Best time to have a second child?

[norinu]

I know, I know! There is no good time to have a baby. Here's our situation. DH is currently a third-year medical student. We already have a daughter (born February 2012 during his second year). Those of you with children don't need me to tell you that having the first baby taxed our marriage. That being said, we survived and I'm ready to start *thinking* about a second one (I said thinking, not actually doing anything about it

Obviously, we'll know about residency in March 2014 and will move around April/May 2014 when DH will start his intern year. DH is absolutely not ready to have a baby now and is not happy about having a baby during intern year. On the flip side of that, I've already put my career on hold for the first child (not to mention for DH's medical career), so I'm eager to get the second baby out of the way. There is also my age on top of the fact I do not want to wait 5 years! So, we're playing with the idea of (hopefully) getting pregnant at the beginning of intern year and having a second baby toward the end of intern year.

I know intern year will be tough (DH has not chosen a speciality yet). Not to mention the fact we'll be in a new place and I'll have to re-start the process of building a life in a new place. But, I would love to hear others experience/advice/thoughts!

[Pollyanna]

If I could choose between having a baby in MS4 or the end if intern year I'd pick MS4 every day of the week and twice on Sunday. I know you didn't give that as a consideration but 4th year is full if free time for your doc providing there isn't a bunch if away rotations. But if you are just trying to get having baby #2 " out of the way" then I'm not sure you are ready for another baby. Have another baby because you WANT another child, not for any other reason and regardless of what else is going on in your life.

[SoonerTexan]

What Pollyanna said. TMI TMI.

I want #2 when I know I'm around friends and family, have insurance and maternity leave, a husband with time off, and can use the same provider/hospital combo that worked well before. After that I'm ready to start intern year with a non newborn and a couple years to get in a groove and maybe keep working before #3. We are in the same place as you and our daughter is 2 months older. That being said, we talked about it a lot. I was ready, DH needed convincing...or rather he just needed to think about our options and the whole picture instead of obsessing 100% about residency. Now I hope it truly happens! Doing it with 1 kid was hard, but we both agree she is awesome and worth it. He had to think about it in the frame of another child like N, not anonymous baby.

[Momo]

"He had to think about it in the frame of another child like N, not anonymous baby."

ummm...hello! There are No garuntees the 2nd will be a clone of N. You need to think of it as "another child that could be compley different than N." Fot your sake, I hope not...just sayin'

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

Yeah... You could get a baby who sleeps even less. but I hope not.

We had a baby during 4th year - it was magical. Jan/feb of 4th year is the move. It was like we both had maternity leave. Amazing.

We didn't want an intern year baby. Now I'm having our second in Nov and he'll be on away rotations (yes, those exist in residency sometimes too) in Sept:Oct and Jan/Feb. so that's not awesome. But we will make it work.

[Thirteen]

We had our DS 2 months before the end of residency, taking full advantage of the health insurance and such. It was still hard, but we liked how it all ended up.

I (personally) would not have a baby during intern year, if it can be helped. That's a lot of transition, and some programs really do a mind number on the new residents.


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[GreyhoundsRUs]

All of our married interns just had babies in Feb, April, and May (#1, #2, #1 for them). It can be done, but you should have an idea beforehand if the program will be conducive to this. How many other residents have kids? How many off-service rotations will he be doing (they are typically meaner/stricter than your department because you're not part of their dept).

[SoonerTexan]

Momo, I mean a child he will get to know and love as much as our daughter vs an anonymous screaming baby. I discovered he has a lot harder time imagining past the newborn stage than I do.

Of course we don't expect a clone of our daughter. That's ridiculous

[MrsSz]

We had a baby during 4th year - it was magical. Jan/feb of 4th year is the move. It was like we both had maternity leave. Amazing.

Hoping for this for #1 in a few years..

[WolfpackWife]

This is interesting as DH and I were just talking about this last night. We're still in the "do we even want ANY kids" phase and since he's finishing up MS-1 this year, we've got a ways to go. I will have to bear in mind with previous posters said about taking stock of residency programs and if they are conducive to family lifestyles and whether other residents have kids.

The impression I get is there is NO "good" time to have any kids...it's just up to you and your husband/wife and what works for your life. I think this is the case in every career but even more so in medicine. Since I am so on the fence about any children, we have tentatively agreed to revisit the baby discussion during MS-4 and if DH matches in NC near our family (our goal), we'd likely talk seriously about having a baby during that time. I constantly struggle with "am I a kid person/mom material" and so because of that I know I am in NO WAY cut out to be a virtually single parent with a PGY-1 husband and no family in sight. I don't think I can handle it. If he can't be around very much, I'd at least like to be around family/my parents/friends. I know I'll need people. If he matches far away/in another state/requires a flight...we may just decide to be a childless couple. I'll be 30 after he graduates from med school and assuming he continues to strive for cards...I'll be 37 when he finishes a fellowship. Not too late to have a baby, so we may revisit then and if so--we'd only have one.

I've kind of resigned myself to thinking "if it happens, we have to be near family. If we're not near family, we'll be a DINK couple and that can be pretty great too"

[poky]

"if it happens, we have to be near family. If we're not near family, we'll be a DINK couple and that can be pretty great too"

Indeed.

[norinu]

Good point. I actually do want another baby, and while it makes me nervous because I remember how hard it was, I'd be open to the idea of getting pregnant now. I think there are several advantages to just jumping into it, on top of the fact, I'm feeling the urge. However, there are two of us in this relationship and although DH wants another baby, he absolutely does not want one now (so even if I'm willing and ready he is not), nor does he want a baby during his intern year. In sum, we both want another baby; we just are trying to figure out the timing. And it seems like intern year would be bad timing

If I could choose between having a baby in MS4 or the end if intern year I'd pick MS4 every day of the week and twice on Sunday. I know you didn't give that as a consideration but 4th year is full if free time for your doc providing there isn't a bunch if away rotations. But if you are just trying to get having baby #2 " out of the way" then I'm not sure you are ready for another baby. Have another baby because you WANT another child, not for any other reason and regardless of what else is going on in your life.

[oceanchild]

I agree with everyone else that intern year would not be ideal, but people make all sorts of non-ideal situations work.

It would help if he knew what specialty he was doing (and he's going to have to figure that out soon, right?). Some are definitely worse than others, not that intern year is ever fun anywhere. Also, are you old enough that you really have to worry about waiting another year? There's a wide range of issues/non-issues there, too.

We were in a similar boat with DH not wanting to have a baby first year of fellowship, and I waited, even though I raged about it from time to time. It's one of those things where I think being on the same page as your spouse is more important than getting the timing just right.

[norinu]

In a perfect world, I'd get to be around friends and family when we have #2, but the reality of our situation is that it will not happen. But I definitely see the advantage to getting through intern year (which entails us moving to a new city/state and getting adjusted) before having #2. (Or having #2 during MS4, which means we'd need to get crackin' now, and that's not likely to happen).

What Pollyanna said. TMI TMI.

I want #2 when I know I'm around friends and family, have insurance and maternity leave, a husband with time off, and can use the same provider/hospital combo that worked well before. After that I'm ready to start intern year with a non newborn and a couple years to get in a groove and maybe keep working before #3. We are in the same place as you and our daughter is 2 months older. That being said, we talked about it a lot. I was ready, DH needed convincing...or rather he just needed to think about our options and the whole picture instead of obsessing 100% about residency. Now I hope it truly happens! Doing it with 1 kid was hard, but we both agree she is awesome and worth it. He had to think about it in the frame of another child like N, not anonymous baby.

[OrionGrad]

Are there ever any considerations with insurance when you're switching companies in the middle of a pregnancy? (Like being in the middle of a pregnancy during the transition from med school to residency, or residency to fellowship.)