My husband and I had started fer-

tility treatments during my postdoc

years, unable to conceive on our

own. The process was exhausting. I

had to go into the doctor’s office a

few times per week for blood tests

and appointments—all before my

hourlong commute to work. The

costs stretched our finances. I be-

gan to convert every price tag I saw

to a portion of a doctor’s visit.

During the same time period, my

professional life had started to fall

into place. I completed my postdoc

and landed a faculty job in the same

city where we were living. When the

doctor’s office called that day, I was

1 month away from starting my new

position and changing my email

signature to “Assistant Professor.”

Somehow, I managed to give my

talk. But as I delivered my practiced monologue, I was hav-

ing a very different conversation in my mind. I tried to

imagine taking maternity leave during my first year as a

professor. I also fretted about the viability of the pregnancy.

Follow-up doctor’s visits didn’t yield positive news. The

pregnancy would almost certainly end in a miscarriage. I

contemplated termination. But because we’d had such a

tough time getting pregnant, my husband and I decided to

wait to see what happened.

Over the next month, my appointments for blood draws

and invasive ultrasounds increased to nearly every other

day. During one appointment, we heard a heartbeat. My

stomach sank all the way down to the stirrups holding

my feet. It was painful to hear that heartbeat—because it

provided a glimpse into the excitement of pregnancy that

I knew would likely be cut short. We left the office still

waiting for the supposedly imminent miscarriage.

But I wasn’t waiting at home. I was waiting during my

first faculty meeting. I was waiting in the lab while teach-

ing interns how to prepare samples. I tried my best to

silo my personal and professional

lives. As time wore on, though, the

barrier between “waiting for mis-

carriage Logan” and “shiny new

professor Logan” became less and

less distinct. I was worn out physi-

cally and emotionally.

It was a macabre preview into

parenthood as an academic. I found

myself constantly struggling to

balance my career goals with my

personal life, which featured many

more doctor’s appointments than

visits with friends. I missed dead-

lines and meetings. I had trouble

focusing. And I cried in my office,

worried that I was already failing as

a professor—feelings intensified by

hormones that would bear no fruit.

Then, roughly 7 weeks into my

pregnancy, I went into the doctor’s

office—and this time there was no heartbeat. I’d never expe-

rienced such a visceral combination of sadness and relief. I

swallowed two doses of the abortion pill and waited for my

pregnancy to be officially over.

I dealt with my grief, in part, by speaking openly with

trusted colleagues, including my postdoc adviser and others

who’d known me for years. And I’d had time to prepare. Dif-

ficult as my experience was, I can’t imagine how someone

feels when a miscarriage catches them totally off guard, or

it happens for the second, third, or eighth time.

Ten months have passed, and my husband and I are still

working with the fertility doctor. It isn’t easy to be open

about my personal struggles. But I know many academics

are in the same boat: starting their first faculty appoint-

ment while trying to start a family, and dealing with the

conflicting emotions that even a better outcome can bring.

I want them to know they’re not alone. j

Logan Brenner is an assistant professor at Barnard College in New York

City. Send your career story to [email protected].

“It was a macabre preview

into parenthood as an academic.”

An end and a beginning

T

he phone rang 30 minutes before my talk. It was a familiar number—my fertility doctor’s office—

and I picked up, expecting a nurse to tell me that my pills and injections were ready for my next

treatment. Instead, the nurse asked me to hold for the doctor, who told me I was pregnant. It

should have been joyous news, but he quickly tempered my enthusiasm by telling me that, given

the results of other tests, he wasn’t sure the pregnancy would go to term. I felt a complicated

wave of emotions: relief that our fertility treatment worked, anxiety at the prospect of starting

my new job pregnant, worry that I’d have a miscarriage—and stress about my imminent talk.

By Logan Brenner

ILLUSTRATION: ROBERT NEUBECKER

906 22 MAY 2020 • VOL 368 ISSUE 6493 sciencemag.org SCIENCE

WORKING LIFE

Published by AAAS