Working and Studying as an Expectant Mother

For this post, I would like to take a break from the numbers and tell you about my personal experience with this project. When I traveled to Mexico, back in May, I was 7 months pregnant with my first child. My husband and I made the trip to Mexico hoping to get as much work done as possible before our little one finally arrived. It was a wonderful experience!

I was able to walk to the Ministry offices every morning, which was really healthy for baby. Once in the office, I shared a work space with three lovely women, two of them, Hilda and Lourdes, were experienced moms who had lots of advise to dispense every day. They would also bring treats to the office, like quesadillas or freshly baked bread, and then my other colleague, Yimel, and I would listen to some of their stories about being first time moms. 

Another lovely experience was conducting interviews with fellow FSOs. As soon as they noticed I was pregnant, our conversations flowed much more freely. They seemed excited for me, and offered supportive words. This made me feel a little more calm, even as I got closer to my due date and increasingly nervous. 

Expecting and Working: That is me on the far left.

I had to complete the second half of the internship remotely, since it would not be as safe to travel after I reached eight months of pregnancy. I had collected enough information to be able to use this period to analyze the data and begin putting some puzzle pieces together. I am still working on that. 

And then, on July 16th, baby finally arrived! 

Baby Adriano

It is such a joy! My husband and I are enjoying the learning process and we love taking care of this little angel. Even though I expect work-life balance to become very challenging in the coming months, I would not have it any other way.