Attendings who had kids after residency: how many years did you wait?

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someqsaboutstuff

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I am just trying to get an idea of how long those of you who delayed did wait until having kids. Thanks for everyone’s input!
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I had one in medical school and one in residency. It wasn’t perfect by any means (that marriage ended in divorce, and I think the stress of trying to have kids during training was part of the issue), but I’m not totally convinced that waiting would have made it any easier.
 
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I am a biological XY (i did karyotyping) cis-gendered male who is heterosexual and have a biological XX (she did karyotyping) cis-gendered female wife who is not a medical professional.
(I am not really into all that pronoun stuff but I do not know who is so I figure I better just play along... besides the hospitals in NYC make sure I get all the pronouns correct anyway)

We have 3 kids now. First kid born during final year of fellowship so cruised into attending life.
I would say it would not have been easy to raise a child during residency or fellowship due to the on call hours and all the demands of research, networking, clinical duties, long hours, etc...
I tuck my kids in every night and read them books
 
Don't delay having kids. If you want them, have them.

Only gets harder the older you get. Especially for women. Risk of miscarriage, fertility issues, pregnancy issues only goes up with age.

There will never be a perfect time. Only less worse times.
 
someqsaboutstuff said:
I am just trying to get an idea of how long those of you who delayed did wait until having kids. Thanks for everyone’s input!
Click to expand...

A tough question to answer, you'll get a variety of responses. If you're an attending already (completely done with all training and now you're just practicing), you can do WTF you want. Have kids, travel some, spend money (but don't go too nuts). You call the shots.

anonperson said:
Don't delay having kids. If you want them, have them.

Only gets harder the older you get. Especially for women. Risk of miscarriage, fertility issues, pregnancy issues only goes up with age.

There will never be a perfect time. Only less worse times.
Click to expand...

True. You also have much less energy as you get older. Am very thankful my kids are in their teens and can cook, clean, and study on their own (still takes some nagging on my part, but they get it done). I can't imagine chasing around a 3-year old in my mid-40s. (though of course, it has been done).
 
NewYorkDoctors said:
I am a biological XY (i did karyotyping) cis-gendered male who is heterosexual and have a biological XX (she did karyotyping) cis-gendered female wife who is not a medical professional.
(I am not really into all that pronoun stuff but I do not know who is so I figure I better just play along... besides the hospitals in NYC make sure I get all the pronouns correct anyway)

We have 3 kids now. First kid born during final year of fellowship so cruised into attending life.
I would say it would not have been easy to raise a child during residency or fellowship due to the on call hours and all the demands of research, networking, clinical duties, long hours, etc...
I tuck my kids in every night and read them books
Click to expand...
You just need to say cis man married to a cis woman … the genotype is implied there if you want to get that information across in detail. But the cis can be implied if you just say male married to a female.
 
rokshana said:
You just need to say cis man married to a cis woman … the genotype is implied there if you want to get that information across in detail. But the cis can be implied if you just say male married to a female.
Click to expand...
some where I work have made a big deal about the biological sex and assigned gender both being fluid.
While the latter is reasonable as gender is "a societal assigned norm," one cannot argue with the chromosomes. I won't start a semantics firestorm about "biological sex being fluid or not" as that is not relevant to me.
But saying "my karyotype is XY or XX" (or in other situations the turner's syndrome or klinefelters or etc) is a statement of chromosomes and is not something that can be disputed. This is why I do not use the term "biological male or biological female" as those terms are in dispute. I'd rather avoid the firestoem and just say my karyotype test says I have 46 XY. dont know how that can be disputed. follow the science everyone.
anyway, as I have done karyotyping, I just wanted to put it out there.

edit: in NYC, this social stuff is emphasized quite heavily as litigation due to hurt feelings is a very common thing. I do not get too involved in the "culture wars" but I will play along because the key is to make all of our patients feel welcome and cared for. But in order to avoid "traps" set by narcissistic and histrionic individuals (most people who are not the traditional male / female binary are pretty decent folk and are not nuts), I just refer to every patient by the first name and last name at all times.
 
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NewYorkDoctors said:
some where I work have made a big deal about the biological sex and assigned gender both being fluid.
While the latter is reasonable as gender is "a societal assigned norm," one cannot argue with the chromosomes. I won't start a semantics firestorm about "biological sex being fluid or not" as that is not relevant to me.
But saying "my karyotype is XY or XX" (or in other situations the turner's syndrome or klinefelters or etc) is a statement of chromosomes and is not something that can be disputed. This is why I do not use the term "biological male or biological female" as those terms are in dispute. I'd rather avoid the firestoem and just say my karyotype test says I have 46 XY. dont know how that can be disputed. follow the science everyone.
anyway, as I have done karyotyping, I just wanted to put it out there.

edit: in NYC, this social stuff is emphasized quite heavily as litigation due to hurt feelings is a very common thing. I do not get too involved in the "culture wars" but I will play along because the key is to make all of our patients feel welcome and cared for. But in order to avoid "traps" set by narcissistic and histrionic individuals (most people who are not the traditional male / female binary are pretty decent folk and are not nuts), I just refer to every patient by the first name and last name at all times.
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What if they have a preferred name….?

Had a couple the appearing biological male identified as female. The opposite is true. We don’t see that often in my part of the country…. Thought they make a great couple.
 
IMGASMD said:
What if they have a preferred name….?

Had a couple the appearing biological male identified as female. The opposite is true. We don’t see that often in my part of the country…. Thought they make a great couple.
Click to expand...
yeah there's no winning if said individual (or individuals if they/them) is/are (a) narcissistic and histrionic individual(s) (of which fortunately the only ones that exist in real life are on social media only or in Hollywood)

eventually - hello there. is your medical record number and date of birth so and so? please confirm what your preferred name is. thank you.

i just operate by our physicians oath to do no harm (including mental harm) to our patients. whatever you want me to refer to you as please make it well known and I will do so. But do not try to ambush me patient. It will not turn out the way you think.


addendum: i am getting way off topic

to get back to the OP's post:

once you have kids, you will realize your kids are the most important thing to you. before having kids this feeling feels like a trite movie cliche. but it's really true. you'll want to spend as much time with them growing up before they become teenagers, hate you, and you wonder what happened?

as for the day job, I still focus on giving it my all for each patient. because a bad patient outcome is bad for its own sake. but the way I rationalize it is if I get sued, that's bad for my kids.
 
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It’s much tougher raising kids compared to seeing patients. Few years back I had a bad patient outcome. I went into depression for a year thinking / imagining I was going to get sued.
In the end the hospital settled with the patient’s family but I did not get named.
The same year my son was diagnosed with autism. We still deal with it.
Now I think that I wasted too much time in my life worrying about that case. In the end it just made me a better doctor. If I had spent more time that year paying attention to my son he may not have been diagnosed with autism.
 
After all these years I have observed is that men and women’s brains function differently. Women are able to focus on many different things at one time. Men can’t do that.
I will have no idea where my keys are or where I took my shirt off etc. But my wife will know exactly where it was.
But as far as focusing on one topic for a very long time my wife can’t do it. I can think about just one topic for days upon days.
And this is stuff changing gender can’t change. Can’t replace your brain.
Men and women are equal but different. They complement each other but can’t do the same tasks.
 
if u've decided on having them, earlier the better.
but do think long and hard this decision is going to change the rest of ur life in more ways than u can imagine.
kids are extremely difficult. its not just "i'd like to have a kid around when im old" kind of decision.
do u like kids? are u a kid person?
u truly have to like kids for the troubles to be worthwhile imo
 
There is so much joy in having children it is really irreplaceable. Yes there are difficulties and myriad inconveniences that occur daily. Your life is no longer your own. But to give up my kids and family life so that I can travel more or learn to make shakshouka (as one notable TikToker emphasized) would be insane. There is nothing I look forward to more than coming home to them and seeing their smiles when I walk through the door. I am not sayimg whether you should or shouldn’t have kids. but children are often spoken of more so in the negative, and the positives are not highlighted enough.
 
also for anyone who has done q4 on call with 24 hour calls before in residency or fellowship... kids are no big deal after you have had that work experience.
 
NewYorkDoctors said:
also for anyone who has done q4 on call with 24 hour calls before in residency or fellowship... kids are no big deal after you have had that work experience.
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Disagree. Twins was way worse than residency. Imagine q1 call for 2 years...
 
NewYorkDoctors said:
Okay fair enough I meant single infant at a time
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Honestly, after the first 3 months it wasn't the twins aspect of it. By that time. One of my kids was sleeping through the night with no trouble.

It was the other one who would never sleep more than about 3 hours at a time...
 
passiveobserver1979 said:
If I had spent more time that year paying attention to my son he may not have been diagnosed with autism.
Click to expand...

I am sorry, but I do not understand how that could possibly be true. I just have very basic knowledge, but autism is not something that happens because you don't pay enough attention to kids
 
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