Though nature always laughs in my face when I do this, I am trying to plan for my unknowable future anyway. I would like some advice on when is the earliest reasonable date to travel on a business trip (mine would be related to my education and not my work-job) away from a baby after giving birth.
I feel like anything before two months is infeasible, as most people seem to still be getting the hang of breastfeeding and bonding at that point. But, like, 2.5 months? Three? Four?
Details
There is a psychedelic training program that involves 10 days of travel to a foreign country every six months, with the first trip being absolutely required, while subsequent trips can be shuffled around a bit if necessary. On the travel, substance ingestion will occur, so I cannot do it while pregnant. I was accepted and supposed to begin the program next month, with first travel this July, but I got pregnant and would have been due 2 weeks before the trip if I hadn’t miscarried, so I deferred my entry to next year. But this means that I either MUST conceive within a particular window OR have to pull the same shit of asking if I can defer due to pregnancy again, at which point they might tell me just to buzz off, honestly. So I’m just trying to figure out how many cycles I have open to try before accepting that I’m screwed one way or another.
I’m not really worried about childcare; my partner is going to be the main caretaker once I go back to work anyway, and he doesn’t have a regular job, so the idea of leaving a baby alone with him is not an issue. I’m not really worried about milk, either; I figure I can stockpile, supplement, and continue to pump. I guess I’m most worried about, like, emotionally damaging the kid. I’m not sure how much of a concept of time passing and who’s present really young babies have. But I know people must deal with this all the time—lots of people balance families and professional travel, and maternity leave ends sometime!