Today, I spoke with the Academic Dean about how my current situation will affect my presence at school over the next few months. I didn't want to meet with anyone, but a girl who had a baby between semesters last year at my school recommended it. I'm sorry I took that advice.
The Academic dean is a woman, with four kids of her own. She started the conversation by telling me that her 4th child was born 6 weeks early, right in the middle of finals, and she had to change exam questions and talk to first-years from labor and delivery. Her first child was born 4 weeks early. So I assumed that I would at least have a sympathetic ear (and sympathy plus power is something I always want on my side).
But after telling me these stories (which I assume must have been told with the purpose of scaring me), she offered me nothing. I will have four finals this semester... as scheduled, there are two on the 8th of December, one on the 10th and one on the 11th. My due date is December 26th, so I would have a little over two weeks between finals and baby if everything goes according to plan. As a matter of course, if you have two finals on the same day, you're allowed to petition to move one of them to the next available day. Obviously, I don't want to move a final from the 8th to a later day, but she acted like it might be too much to ask to move that exam earlier. Ugh. Regardless, I wasn't seeking any "help" (unless I end up needing it) but I expected them to offer more.
This semester is not what worries me. I figure that the chances I'm more than two weeks early are not high ... if it happens, I can always push back finals or take them and not give a shit what my grades are. So no big deal. But starting classes next semester is another thing. Classes start January 12th. Even if I deliver on my due date, I have barely over 2 weeks before school starts. If I'm a week or so late, that's down to one week. Even assuming a perfectly fine labor and no complications, I think I would probably want more time than that to recover and bond with Uno before I have to go to school for stupid classes I don't care about anyway. I plan on taking at least 1, maybe 2, weeks off at the beginning unless I really feel ready to go back. The only problem is my school has an idiotic attendance policy. Professors are supposed to take attendance, and if you miss more than 6 hours of a 3-credit class during a semester, they can technically drop you. When I asked the dean what to do about all of this, she said "I wouldn't miss class." I wanted to scream at her. Shake her. Show her how insignificant her classes and academic policies are in my life. But instead, I just made a mental note to talk directly to professors when the time comes and never to seek her help again.
Yeah, so the plan for now is to try to not fail my finals and not have the baby before December 11th. Then, I will hope and pray that he decides to make his debut sometime shortly thereafter so I have plenty of time before going back to school. The 18 weeks of paid maternity leave at my future firm sounds pretty amazing right about now :(
7 comments:
Hi - I am a lurker and alos a mom that works full time as a lawyer (I have an 8 month old son). I'm sorry that your dean wasn't as helpful as you hoped - she actually sounds really unhelpful and really mean. If you need to talk or vent, let me know!
I'm truly appalled at your Dean's lack of understanding. There were so many pregnant law students when I was in law school and I know that professors and deans were always going out of their way to make accommodations. I'm really sorry that you're not getting the support that you need.
I'm looking forward to paid maternity leave for our next baby and thanks to Landon showing up early, I got more weeks at home with him before school started than I thought I was going to. If it makes you feel better, I felt 100% ready to go back to school at the 2 week mark and assuming you take fairly undemanding classes with understanding professors you can really ease your way into it, just going to campus for class and ignoring most assignments. Weeks 3-8 were actually really hard for me to be home with Landon. My family is far away, my friends were all working at their summer firms, JP was gone all day... I was lonely and missed adult companionship, and I would have happily separated myself from Landon for a few hours a day to get it.
I hope your baby shows up just a teensy bit early, but even if you're late, it will work out.
wow- I can't believe how harsh your school is being. I've heard about other people having great experiences with their law schools. I'm sorry yours is so strict! It's completely ridiculous!
I know it's not an option for everyone, but I took the entire semester off. I love it so far (maybe i'll be missing school in a couple weeks).
Can you schedule your classes so they are only twice a week or something? That's what I hope to do next semester.
Thanks everyone! LL, that does make me feel better (like almost everything you say in comments). I am hoping that I will feel the same way you did.
I'm not that upset by the dean's response because I don't actually anticipate needing help right now and I generally hate it when people feel entitled to gracious concessions, but it would have been nice to know I could talk to her should something happen. I'm not sure whether it's a good or bad sign when a law firm reacts MUCH better to pregnancy news than a supposedly "family oriented" school. Oh well, moving onward and upward!
Thanks again for all of your comments :)
I know I'm late to this conversation, but I just wanted to say that I had my baby during Fall of 3L year and went back to class two weeks later and it turned out okay. One thing my dean did for me was to let me park in the faculty underground parking for the last 30 days of my pregnancy. good luck!
statistically, most first time moms are a week late. i was. time off between finals and the baby will be a very nice thing! mine was born in january, and it was just right.
although, i took spring semester off, a la magic cookeie, and i highly recommend it. good luck!
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