Just to say Lost - I do get very (sometimes extremely) stressed about submitting this year but I just have more perspective which you don't have yet - but perhpas you can work on it.

Same here. I dropped out of a PhD in my early 20s and it is very different this time. I've done some very challenging jobs since then - especially some overseas posts where I was really left to my own devices and depended on my own initiative and drive to get anything done. That was a great prep for a PhD.

And other life dramas are so much more stressful - they don't really compare. My husband was very ill for a long time and almost died. I nursed both parents with terminal cancer. I've done 5 IVFs and lost my first pregnancy. I mention these to help get some perspective. I used to have a favourite saying: out of the gloom a voice said untoi me - smile and be happy for things could be worse. So I smiled and was happy - and behold - things did get worse

I think that's just it Olivia.

I'm an ex-biochemist and most of my contempories went to the US for a postdoc (one never came back) after their PhD. It was definitely seen as the next thing to do and not that difficult.

Lost - I have found the same thing. Exams are a breeze but a PhD really requires sustained effort. But then so do a lot of jobs - nothing will ever be as easy as school/undergrad again, alas.

Well actually I have found it quite hard to pin down the relevant conferences and welcome any advice on searching for them. Maybe it depends on your subject - but it's not always that straight forward. I regularly search for conferences but nearly missed one last year at MY OWN uni until a friend in Canada asked if I was going! (And I am not espeically stupid - honest!)

This is one of the hardest things I've ever done but it's not the hardest and it's definitely not the most stressful. Not that it isn't hard and stressful - just that there are, I'm afraid, for many of us, going to be a number of very tough and stressful times in life.

I don't think you have to be 100% consumed all the time - but you probably do need to be like that some of the time. But you have to be careful not to burn out. When I was getting stressed about this an older academic advised me that it isn't nessecary to be brilliant every day - most of the time, good enough is just fine (I'd say the same about parenting too!).

Well I'm in my final year and already married and I really don't think the stress of writing up will start divorce proceedings. There are a lot of potentially very stressful things that can happen when you are married - this is just one of them. Marriage is for better or for worse - and sometimes it's worse! Personally I prefer being married doing this to single. And I totally agree with Rosy - if you want to have a life then you can't put it on hold for your work. Your work is part of your life - not all of it.

I have a young child and that is much tougher than having a spouse. You cannot reason or negotiate your time with a toddler because you have a deadline - you can't dump then in another room and close your office door.

I would say though - that if you are not sure - then perhaps wait. You may not enjoy the process as much at this time which would be a shame.

Even if my husband could have stayed home with my daughter I would not have been happy to miss out on that. I wanted a child and wanted to be with her. I nursed her for the first year - whcih automatically means I have to be with her. Looking after an infant is, frankly, very tediuos sometimes and I think of my family and work as food and water - you need both and I can't ditch one for the other. I would go out of my mind as a full-time mum but the bottom line is that my family comes first. Fortunately my supervisor has no problem with that so I am lucky there.

I am very anxious myself about what will happen after my PhD. My husband is very far along in his career and it is not feasable for him to go part-time or take a career break - he works long hours and travels. I don't want both of us to be working long hours and I'm not sure what that is going to mean. I want to be able to get my daughter from school 2 days/week for example. We are not able to have another child, but if we were, I really don't know how I would manage - although I know of other people who had 2 kids during their PhDs so it can be done.

I'm struggling because I'm not using enough childcare - only 3 days/week. I may have to increase that this year to submit, then I will take a break next year, aiming to start work when she starts school sep 09.

I think it is very stressful to do both. I had my daughter at theend of my 2nd year, took 2 years out and I'm now in my last year. My funding was frozen for that time. Fortunately I am not lab-based as that really is tough.

I know quite a lot of mums in research and some seem to cope better than others. One friend and her partner were both tenured in a lab-based field when they had 2 kids. She takes all the school holidays as unpaid leave - apparently this is the kind of arrangement employers have to consider. Another friend in industry has gone back 3 days/week but now that she has a 2nd child the nursery fees for 2 children are so high she may not go back this time (she took 1 year maternity each time). Another lecturer friend is pregnant with her 3rd and planning to go back again 3 days/week after 6 months leave.

Well congratualtions. Love leeds - it's a fun city and close to some fantastic countryside.

Some supervisors probably hardly know their students. The general advice is that if you have a big name supervisor then all you will get is the benefit of association with that name - and nothing else, i.e. probably no actual supervision.

Adem - I took two years out when I had my daughter. But actually, I know several women who really did go straight back to the lab and some whose husbands looked after the baby.

jouri that is tough going and very decent of you to post that. I get very negative too - which is why I first said that I understand the feelings badhaircut talked about. It's just so much tougher than I feel it needs to be and I am not immune to irritation when posters seem to expect an easy fix.

And before I totally bury myself alive on this thread - I am off to bed.