am, I spent a lot of time really doubting myself in the early days because of crap spouted like this. Children do not completely fulfil every women, I wouldn't be without my children or my career, you can have both.

I'm sorry this is not total bullshit. This is one person's opinion which is not rude, offensive or bullshit - it merely differs from your opinion. I would actually argue that it is you who is diminishing a woman's feelings - those of the previous poster - by responding in the way you have which was unnecessary and aggressive.

If the previous poster feels that children are the best thing that ever happened to her, good on her. She should be supported in her choices which I imagine is something that you would like to have been over the choices that you presumably made to put your children into nursery and the number of days you did so for.

It's not bullshit that the pp felt her career was insignificant compared to her children. What is bullshit is that she told the OP that she would feel the same way. She might. But plenty don't.

@Mattieandmummy it's total bullshit because she is telling the OP how she will feel, it's bloody harmful telling women how they should experience motherhood. If she had just said her own career was insignificant I wouldn't have responded.

I don't agree - I'm willing to be generous in my assessment of pp's comment which I suspect was actually intended more innocently than you do. I bet it's more a case of enthusiasm for her own choices than some crazed need to tell op how her life post not yet born baby will be. Perhaps pp will be along to settle this but in the meantime I still think you've been unnecessarily aggressive and rude about it all.

@Mattieandmummy you're welcome to your interpretation as much as I am 🤷‍♀️ I can only assume you've not being riddled with PND whilst being slaughtered by society for not enjoying the supposedly glorious role that is motherhood, maybe then you'd understand.

I'm sorry you don't enjoy motherhood and suffered PND, PND is truly horrible but I still feel you lashed out disproportionately.

I'm not going to go into the details but I suffered PND twice and PTSD and after an extremely traumatic birth. And noone enjoys motherhood every single minute of every single day, perhaps you need to stop being hard on yourself.

*so hard on yourself.

I'd say one child can actually help your career. It definitely helped me focus my time and I was far more productive and got promoted twice in quick succession.

The second DC ruined it all

It's a tricky one. Definitely don't have children because of some undefined FOMO because all your friends are doing it. Children really do drive a horse and cart through your organised life and take it over. Try telling them please don't be ill because you have an important work presentation or deadline and they'll go and get a nasty infection and excluded from nursery for a week (and then you catch it too) ! You have to really want kids to make up for the hassle they cause.

On the other hand, if you do want children (and more than one), don't delay much longer. You might be lucky but it's surprising how many people struggle. We conceived our first DC very quickly (2 months TTC) when I was 32, but no luck on a DC2 after 2 years of trying. The problem is that you won't know if it will be straightforward for you until you start trying.

No. But I do have uterine anomalies (unicornuate uterus) and PCOS and it took one non viable pregnancy (half tube/half uterus) which required methotrexate and therefore no TTC for months after, a few years trying (no luck), IVF and a high risk pregnancy (bed rest from 16 weeks with an emergency cervical stitch) to get me DD. No job or income could compare with her for me personally. I don't want to scare you, just the road to parenthood isn't always easy or straightforward. If you truly want to be a mother, at 34 I'd personally be prioritising that. Women will never, ever, have equal standing or opportunities in the work place unfortunately, I don't care what anyone says.
To add some positivity, my DS was a completely different story to DD. He was a surprise baby! I was still breastfeeding DD, hadn't had a period and must have got pregnant on my first ovulation!! His pregnancy was totally different too, planned cervical stitch at 12 weeks, no bed rest, worked throughout.