On the day I met my future husband, I confirmed the start of my PhD. Those two events would set my personal and professional lives on a collision course.

We were both in North Carolina, at a beach house full of windsurfers, as I decided the next four to six years of my life. With him in earshot, I made the call that initiated my PhD, probably hoping that I would come across as impressively intellectual and sexy. That call would keep us five hours apart — me in Toronto, Canada, him in Ottawa — for a year.

Credit: CARLA CASTAGNO/SHUTTERSTOCK

Long-distance relationships are common in academia. It is the nature of the beast: highly specialized and sparsely studied topics can take us just about anywhere, often away from significant others. Some couples can make this work for a while. We could not.

Relationship woes compounded a feeling that I was on the wrong track. My research proposal stalled. I fell into a depression. My topic was at odds with my new goal of a family-oriented, non-tenure-track job with work–life balance. And the person I wanted to share my life with was losing faith in us.

There were positives: a supportive supervisor, a challenging teaching-assistant post and a colony of Madagascar hissing cockroaches (every girl's dream!). But it was not working.

So, after much soul-searching, I took a job with a non-governmental organization closer to Ottawa, where my boyfriend worked and where both of our families are based. And I did the unthinkable: I quit my PhD.

It was excruciating. I thought that my doubts would make me look weak. My adviser was empathetic, but I could not bear to tell him that I had made the wrong choice by joining his lab.

I wonder if there should be an 'academic redirection office' in every university, specially designed for students who want to withdraw. I can see the pamphlets: 'So you're considering leaving your PhD ...' Pictured would be a perplexed and dismayed 20-something. Inside would be lists and tips: typical reasons for wanting to quit; pros and cons; reasons you might have started in the first place.

However, even after I had boldly gone where no one (that I knew) had gone before, my academic career did not end. Soon after quitting, I discovered a landscape ecologist in Ottawa whose work fascinated me. Her work had the practical applications and ties to public-sector priorities that my previous field had lacked. I disclosed my fickle past, and she still accepted me. With high hopes, I marched headlong into a new PhD project.

I would like to say that quitting never crossed my mind again. In fact, my qualifying period included episodes of frantic job-searching fuelled by self-doubt. But I jumped that hurdle. I finished two field seasons of data collection, and I am one statistics project away from being 'all but dissertation'. I am in my third year, and the journey is far from over. But I am committed, and I know what is required of me. I will finish this.

A few months after my wedding, I had taken to wearing baggy sweaters. I walked hunched over. I bit my nails. Finally, in a meeting with my supervisor, I blurted it out: “I need to tell you something ... I'm pregnant.”

“That's wonderful!” she responded warmly. “How much leave would you like to take?” I blushed, embarrassed at having been worried about her reaction.

My PhD is no longer something that I am forcing into my life. I have made decisions that allowed my training to mesh with my other goals. A few semesters from now, I will be in the ranks of women who did not feel compelled to choose between doctoral research and starting a family. I cannot wait to hold my daughter proudly while wearing my graduation robe.