======= Date Modified 27 33 2009 03:33:42 =======
I know I was very angry when I wrote this thread about 20 hours ago and I know it was long. I take the comment of pamplemousse and summarise my prob as follows. If you encounter such experience as follows, what would you do? Please kindly give me advice ...

1. Useless and illogical supervisor.

2. Unreasonable rule imposing ONLY on me.

3. Supervisor intended to get my work away.

If you need examples and the possible causes for the above experience, please let me know and I shall PM you the details.

======= Date Modified 27 Jun 2009 03:14:53 =======
(will be summarised)

======= Date Modified 27 Jun 2009 03:15:27 =======
(will be summarised)

uff, that is hard stuff. sorry about your baby :-(

i do have a few questions though.

1. you say, the young assistent prof is not the best person, but how is he as a supervisor? does he give you justified critical comments? does he give you directions for ongoing work etc?

2. you are in year 3. how many chapters do you already have? how many article/paper submissions? do you think your work is good enough to get the PhD? i am not in natural sciences, but having less than three papers suggests to me that you don't have much to show for right now? (i could be completely wrong here, as i said, i am in a totally different area)

3. the rule about three published papers appears to me quite common, at least i know of a few departments that have such a rule. But for you all that counts is: is that rule written down somewhere? when was it changed? does it work retrospectively? just because someone says this is the case, doesn't necessarily mean it's true ...

4. about your leave: when you stayed at home, did you take holidays or sick leave? did you officially sign for this? are you funded, ie were you paid during your sick leave?

This is a very long posting and lots of people will struggle to have time to read it; maybe it's worth you trying to summarise it in a paragraph, just so that you'll get more advice.

A couple of observations: -

1. You don't sound particularly commited to your PhD. You say you're catholic - but there ARE means of at least reducing the chances of pregnancy that are acceptable. Lots of people manage well with the rhythm method. While I can see that you might want to have a baby during your PhD, the fact that you got pregnant twice may well be sending out certain signals in your lab.

2. Alot of your post comes across as passive-aggressive. You strongly criticise your supervisior for pretty much everything - when on a purely objective level I don't think any supervisor is bad at everything.

3. Allegations of plagarism and the like are very serious. You urgently need to see someone at the top of your department to talk through your concerns, including those.

4. Check official regulations on whether you need publications for your PhD. They can't just bring in an 'unofficial' rule.

S

Supervisors absolutely hate students taking breakes, leaves of absences and such. While some will appear to care, they are usually just being polite and want you to get on with work ASAP. You seemed to have taken lots of breaks. Pregnancy during a PhD is a bad idea, let alone 2. It shows your lack a commintment. You have got to leave your emotions out of this and find out clear facts, do you need to publish 3 papers to graduate, is your supervisor REALLY plagarising your work etc.

Have I just slipped through some sort of timewarp, or are educated people in the UK, in 2009 really queueing up to tell a woman (who's recently suffered a miscarriage, let's not forget) that daring to reproduce at the time of her choosing demonstrates a 'lack of commitment' to her PhD?

The really depressing thing is that the people making these comments are likely one day to be in positions of authority themselves, rolling their eyes at women who dare to get pregnant, ask to work flexible hours, expect to be considered for promotion after returning from maternity leave etc., and piling pressure on them to 'show their commitment' by working till their health starts to suffer.

Thank goodness the law is against them.

======= Date Modified 26 Jun 2009 23:34:27 =======
to be fair, supervisors (male or female) will always react angry, if a PhD student gets pregnant a few months after starting a PhD. a PhD is not a "normal" 9-5 job, it requires indeed more than average comittment, working weekends and if deadlines loom, working through nights, day after day. this IS expected. if you want to a career and babies at the same time, you should not consider a PhD where you need to work in a LABORATORY (which is surely bad for the unborn baby!). if you can work from home (like in most areas) no problem as long as you keep to official leave times/inform your supervisor/ (which was apparently not done in this caseg), but if a lot of practical work is required in a dangerous environment, then yeah, babies will cause years of delay .... costing a lot of money, making supervisors mad.


/me being a girl, thinking about a baby, but luckily doing a PhD that requires only sitting in front of a computer

I think Monkey's points are valid. I'm equally thinking about having a baby during my PhD, but I don't expect all congratulations -- despite the fact that alot of my work can be done from home.
It is very sad that the OP had a miscarriage (I had one 6 weeks ago) but I don't think that this is wholly attributable to the lab situation. I think the 'help yourself first' tenet comes into play here. And it doesn't help that she seems to have descended into hyperbole about nearly everything....

Money,

Yes, really tough ...

1. He is not working in my field and he knows nothing about my work. It is me who give myself the directions, not him ...

2. Yes, I may not be good enough to get my PhD. But the point is, it is so unfair that nearly all the PhD here do not have papers before they graduate. There is one PhD just graduated 2 months ago, no paper, but just draft one now. It is sort of custom here in our department that you don't have to have the paper before you graduate, but you should have enough (or nearly enough) material to write up a paper later on. I do have sufficient material to write one now, even before my graduation.

3. Yes, three papers should be common. I actually have three papers published for my MPhil too. But again, there no written rules that we should have three papers before graduation. It is just a rule that they suddenly madeup during the meeting. There is another student graduating with me, he has no paper too. But he is now near his oral defense, everything is smooth on his side - all because his supervisor is different from mine.

4. When I stayed at home in my first trimester, I took unofficial leave as granted by the division head. Then at my third trimester, I took unofficial leave because my supervisor told me to do so, not until he suddenly changed his mind. Then when I delivered and recoverd, I took official leaave with approval from both division head and him.

Yes, you are right. I read your story too Lostinoz, hope everything is ok on your side now. I felt that my division head and supervisor were so kind to me, but now I honestly feel that they just treat us as robots, if we take leave, they hate us; of course if we work extra hard, they love us ... I don't understand why as a research student, we cannot manage our own time ... we are not students from taught degree program. During my second pregnancy, when I felt that I was ok with the response, I did not even get a day off. My religion does not allow contraception ... I know such unplanned pregnancy should not be so welcome ...

Magictime, thanks so much for your kind words. I understand pregnancy is not so welcome in our field ...
:-(

Yes, this is something that I know too. Before I was pregnanted, I worked like 9-11, weekends and so on. But the only thing that I could do when I knew myself was pregnant is to give birth to it. I can never kill the baby because of my work, that's not fair to her. Depsite the facts that I did take leave, I also went back to lab for work, and even work a long time on animal. Of course I was scared, but I have no choice. It was a torture for me. I thought of quitting at that time but I finally gave up. My motivation was that my baby and me can earn the PhD together. You know, there is no second thing that a mom and a kid can do together like this, same heart same mind, later in their life. I feel that I am keen on my work. Maybe you are right that my supervisors thought me not commit to my work, but he should always provide guidance to get me 'right' to track (commit), I believe that's the responsbility of a professor.

I believe when you were scolded unreasonably by someone in the lab, then you felt you were really angry and your heartbeat fast, abdomen became increasingly painful, and immediately you had some fluid coming out from your vagina, and finally checked out it was blood! And a day later, the baby coming out after another an hour of intense pain. Should this miscarriage not the atrribute of the people in the lab, I wonder what would be the cause.

Hyperbole? It's all truth but everything is so unreal, isn't it? I cannot believe there is such supervisor on this earth thou.

If anyone who replies this thread, I hope he/she can give me suggestion of how I can deal with this supervisor.

======= Date Modified 27 Jun 2009 10:04:41 =======
======= Date Modified 27 Jun 2009 07:07:51 =======

I feel very weird posting here for I am in no way experienced to handle any of these issues. But just some thoughts. I understand that this is an awfully debilitating experience, but perhaps description of rather graphic details as this above is an emotional knee-jerk response which you will later wish to (re)consider. Second, I do not think you real problem is how to deal with your supervisor, but how to repair the situation your life is in. The miscarriage is unfortunate and it is an idea perhaps to try and see that it does not happen again. A PhD is a tough thing to do, even with the best of supervisors, it comes with its fair share of worries and stress, and repeated pregnancies are yet more loads to add to it. To me, I would focus attention on not what the social meanings of a pregnancy are to a supervisor/team/lab, but whether you should consider paying attention to burdening yourself with pregnancies while undertaking an already demanding task (PhD) with a baby. It is not fair on you, the baby/babies and those who are there to care for you. Try thinking of pregnancies from that angle. I am not asking you to think of babies as loads, you will perhaps think they are God's gift to you, and you are entitled to your take on this, of course. Merely that you must also be fair to all around you, you yourself, and the baby.

Second, perhaps separate the issues at hand. Poor supervision, inadequate career guidance, health issues, and the combination of these leading to emotional problems. And then a cyclical thing of these all feeding into each other. Would you consider seeing a counsellor/therapist/similar to help you resolve the many threads in this? It may help you get a sense of perspective.

Finally, may I also suggest that you revisit the situation you have RIGHT now, i.e. after the miscarriage, take out the supervisor factor and try and see where else your problems lie. Maybe supervision is an important but not the only source of concern.


To end, I apologise if I sound patronising for I speak out of inexperience. I have never attempted any of the things you have undergone in your life and am in no position to offer any advice. Take care, and I wish you well.