I'm pregnant!

I had a hard time deciding what to title this post, so eventually I decided to just make it clear rather than clever. Jon and I are expecting a baby in late May or early June!

I've written before about how Herb is extremely supportive of his grad students having kids in grad school. I figured out a few years ago that my student health insurance covers maternity 100%. I've got my fellowship until August. It just seemed like a good time to go for it, so we did, and it worked. Apparently all of those years of birth control were money well spent!

I told my committee I'm pregnant- almost all of them in person. Herb said it had been a while since there was a baby in the lab and I was doing my part to keep up the lab fecundity. Sam said he thought I might be. Chip gave me a high five. Melody said, "Congrats- how far along are you?" Leo said, "Well-timed."

Boy am I motivated to finish- and now my committee knows the extra reason why! My defense is probably going to be April 23 or 24, and the baby is due May 31. Technically I'll finish in the summer term because that's when I'll submit my dissertation to the university. Do you think a baby counts as an external deadline? Or about as internal as deadlines get?