Best year in medical school to have a baby...

[Ladybug]

I would give greater consideration to the spacing and needs of your children. That's forever...unlike training. If there is a small voice telling you that a newborn during away rotations would be too much then you should listen to that voice. Know thy limits. It sounds like it might be a good idea to avoid MS4 and intern year.

[alison]

Our dd was born during fellowship. We had hoped to have one during the last year of residency, but the fertility gods had other plans.

Don't be discouraged if timing your pregnancy doesn't work out just so.

I had a child at the very beginning of MS1 (October) and will have this baby right after my DH is done with MS3 and will have just started MS4. We were trying for quite some time for this one and I'm really glad that it worked out that we didn't have one MS3. It has definitely been the worst year so far. I would suggest MS1, 2 or 4.

That said, my DH may be totally different than your DH and have a difficult time with the classwork but think the rotations are a breeze so who knows. The one thing for us was though, with the classwork he was able to do it at home (they streamed the lectures) and he could speed it up and be much more efficient. Now with rotations he is gone all day and then has to come home and study for the exam that's at the end of rotations, so he not available nearly as much as he was the first 2 years.

A good friend is in MS4 now at the same school as DH and she said it is a breeze compared to MS3. He will have to take boards again and do interviews but it sounds like a much easier year than 3rd.

Good luck!

[HeyMeganZ]

First of all, I have no babies - so take this with a grain of salt! And I also agree, what was the experience with my DH may be very different for yours. MS2 and MS4 were the best for us. These were the years he felt as though he had time, was more relaxed and confident with his schedule and workload. But I don't expect everyone to agree or have the same experience!