Pregnancy in a doctoral program

[Applicant1357]

Have you or people in your program gotten pregnant during the course of a PsyD program? If so, can you please share your experience, what year it occurred during, and advice for someone who is planning on having a pregnancy at least once during the 5 years. Specifically information about missing  class time and time at externships due to child birth, complications, etc. 

ps. I am not expecting any sort of maternity leave or any special treatment. Please refrain from sharing your judgements on having children during graduate school. I am simply asking for advise and people’s experiences 

[Applicant1357]

Also important to note- my husband makes a nice living with flexible job hours, remote options  and likely parental leave without pay. 

[Rerun]

Hey! Good to see this kind of question come up. For real, there's life outside of PhD/PsyD. It shouldn't be our entire life. That being said, yes I am talking from experience that I got pregnant right after I got admitted into my PhD. I didn't defer it because I can't, and I want to both be a mom and my PhD. My husband also has a good paying job and work remotely. So all I can say is though it's hard, it works out so far. 

For me, I started the program pregnant, so on the 2nd semester, I only did 1 credit of seminar and did nothing else. Then after summer break I came back full time and baby goes to daycare.

I'm now only 1 semester behind to my cohort, but I don't feel that way. I'm done with classes, now working on my qualifying components. I don't have any other internship thing like that. I suggest looking up your school guideline about pregnant students. Maybe there's some regulation about class, leave of absence, etc.

I'm sorry that you feel people will judge you. I guess grad school is just not a friendly environment for moms, but find your support and don't feel like a PSyD should hold your desire to have at least one child!

[PsyDuck90]

This is likely going to be really dependent on the individual program. As Rerun mentioned, I’d look at the student handbook for any policies regarding extended leave. In my program, we had a person in the cohort above us have a baby during her program, and she essentially took a semester off and then came back the following semester. Depending on the structure of classes, it may be easier at some programs than others (our program had a specific schedule of classes mapped out for all 4 on-campus years, while others have more flexibility of what you take when and what is offered each semester). The program faculty may also vary in their support (which is definitely not ok, but I’ve heard stories that run the gamut of willing to work with the person however possible and just flat out thinking the decision to have a child was a mistake). If you have the baby during your internship year, then that will depend on the policies of the internship site. Unfortunately, there’s no standardization, even though the majority of individuals who pursue clinical/counseling psychology doctorates are women of child-bearing age. 

[kmeyer1192]

I am in my second year of a Psyd program and 12 weeks pregnant, and just sent the email to our program director and training director letting them know.  The pregnancy was entirely planned.  I'm 31 and my husband is 38, so we can't wait much longer.  I timed the pregnancy the best I could to miss the minimal amount of class time and externships. I strongly believe that a woman should be able to have a family and complete a higher ed degree.  I hope the faculty sees it the same way. 😕

Edited February 8 by kmeyer1192