Hi, I am Olivera, a recent graduate from ETH Zürich and a member of WiNS. I did my PhD in the group of Bill Morandi in LOC on homogeneous palladium catalysis. I am, among other things, a chemist, an immigrant, a type 1 diabetic, a wife, and a mom. With this blog post, I would like to give my contributions to celebrating Mother’s Day by sharing snippets of my experience becoming a mother during my PhD.

Roots and dreams

I’ve always known that I wanted to be a mother. Looking back at my upbringing, I can see certain things that shaped my personality in this respect. The first thing that springs to mind is the remnants of gender equality from socialist Yugoslavia. While it wasn’t a perfect situation, and recent times have shown decline, growing up and studying in Serbia, I didn’t feel discriminated against for being a woman. In fact, I had more female professors and colleagues. I had wonderful role models who balanced their ambitions with motherhood. Plus, I always knew I had the freedom to choose, with contraception not being a taboo and abortion being fully accessible if needed. Having children was never seen as a setback in an academic career; instead, it was regarded as just another success alongside professional life. However, my mother prepared me for the reality that, even if I became an astronaut, I would still have to come home and take care of things like cleaning and cooking lunch all by myself. This traditional division of roles was especially obvious in the rural parts of the country, such as the one where I grew up. In this environment, getting married and having kids is often viewed as a rite of passage, a norm. Unfortunately, many older generations still look down upon those who choose a different path. Nevertheless, what truly inspired my husband and me to start a family was our own love as well as our relationships with our families, friends, and all our dear people. We didn’t want this love to die with us, but to continue with future generations in honor of us, as well as all those who came before.

Timing is not everything

A significant portion of our fertility period is consumed by education, building relationships, getting to know ourselves, starting careers, and other pursuits necessary for a stable, happy life. Unfortunately, this leaves us often in our late 30s, rushing to have children, facing complications like endometriosis, early menopause, and cancer that hinder our ability to conceive. I believe we need to challenge the conventional narrative of pursuing education, marriage, career, and homeownership before having children. If you are ready to commit to this lifelong role, in my opinion, there will never be a better time to have kids than now, provided that you are not completely alone in this and that you have someone to support you (it doesn’t even have to be a partner; or it can be multiple partners—or just whoever is by your side). A baby definitely won’t care if you bring them into a one-bedroom apartment or if they have their own fancy nursery. They probably prefer your embrace over that electric crib they will outgrow in three months. My son prefers a $15 umbrella stroller over a three-basket Stokke. So, beware of marketing traps! Keep it simple. A child needs their caregivers and their time—lots of it. That’s the compromise you, as a caregiver, need to make. I did feel “trapped” in the very beginning, but to be honest, it was the most wonderful “jail” I could be in. I still remember the “fear of the dark” – the rush of anxiety that comes with the sunset, and I start to think how I will survive another night, mostly being awake. Fortunately, that phase didn’t last long and very soon we developed our new rhythm of life that was much more manageable and, incredibly, gave us a lot more freedom than we expected to have. In the 1.5 years since we became parents, we have taken 15 flights, including a trip to a conference in San Diego. We have moved three times. We are definitely mobile, even more than we want to be. And I now enjoy other activities compared to those I liked before becoming a parent. So, my free time is not lost, it’s just spent differently.

PhD first – life second?

But, you might ask: “What about work time?”. I am an experimental organic chemist. In the initial safety training at ETH, there are instructions related to pregnancy: If working with potentially hazardous chemicals, a pregnant person must immediately leave their workplace in the lab. A year into my PhD, I had aspirations to do something outside the lab. I wanted to gain new skills that would help me in my everyday work. I was alarmed by my inability to determine how reaction conditions affect my reaction by the usual approach of changing one parameter at a time. So, I started reading about data science applications in chemistry and how to more efficiently examine chemical space, while simultaneously continuing the usual organic synthesis work in the lab, teaching, etc. Pregnancy was something I desired in my personal plan that was compatible with these aspirations for my research. When I got pregnant the first time, my supervisor and I found a way for things to work out without problems. We redistributed time-sensitive lab work and duties to my colleagues, while I took on new projects that I already wanted to pursue. However, nothing in life goes perfectly by plan, and I had a miscarriage soon after. After recovering, we reversed the changes for another half a year until I got pregnant again. It was cumbersome, both for me and for my colleagues, to have so many unpredictable changes of plan in a short amount of time, but everyone who knew that was very respectful to me and to the emotional pain I endured. I never felt judged. Also, I had a very supportive mentor who understood the additional difficulties of a high-risk pregnancy. The second time, we already knew the drill. I learned about data science and ran machine learning projects in collaboration with another research group. Additionally, I devoted my time to calculating reaction mechanisms and writing a review. This shift wasn’t without challenges. It was frustrating and felt like I was abandoning everything I had done and started as a rookie. On top of that, as a type 1 diabetic, I spent at least half of my time just trying to keep my glucose in a very narrow range. On average, I worked 6 hours a day, including weekends, to compensate; I took numerous breaks and worked while walking, or whenever my glucose allowed me. It was not a normal life; it was surviving. After returning from maternity leave, I was able to work in the lab again and also finish projects that required experimental work. It’s probably not a path many people would choose for their PhD, but I am very proud of the skillset I was able to develop and apply in my research.

Adapting priorities

In the year and a half since my son was born, I have spent less time with him than I’d hoped. I’m not here to share fairy tales about nailing it all perfectly. I don’t want to mislead anyone into thinking that having a PhD and a child is a walk in the park (because neither of those is), or that people are making a mistake by waiting until they finish their studies to start a family. I often came home feeling exhausted while my little one was eager to play. There was laundry to do, meals to cook, bills to pay… I even missed three appointments with my endocrinologist because I just didn’t have the energy to tackle my to-do list. I sometimes feel like I’m not being the best mother I can be, and I worry that I’m letting my child down by not being more present, more joyful, more creative with our playtime… I told him the same bedtime story many nights in a row because it’s the only one I can recite in my sleepy state (the words just come out automatically). I’ve yawned twenty times in the last few minutes, and he’s still wide awake, staring at me at 1 am. Is he not speaking in sentences yet because I didn’t work with him enough, or because he is confused by different languages? I often find myself overthinking things such as these. But I remind myself not to give in to the pressure. If I learned something during my PhD, it’s that progress is more important than perfection. My child is healthy and has loving parents and everything he truly needs. We have enjoyed pure joy as a family countless times, and laughed to tears even in somewhat desperate moments. My PhD journey has involved abandoned projects, but it wouldn’t be perfect if I postponed starting a family. My glucose levels are not anywhere close to what I maintained during pregnancy, but I am living a happy and high-quality life.

It takes a village…

My biggest culture shock in Switzerland was how expensive it is to have kids, and how short maternity leave is. Also, swapping a newborn baby for a breast pump when I came back to work just didn’t work for me, and I lost my milk supply very fast. Looking back now, I might have done some things differently. For example, I might have looked into options such as unpaid leave, although that could also be a very ungrateful thing to do when you are a PhD student. What saved me was the community, always more powerful than any individual. The support of our parents, siblings, grandparents, friends, relatives, colleagues, and neighbors was crucial, especially in those early days. Everyone was happy to step in and help. We almost always had someone staying in our home and helping us with the baby. It’s a tremendous debt of gratitude we owe to many, but it’s also a reflection of the culture rooted in solidarity and mutual support. We have always been part of that circle, and when we found ourselves in need, it embraced us in return. We both did our best to be as present at home as possible, but my husband had an extremely long commute to work, and I was often caught up in countless experiments or worked additionally at night when the baby was sleeping. It was still a period that I will keep as a fond memory, in which I got even closer to my community and understood its strength, and why, in our culture, it is set above the culture of individualism. It takes a village, doesn’t it?

Among “the village”, I am most grateful to my husband: If I say that I was lucky, it would be lowering the bar. But yes, I have a partner who has an equal “mother instinct” like I do. Sharing responsibilities allowed me to come back to work and finish up my PhD, and to have a break whenever I wanted it. And I would say “thank you” for this if he allowed me, but he feels like there is nothing to thank him for when he is just taking care of his child.

Hope and contentment

While working in the lab, I truly enjoyed listening to audiobooks, and two passages from “War and Peace” truly resonated with me. There’s a heartfelt letter shared by (I believe, but could be mistaken) Andrei Bolkonsky, where he describes marching for days and sleeping on the cold ground with sore feet, yet he felt just as much happiness as he did when he was part of high society. His friend Pierre Bezukhov goes on to express that he wouldn’t exchange his days as a prisoner for anything in the world because he gained insights into life, faith, and love, and that experience shaped who he is. So, whether you choose a more difficult path or life unexpectedly guides you there, remember that in the long run, it won’t take away much of your inner happiness (I exclude extreme losses, traumas, etc.). It’s a beautiful reminder that we all have a core sense of contentment, regardless of our circumstances, and it’s important to nurture that sense rather than fear what life may bring. I approached my choices this way: I knew it would be challenging, but I believed I could only become happier than before. And I am. There is nothing more beautiful in the world than my child’s smile and embrace. Everything he does for the first time, even if it is a very simple thing, we are over the moon happy! Life’s not perfect, and I’m not perfect either. I know I can’t do everything flawlessly, and many times I have to make decisions about what I will sacrifice for the sake of time. But in the end, all that matters is that my son knows that I love him more than anything in the world, and that I have always stayed true to myself. It’s as simple (and as complicated) as that.