Independence!

It turns out that LL has spent the past several non-crawling months plotting out exactly what he would do once he learned to crawl. He has been mobile for less than 72 hours, and much of that time, he has been asleep or out of the house at daycare. Nonetheless, in the past three days, he has managed to:

• run the closet door over his foot;
• defeat the lock on our entertainment center;
• slam his fingers in the drawer of his dresser;
• attempt to eat a plastic garbage bag;
• pull on a tuft of carpeting, unraveling a good chunk of it;
• chew on a gel insert in a tennis shoe;
• have a go at the safety plugs in several electrical outlets;
• pull a wine bottle off the wine rack and give it a good whack on the tile floor;
• angrily shake the safety gate keeping him out of the office, then immediately zero in on the latch that opens it.

And those are just the activities that rate in the moderate-to-high danger zone. He has also discovered a totally safe love for dirty laundry and old VHS tapes. Still, we should probably get cracking on the last of that baby-proofing.

With his brain now free of the all-consuming puzzle of figuring out locomotion, LL has turned to more intellectual pursuits. Yesterday, he drank several ounces of milk through a straw, something that we've been working on for weeks. (His normal behavior was to either blow bubbles, or to suck a little liquid into his mouth and then immediately spit it out. Anything but suck on the straw and actually consume what came out.) This morning, he suddenly mastered the arm movements for "How big is LL?" and giving high-fives. By the end of the week, he should be ready to learn how to drive.

LL is not the only one who has new-found independence. I am happy to report that my grad funding situation is resolved. AdvisorA's final comment on the matter, a week or two ago, was that she had no money for me anywhere, she had no plans to look for more money, and I was completely financially on my own. If I wanted help with funding, I should talk to other people, but not her. End of story. So I had a chat with my department's financial manager, Pepper, who had heard about the situation from AdvisorB and was horrified by what had happened, but pessimistic about the chances of finding a good solution. Pepper looked around, and then called me to her office to tell me that she had found some money for me. How much? Enough to fully fund me for the entire academic year, all the way until my planned graduation in June.

I was dumbstruck. I mean, I had given up all hope of finding funding for the year, and had resigned myself to being a TA in the fall, and taking a leave of absence while I finished up after that. Instead, I'm completely out of the financial woods.

A windfall like this one doesn't just happen, so you just know that there was going to be a dark side. I was a little hesitant to find out, but I just had to know: where did the money come from?

It turns out that AdvisorA has a slush fund. Or rather, the lab that she and I belonged to had a slush fund, contributed to by many professors over the years. As the lab shrank, and many professors retired or left, the slush fund became the sole property of AdvisorA. The money is available for absolutely any purpose, except that it has to be spent at my university (where AdvisorA is no longer employed). When AdvisorA left my university, she couldn't take the fund with her, but nobody else had rights to it, so she hid it. And cleverly forgot to mention it when I, and AdvisorB, and Pepper all independently questioned her about any money she had access to that could be used to pay for me. (And before we give her the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe she really did forget about it: Pepper said that AdvisorA is still charging things to the account on occasion, as recently as a few weeks ago, when expenses come up that she can reasonably charge to this account.)

Pepper found the account, and discovered that it had more than enough money in it to fund me for the year. (At least an order of magnitude more, in fact.) Then she went to the Department Chair and suggested that the Chair transfer money out of this account into the department's overhead account, then use the department's overhead account to pay for me. Everything was approved, the transfer was done, end of story. I am now fully funded.

The one glitch: nobody told AdvisorA. I'm not going to be the one to do it, because it will look a lot like I convinced the department to steal money from AdvisorA. And Pepper and the Department Chair both feel like this account shouldn't really be AdvisorA's anymore anyway, that the entire account should have become the property of the department as soon as AdvisorA left, so why should they have to tell her when they spend their own money? And AdvisorB thinks that there's so much money in the account that AdvisorA will never notice the missing money, so why draw attention to it.

For now, I'm staying out of it. I talked with AdvisorA on the phone, and when she asked what class I was going to TA, I told her that the department found money for me. Then I played dumb and said that I didn't know the details, she'd have to ask Pepper if she wanted to know more. Given how little she cares at this point, I doubt she'll follow up. If she does, Pepper and AdvisorB are both prepared to lie through their teeth and tell her that I didn't know where the money came from. My only risk at this point is that she does find out, she does get pissed about it, and she takes it out on me by delaying (or preventing) my graduation. (She is still on my committee, and trying to remove her at this point would hurt me more than just dealing with whatever she decides to throw at me.)

Even though I know that there might still be some fallout, I am elated that I can stop worrying about money and just focus on finishing my research. And writing my thesis. And finding a job. And planning LL's first birthday party. And babyproofing the house.

Advisor A, continued

Continuing the story from here.

So, funding for the Fall and beyond was looking iffy, but AdvisorA was in town for a conference, so we agreed that we would talk about it in person. I hadn't been planning to attend the conference, but I arranged to drive to the conference, meet with AdvisorA between her sessions, and have S pick LL up at daycare, all so that I would have a block of time to talk with AdvisorA in person, for the first time in five months. When I got to the conference, I looked around for AdvisorA and couldn't find her. I finally found one of our colleagues, who informed me that AdvisorA had left the conference to do some personal errands, and wouldn't be back until the end of the day, in time to give a talk and then leave again. And no, she didn't bother to let me know, even though she knew that I was making a special trip just to talk with her.

So, I wasted a day sitting around waiting for her, because I wasn't allowed to attend the conference (mainly because AdvisorA didn't want to pay the registration fee for me) but I needed to be able to corner her in person and find another time to talk, whenever she managed to get there. At the very end of the day, I managed to get ~15 minutes with her. And that's when things fell apart.

The conversation had two parts. One part was about my progress, and one part was about money. On the "progress" side, she told me that she has been disappointed that I haven't been making more progress the past few months. And yes, I acknowledged to her that my progress has, indeed, been much slower than it used to be. (In the past, AdvisorA has mentioned on numerous occasions that I'm generally more productive than any student she'd ever worked with, and I'd already accomplished more by my third year than most PhD students accomplish by the time they graduate -- typically six years.) She tried to frame this as an argument that, as my advisor, she should only have to fund me for a fixed period of time, and if I'm too slow to graduate during that time, then it's my problem.

I reminded her that I'm still going to graduate in six calendar years, which is exactly average for someone who works straight through my program, but I'm actually faster (and cheaper!) than most because she has never before paid for my summers and she didn't have to pay for my maternity leave of absence. Basically, instead of working at 100% pace for six years, I worked at 130% pace for four years, took less than half a year off, worked at 50% pace for another half year, then plan on doing 100% for the last one. I understand that it sucks to be going through that 50%-output period right now, but I'm doing my best. And I would have thought that four years of 130% pace would have bought me a bit of good will.

She told me that she expected me to be back up to 130% as soon as I returned from maternity leave. And she expected me to have gotten some work done during the maternity leave as well. (??? No idea why should would have thought this. Especially since we discussed it at length several times during my pregnancy, because I wanted to be absolutely sure that there would be no misunderstandings on this point.) And then she commented that she discussed this with BossLady when they ran into each other a few weeks ago, and she implied that the two of them (and by extension, lots of other people) are disappointed with me right now. (I'm going to jump right by the fact that AdvisorA ran into BossLady, and the first thing she did was say, "Don't you think that Nicky is being really lazy recently?") I asked what BossLady said, because I couldn't believe that BossLady would have agreed with that sentiment, and AdvisorA admitted that BossLady had actually gently corrected her. (Apparently, BossLady laughed, shook her head, told AdvisorA that she's a moron for thinking that a woman with an infant would be back up to complete output anytime in the first year, and then spent some additional time praising me and telling AdvisorA how lucky she is to have me for a student. I'm not sure whether it helped or hurt, but it's nice to know that BossLady has my back.) So, given that AdvisorB is also extremely understanding about the situation, it's really only AdvisorA who has a problem with what's going on right now.

At one point, AdvisorA went on a rant about how silly it is that she should be inconvenienced because of my personal choices. As if everyone's personal choices don't inconvenience other people all the time. And as if having children was an odd, screwball thing that hardly anybody does. (And, what I definitely did not say out loud: as if her moving cross country didn't inconvenience me, too, but I just sucked it up and congratulated her and wrote her a recommendation to help her get the job anyway, because I believe that people need to do what's right for them with their personal lives. But whatever.)

And you know, I get that the world doesn't revolve around me, and having a baby is a choice that I made and I can't expect everyone to make lots of allowances just for me. But at the same time, I also believe that having a baby is a normal part of life, that it's the price you pay for employing human beings. And I'm also angry, because in my particular field, students take leaves of absence ALL THE TIME for other personal purposes, like starting a company or working somewhere for a year or traveling the world, and nobody blinks when they interrupt things to leave for several months and then come back and spend two months talking about it, before finally getting back to work. My leaving to have a baby isn't all that different, except that yes, I continue to take care of the baby even after I returned to work. But AdvisorA never had children, and just kept making side remarks about women and choices and careers and being taken seriously. And it pisses me off.

At this point, AdvisorA shifted the conversation to be purely about money. Ignoring all of the you're-not-productive-enough excuses that she'd just laid out, she now explained that she'd love to fund me, but she doesn't have money. "But I heard that you have money from X, Y, and Z?" Oh. Um. Correction. She has money, but she can't transfer it to my university. "But you've transferred it in the past, what's changed?" Oh. Um. Correction. She can transfer the money, but she loses a lot in the transfer, so she doesn't want to do it that way. "But I thought that you worked all of that out with AdvisorB last year, to make the transfer easier?" Oh. Um. Maybe. Then she changed arguments again, and started saying bland, generic things about the bad economy. And she said something about maybe I can just spend next year being a TA, or maybe I can find a rich friend to give me a grant (!). And then she had to leave.

So, right now, nothing is resolved. I have funding through September, but I have no idea what's going to happen after that. The backup backup plan is that I have to TA. The problem is that being a TA is a huge time suck. PhD students in my department are advised to get all of their TA responsibilities finished in the first few years, because they know that it is nearly impossible to make progress on a thesis while being a TA, so they don't want students having to teach during their final year or two. So, while being a TA for a semester would solve the funding problem for a semester, it doesn't actually solve anything long-term, because it would probably also push out my graduation date by a semester. TA or not, I will need one full year of non-teaching-contingent funding.

The backup backup backup plan would be that I officially take a leave of absence from school, so that nobody has to pay anything for me, but I actually keep working on my thesis during that time, and then I enroll for just one semester so that I can submit and defend the thesis. But this would mean not getting paid for a year, while still paying for childcare.

As for other suggestions: No, talking to my department chair or dean won't do any good, because AdvisorA doesn't work here anymore. She has lots of moral obligations to me, given our history and verbal agreements, but no real ones. She has every right in the world to stop working with me and focus on students at her own school. And no, transferring is not an option, either. I'm currently in (arguably) the best department in the country for my particular field, and I've spent five years working my butt off to get a PhD from here. There's nothing to gain from transferring this late in the process.

In a collision of bad timing, AdvisorB is on vacation right now, so I can't discuss all of this with him. For now, I'm hoping like hell that either AdvisorA will come to her senses and snap out of whatever shitty mood made her want to screw me over like this, or that AdvisorB will find a way to step in and resolve things. I've also started going through our personal finances very very carefully with S, to see exactly how horrible it would be for me to stop bringing home any income for a year while I finish. There are definitely some places where we could trim expenses, and between that and dipping into our savings, we could probably make it work for a limited amount of time. But I'm unbelievably bitter that we might have to do it that way.

In the middle of all of this, LL turned 9 months old, visited with his out-of-town cousins, went to the beach for the first time, ate his first cheerios, and sprouted three teeth. So a much happier post is on its way later in the week.

Follow-Up

I am extremely short on time, and while I have several long-ish things that I want to say, I wouldn't do them service if I were to try now. My brother, sister-in-law, neices, and nephew are all coming to visit (and stay with us!) later this afternoon, through Sunday. Yes, for five days, we're going to have four adults and four children all living in our little three bedroom house. It's going to be hectic. But sometime next week, after they're gone, I should really write an update on the shitty state of my graduate career, and my advisor's helpful suggestion that even though my department guarantees funding for all PhD students, all the way until they graduate, she believes that having a child should negate that guarantee, thereby forcing all PhD students who become mothers to drop out of the program. Um, yeah. And people wonder why there aren't more women in academia.

Anyway, my real topic for today is not my frakking advisor who has been lying to me for the past year and is suddenly threatening to make it difficult for S and me to pay our mortgage, for no good reason other than the fact that she never had children and therefore believes that nobody else should, either. No, my real topic is a follow up on this topic from last July. I wrote about my friends, T and H, who I heard, through a long and convoluted grapevine, were having fertility problems. They had never said anything to us, but starting when we announced that we were expecting, they had been avoiding us. Well, avoiding us, along with all of our pregnant or child-enabled friends, which is almost everyone they're friends with. I was trying to decide whether I should say something to H about infertility, offer sympathy, etc., but ultimately decided that I didn't know enough about their situation to bring it up.

Anyway, I know more now, so here's the happy conclusion to that story. Yes, T and H were having fertility problems. They are the only people we know who faced this particular problem other than us. In July, as I was trying to figure out whether to offer support of some kind, they were actually going through their first round of IVF. Happily, it was successful, and they are now the proud parents of a 2-month-old baby girl. After they announced their pregnancy, I had a very brief conversation with H about how infertility really really sucks, but she was much more interested in interrogating me about cloth diapers and car seats, which makes for a much happier conversation.

Yay! Sometimes the world is wonderful, eh?

More later about how I might be forced to drop out of school because my advisor has decided that she shouldn't have to fund students who are going to use their stipend, in part, to pay for daycare.

More Finances

For some reason, Dr. M's office has stopped charging us for appointments. Not that I'm complaining. It always made me vaguely uncomfortable to pay them for the privilege of being romanced by an ultrasound wand. So, for now, we're only paying for drugs.

Clomid prescription #3: $5

Total spent so far: $60
(plus the cost of many, many pints of ice cream)

When I picked up the prescription at the drug store, I found out that when Dr. M called it in, he authorized 3 refills, in case this cycle, and the next one, and the next one, all don't work. Very practical of him, I'm sure, but wow it made me want to cry.

More Finances

Ultrasound appointment: $15
Progesterone prescription #2: $5
Clomid prescription #2: $5

New total: $55

Finances

After much discussion of the cost of fertility treatments, I decided to keep track of how much we're actually spending. Our insurance is actually not too bad -- it covers all the normal procedures, including IVF, should that end up becoming necessary, and medications. But, only up to a point. There's a lifetime cap which, by my estimates, should be enough to see us through many, many IUIs and associated meds, but probably with only enough left for a single IVF cycle (possibly two, if it's on the cheap side). I'm still hopeful that we won't get to that point, so all the major costs might still fall under the spending cap, in which case we're only responsible for the copays for appointments and prescriptions. So, the total should stay relatively low (in the hundreds, rather than the thousands that other people seem to spend) until we hit the insurance cap.

So far:

initial consulation: $15
progesterone: $5
Clomid: $5
Erythromycin: $5

Total so far: $30

The cost to my mental health, of course, is much higher....