When to have kids?

[Lo]

I posted this in general rounds under an already started thread but decided it was more appropriate here....

DF and i want to start to try and have kids right after we get married (Next August) at that point he will be PGY-3 with 1 more year of residency and a year of fellowship before he is done. Any insight from those of you with kids about waiting till he's done (aside from the money factor)? Also when did you and your DH start having kids, would you do it differently now looking back on it?

Sorry, I know this is kinda a little personal but we were talking about it last night and I wanted some insight! Thanks guys!

That is the $64,000 question!

Scroll down through the parenting section and you will see some similar posts and replies.

[DCJenn]

Not that we're blase about the question, it's just that everyone asks and there are no good answers. It comes up about every three or four months or so.

Jenn

[Lo]

sorry guys

[DCJenn]

Don't be!!!

The million dollar questions are:

When to get married?
When to have kids?
Is surgery really that bad?
What about moving to ______?
and
Is fellowship really that hard?

Jenn

[Lo]

thanks for the insight!

[pstone]

I always answer the same way, "have them when you want them and tell everyone else to F off"

[SuzySunshine]

And my response has now become...
"Do it when you're ready but don't expect for it to happen immediately"

sorry guys

No worries. As Jenn said, it gets asked a lot and you might get more out of reading through the prior posts -- more variety of answers.

[DCJenn]

Amen, sista!

There's plenty of ways to become a family! We went the freezing cold Siberian Way. "Perm, Russia. Gateway to Siberia". Good marketing plan, there, people.

Jenn

[Lo]

Well, we talked about it last night and decided that once we get married were just going to start trying right away, it seems like these days more and more people are having problems getting pregnant or maybe its just all the fertility centers out there are advertising a lot more or maybe I'm just starting to listen...?

Did any of you guys have problems getting pregnant?

My advice would be to do whatever you want to do, if you want to start trying right away then good luck. I would caution you that you will have to do an awful lot aloneish , but it's not the end of the world.

We had 2 in undergrad (not so much planned the first one then we thought he needed company, this I would NOT recommend doing unless you like to be an absolute nutter
Then we waited until 3rd year of residency for the latest addition...I know how much I can handle and this is it for now. We have always wanted to adopy a fourth, but will wait until he is practicing. Nope, no trouble with making any of them...first one I was on the pill, second still nursing and third first try!

The one thing I always mention to our friends who are thinking about starting a family now is that it seems to be harder on everyone the older the kids are. Anytime in residency would probably work fine...med too, but depending on the specialty it could be emotionally rough. I know that DH finds it hard to miss SOO much of the older boys life, not to say that he doesn't miss the baby (quite often Xander has no idea who DH is) but the big boys voice it.

Good luck!

[SuzySunshine]

I'm not going to go into my personal experience here but yes infertility rates are going up for a few reasons, its not just the advertising that makes it look that way.

[Lo]

Thanks Sarah B...since we are going the right away route and we aren't get married until next august DF will be in his PGY-3 and almost into PGY-4 of 4 by the time the baby is born (assuming we get pregnant right away). So the baby will be 2 when we are finally done...so really won't remember any of daddy not being around

[migirl]

So the baby will be 2 when we are finally done...so really won't remember any of daddy not being around

This is one of the "positives" of having young children during residency. It's the only way I can make myself feel better about the very limited amount of time that DH has with our son - he's too young to remember any of it.