When she sets her sights on a goal, Dr. Lauren West-Livingston doesn’t miss. She’s a go getter. So even after many months of fertility treatments and multiple miscarriages, when she finally did get pregnant (IVF) she wasn’t planning to slow down. But morning sickness hit her hard and she realized that she couldn’t just keep taking on more and more. So while three months pregnant and preparing to defend her dissertation, Lauren switched gears. No more apologizing, no more “I hope it’s ok if…” - she asserted herself, let others help her out, and set boundaries that worked for her. Along the way she received plenty of well-intentioned “advice” and ultimately had her baby girl, Joy, just a few weeks after defending her dissertation.