Mary Garcia-Cazarin discovers she's pregnant just as she is offered a prestigious science policy fellowship, and worries about whether she can't cope with both.
Mary Garcia-Cazarin, Ph.D., M.S. is a Scientific Advisor for the Tobacco Regulatory Science Program (TRSP) in the Office of Disease Prevention at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) where she helps to stimulate and coordinate collaborative tobacco regulatory science research; and implementation of initiatives related to disease prevention, tobacco and public health. Previously, Dr. Garcia-Cazarin was an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellow in the Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS). She is an alumna of the Linton-Poodry SACNAS Leadership Institute (2011) and the Advanced Leadership Institute (2017). Dr. Garcia-Cazarin is a former SACNAS Board Member. She received her Bachelor of Science in pharmaceutical chemistry from Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico, her Master of Science in biology from James Madison University, in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and her Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of Kentucky in Lexington. She is a passionate about training and mentoring and an advocate of outreach programs to increase participation of underrepresented groups in science-related fields.
This story originally aired on May 10, 2019 in an episode titled “Moms of Science.”
Story Transcript
It was March, 2012, a few years ago. I was a postdoc, just a regular postdoc dissecting muscles everyday from rats, from the legs, from the eyes, looking at glucose metabolism, muscle metabolism. It was just a regular day in the lab mentoring students, doing experiments.
At about 6:30 p.m., I went to my exercise class as I did every day. That was my way to relieve stress. I couldn’t stop thinking about the possibility of me being pregnant and I didn’t know why. I had no symptoms but I felt I needed to know.
After my exercise class, I drove home and, on the way home, I stop at a grocery store called Kroger. I went to the aisle where you see all these pregnancy tests which, by the way, they're like hundreds of them. And I went for the most expensive one because the more expensive, the more accurate, right?
So I rode home. When you have a pregnancy test in your hand you rush home. I went to the bathroom, took the test, and I was still about a week away from my next cycle so I was like, “This is crazy but let’s give it a shot.”
And guess what? It was pink, like really pink. I didn’t know what to do.
I've been married for five years to my husband Adrian and he was a graduate student at the University of Kentucky where we met. We met at the gym and we were trying to figure out our futures. We were trying to understand what the next steps were. I needed to finally get a job, like a real job, he was going to get his graduate degree so we were working things out.
He wasn’t home when I got home and we live in a two-bedroom apartment. One was an office that only had a desk and a chair and a window. I went to sit there with my pregnancy test in my hand in total darkness. I was in total shock. I didn’t know what to do.
When he came home, I show him the pregnancy test and he was just silent. I don't think we spoke anymore that time.
I was so overwhelmed. How could we bring a child into this world? We have no real jobs, we don’t own a home, we don’t have a savings account. And I grew up in a family where I was told you only have a child when you are ready, when you have everything to provide to a kid.
Mind you, I was in my thirties. I had a PhD and I was in search of my next opportunity. Why did I feel so overwhelmed? Why wasn’t I jumping up and down of happiness? I felt there was something very wrong with me.
My parents became parents really young and they always put that thought in my head that you only do that when you're ready. I think that was a result of their struggles. They didn’t want us to struggle in the same way. At the same time, my husband had to overcome extraordinary things as a kid and I think he was very scared of being a father. It was very overwhelming.
I needed to talk. People told me you don’t tell anyone you're pregnant until you are 12 weeks pregnant because something can happen. I don't care. I needed to talk.
I call my mother and she was a typical Mexican mother, “Finally. It was about time. And I hope you have a girl because boys can give you a lot of trouble. And you better go to the doctor, you don’t lift anything heavy and you eat right.”
Okay. There was no question about how are you feeling.
At that time, I had a faculty position offer because I had been very actively searching for my next step. And in a very quiet way, I applied to the AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowship in Washington DC. It was a very prestigious fellowship and I knew it was a long shot. But at the end of the day, my mentors have raised me to be faculty, so I have a faculty job.
Then I told my friends, my closest friends I was pregnant and they already made plans. “We’re going to help you. We’re going to take care of the baby. You're going to be faculty. You're going to be here. This is going to be easy.”
Wow! Once again, I didn’t know what to do, but it overwhelmed me.
Also, my husband and I, we have discussed previously that if I got the fellowship he was going to stay in Kentucky to finish his degree. I was going to go to Washington DC and then he would join me. It sounded like a very good plan, but a baby could change everything. We also discussed the idea of I was going to be moving anyway even if I was pregnant, because, why not?
So the email came from the AAAS and they told me I got the fellowship. Of course it was me plus 200 other people and I was placed at the National Institute of Health. It’s a long process. Then we really had to make that decision. What are we going to do?
I went to find two female professors that I knew then but they were not my closest friends, but I knew they were mothers and I knew they could be honest with me. I make appointments with them, like coffee appointments, and I told them, said, “I don't know what to do. I have no idea.” I wanted them to tell me exactly what to do. I wanted one answer.
The women, the words from those women saved my life. They were honest, they were kind, and they told me, “A woman can do anything.”
So my husband and I we decided that he was moving with me after all. That was very hard because I can make decisions for myself but now I was bringing somebody else with me, pretty much leaving everything behind for me, and also I was bringing a new baby into the unknown, completely unknown, into a new city which, by the way, I did my Google search and it was a very expensive city.
Yes, I was going to have a stipend, very generous stipend for this very famous fellowship but it was very overwhelming. But we decided we were going to go ahead and do it.
SACNAS is amazing. Two years before that time, I met a young woman at SACNAS who was about to defend her PhD a few months after the conference and she was also going to apply to the AAAS fellowship. I met her through SACNAS and then we reconnected after.
I told her I’m pregnant and when I move to DC I don't know how this is going to work. It’s very expensive. I’m overwhelmed. And without any hesitation she said, “We can be roommates.”
“Wait, what? You are a young, professional woman going to live with a married couple and a baby? You understand babies can cry all night long?”
And she's like, “Yes, I have helped raise my niece and nephew so I know I like babies.”
So that problem was solved. We had a roommate. But the fear, the overwhelming feeling of constant worry about how everything was going to work out was very, very strong.
So the move happened. I was six months pregnant when I moved to DC and the fellowship orientation is very intense. I wanted to be superwoman so I show up with my high heels like nothing was happening. I had a great experience.
We had a roommate. Things were calming down and then daycare. I have to talk to some fellows in DC about daycare and it was overwhelming. They gave me a list of every single thing that I needed to check in a daycare, in a nanny, in anything and we couldn’t do it. It was out of our reach.
I went to the laundry room in our apartment complex and I saw a handwritten note, honestly, not very well-written, about somebody offering their services. I went with my instincts and I called this woman. I don't know what but I knew she was a woman that was going to take care of my baby. So we had a daycare and I was in DC.
And DC was really full circle for me. I came to the U.S. many years ago to learn English with a scholarship in Virginia. The driver was nice enough to drive me through Washington, DC. I remember driving through Washington, looking at the monuments and thinking, “One day I want to live here, but that will never happen. Who am I to live in Washington DC? How is that ever going to happen?”
And I was in DC at the time. I was working. Have you guys heard maternity leave? I’m sure. And the realization came that, as a new employee, you only get the days that you have accumulated when you started working. So I have four to five days of maternity leave. But some angels came along, I really don’t know who, and somebody donated four weeks for me to have maternity leave.
I worked until the very last minute because I couldn’t waste a minute before the baby arrived. My water broke at my desk and I called my husband. I didn’t know that was happening. Luckily, I was with a colleague who had had twins. She said, “Yeah, I think that’s what’s happening.”
I called my husband and I said, “You got to come pick me up because I think this is going to happen,” but I went home, took a shower, shaved my legs because, God forbid, and I had packed a little suitcase with my color-coordinated headband and gown for the delivery.
After so many hours in labor, so many, a C-section came and our little baby was born. Her name is Adriana who I adore.
Now, it’s show time. I was home with my baby for four weeks with a C-section. At Week Four, I walked to my nanny’s house and I handed my baby and she said, “The baby is going to be fine. But I will pray for you, Mashallah, because you're going to need it.”
I walked to the metro sobbing and at that moment I realized I have adapted and I have accepted what was happening and it was fine. I was back at work and it was okay, totally okay.