When?

OK...give me the low down...when do you all think is the best time to start a family (other than waiting till the residency)? I've heard my husband's side, now I'd like to hear it from completely objective people.
Thanks!

[mommax3]

First of all, whenever you have kids, you'll work it out. If you want to know my experience, here it is:

We had our first in April of second year of med school, before boards. It was fine. He was not an easy baby, but (in hindsight) my husband's schedule in med school was NOTHING compared with residency, and our families were only an hour away. Our second was born at the end of intern year, at the very end of May. My husband got a week off and then started a month of trauma surgery, so I didn't see him much. We were far from our families at that point, but we had made some friends and my second was a very easy baby, so it was still fine. Our third was born about 2 months after residency ended, and that was the hardest, hands down. We had just moved to a new place, were still far from our families, and my husband didn't get any time off. But we still survived!

Your husband's specialty and your proximity to family (if they can be counted on to help occasionally) and close friends will impact how easy/hard having children will be for you.

Hope this helps!

Sally

[SueC]

Our kids were all born during residency--one during 2nd year and one during 4th year. That worked out fine for us. I suppose we could have managed during intern year but it would have been tough. We both wanted kids right from the start and couldn't think of any good reason to wait. Luckily we were both on the same page about that.
Good luck with whatever you decide!!!

[Amiens]

As for us- I was finishing my BS while Matt was in med school, so we decided to wait until residency to start having children. We have a couple of friends who had babies sometime during med school and they did fine.

We had our first half way through internship, and Matt had "easy" rotations set up for the first couple of months after the birth of our daughter, who has been a very easy baby. We are expecting our second one at the beginning of his 3rd year of residency (second for his anes. training), and he will do the same again. Matt gets more vacation time at his current program than he did during internship, so he will be able to take more time off. My mother inlaw is going to come out and help as soon as the baby is born in August, and we have other family that want to come out as well. We are pretty far from our families, but we think it is great they want to come and help. With our first, my parents lived 20 min away, even then they didn't come to help much.

Crystal