Surgical Intern who just found out she is pregnant.

[Greys Anatomy Intern]

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Yes, I am THAT girl. Yours truly is the original Christina Yang on season one of grey's anatomy, you know the one who got pregnant a month into her intern year? Granted, it's not an attending's baby or anything like that, I'm a happily married woman whose husband is also in the middle of residency and needless to say, this was completely unplanned and unexpected.

I'm a hot mess at the moment as I realize that surgery and pregnancy pretty much go together as oil and milk do. Not to reemphasize the fact that I am an INTERN and haven't even made a name for myself yet at my institution. I can think of a million reasons NOT to keep this baby. In fact, the mature and responsible side of me would just 'deal with it' and go on with my life. But despite the maybe 2 or 3 legit reasons I can think of to keep it, part of me is a little happy. I do want a family but I also wanted to have it planned more responsibly. I know I am way in over my head in thinking that 'everything will be fine' without having gone through any comparable experience in my life. That is why I am reaching out to those of you who may have some insight about having a baby as a surgical intern, both good and bad. I am at an academic/university program for surgery if that makes any difference in my future course. I need to know what to expect if I go through with keeping it.

I would appreciate any advice, past experiences and encouragement from anyone. Please help.

 

[Law2Doc]

Well you'll have to tell your bosses about the pregnancy to the extent you might get dragged into procedures where they use fluoro. And you will need some schedule flexibility for appointments. At a university program they are going to have you mostly doing floor work anyhow, which is better for you. I know plenty of people that gave birth intern year -- their successes all turned on what kind if support system they had at home - ie can you pop out the kid, just leave it with someone (family member, ideally) and then run back to work after whatever maternity leave is allowed?

 

[colbgw02]

I don't have anything to add regarding the pregnancy, but do milk and oil really not mix? I mean, skim milk I can see, but what about whole milk? I gotta figure whole cream mixes quite well, so where does that leave half & half? If somebody could experiment and report back, I'd be grateful. I'd do it myself, but with three small children, milk is like liquid gold in my house. I can't afford to waste any.

 

[IJL]

I don't have anything to add regarding the pregnancy, but do milk and oil really not mix? I mean, skim milk I can see, but what about whole milk? I gotta figure whole cream mixes quite well, so where does that leave half & half? If somebody could experiment and report back, I'd be grateful. I'd do it myself, but with three small children, milk is like liquid gold in my house. I can't afford to waste any.

That is exactly what I took away from the OP as well.

I'll report back.

 

[nlax30]

...as I realize that surgery and pregnancy pretty much go together as oil and milk do .

The EPA doesn't take kindly to your choice of words....

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/06/epa_classifies_milk_as_oil_for.html

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

I think your statements are a wee bit dramatic.

Certainly, intern year is not what many people would consider ideal timing, but you are a married woman so your program needed to know this was at least in the realm of possibility.

Will you have to work hard, even though you are pregnant? Yes, absolutely.

Will this ruin your life or ruin your residency? It absolutely shouldn't, unless you are in a truly malignant program.

Step one: Review your contract. See exactly what provisions are given for pregnant women and for maternity leave. Some programs actually have regulations that will cut down on your call burden in 2nd/3rd trimester.

Step two: Talk to your program director. While this isn't anyone's favorite thing to do...they will find a plan to work with you. You will get maternity leave. It will all be okay. But the sooner you communicate what is going on, the easier it will be to deal with.[/I]

 

[DIce3]

The bad: there will never be a good time for a two physician couple to start a family. It only gets harder as a private attending. Now is as good as any. Been there.

 

[QofQuimica]

I have to chuckle just a little bit about a physician couple saying their pregnancy was "completely unplanned and unexpected." 😀

But all kidding aside, I agree with Southern that you are being a bit extreme in your thought process here. True, intern year is not the easiest time to have a baby, but you aren't the first intern to get pregnant, and you won't be the last. I suggest that you speak to your PD sooner rather than later so that you, he, and your chiefs can start planning how to accommodate your pregnancy now. You and your husband should also starting thinking now about childcare and start getting all of that lined up. Don't procrastinate; nine months goes by faster than you think, especially when you're busy with internship. Finally, do you know any female residents in your program or at your hospital who have had children during residency? It's probably not a bad idea to reach out to them for some moral support (and practical tips).

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

Life is so precious, don't throw it away over something like this. Have your baby, take the maternity leave you're allowed by your program, and get family to help out with taking care of the baby. There'll never be a good time. And if you are happy at this point about a baby, I think it's a horrendous idea to think about an abortion. People who have mixed feelings tend to never resolve them and are often wracked by feelings of guilt and sadness years and even decades after the abortion.

 

[pathperson]

You must calm down. I speak from experience. I had a baby as a 3rd year path resident. Not thought of as rough a residency as surgery, but trust me we take tons of call too. (It's called blood bank, apheresis service, and frozen sections for those of you not in the know).

Anyway. It worked out fine. I packed all my call into the part of the year before birth, took maternity leave and came back to work. It was rough but I survived.

All your attendings have children. A good number of them had them as residents. They're not sitting at home freaking out over your opinion of them. Don't freak out about their opinion of you.

Work hard. Don't bitch. Do the exact same as is expected if you're not pregnant. Try to schedule the physically most demanding stuff up front before you're too uncomfortable. Don't tell anyone at work it was an accident. It's none of their business.

You're a human being, not a slave. So act like a human being. Women have babies. If we all want the human race to continue, that's just the way it works.

There is NO perfect time to have a child. An attending told me early on in training its best to have some idea what you're doing with a baby and a job BEFORE you get out on your own. You're part of an institution now. They have rules and protections for maternity and even paternity leave. Look around. There are probably more pregnant residents than you realize. In private practice, they could give you zero pay on leave. Or just get rid of you. Or not hire you at all if you haven't had kids yet bc they think you'll try to have them and make it their problem. Who knows.

Just calm down and get ready. Life is a crazy ride, kids or not. You've been blessed. So many people cannot conceive and would kill to be you.

I bet you'll keep this baby. And I bet you'll be happy you did. You won't be able to imagine life without them. Your department will throw you a baby shower and you'll wonder if you were losing your mind this one time in August even have considered an abortion. You'll be a doctor too. It's not easy. But if it were, any idiot would do it.


Congrats!

 

[wholeheartedly]

Check out the Mothers in Medicine blog for posts about these sorts of issues. The women on there have had kids at all points in the game from before medical school to post training as an attending.

 

[BlondeDocteur]

I have been there, exactly. I found out I was pregnant on the second day of R2 year (in surgery) and it was equally unplanned. For all the smug idiots out there, there is an enormous difference between accepting theoretically a risk that heterosexual sex leads to babies versus actively attempting to conceive one.

Firstly, what specialty is your husband in? The flexibility or lack thereof of his schedule will make all the difference. My husband is a corporate litigator gone for weeks at a time at trials, so that colored my experience. My surgical friends who had babies in residency were married to: 1) a house-husband; 2) attendings x 3; 3) a medicine resident [they were able to arrange their call so they were never on on the same night]; 4) a work-at-home realtor; 5) an engineer with banker's hours; 6) a banker with banker's hours. Most of them had family in the area-- and many of the attendings had live-in help. So they had dramatically better experiences.

Secondly, accept the fact right now that once your 28d maternity leave is up (which is what the Surgery RRC allows-- your program might give you 6 weeks, but you will have to make up the extra 2 weeks in the future by either graduating 2 weeks late or giving up all of your vacation one year) that you will, at most, be providing approximately 5-10% of the child care. You will need to make some kind of formal-- likely commercial-- arrangement to cover the other 90-95%. Surgical schedules are absolutely not conducive to regular daycares, which at best are only open for 12 hours a day and never on weekends or holidays. Nannies are usually contractually limited to working a total of 50 hours a week. Again, depending on your husband's flexibility and the availability of family member to provide *routine, reliable, free* child care, you should expect at minimum to pay for both daycare and an early morning/evening/weekend nanny. This is very expensive (I was paying $3500/month, 100% of my salary). If your husband & family are able to shoulder the load, wonderful-- just accept the fact that your bonding with the baby will be on your golden weekends, and in the evenings after s/he sleeps and in the AM before s/he awakens.

Thirdly, obviously you will work up until the day the baby is born, barring medical complications of pregnancy. The only modifications to your duties you need are being excused from the OR during fluoro procedures when you're on vascular. Personally at the very end of pregnancy I found being in the OR very difficult, physically-- it was difficult to approach the table and the heat from the bair hugger would vasodilate everything in the abdomen which made me quite light-headed. But as in intern in an academic program, that's less of a concern. 🙂

Fourthly-- by all means, take your research time early. Since you mentioned you're in an academic program, I assume you're looking at 5+2. If your program is remotely flexible, you could even consider going out into the lab after your first year. Since your baby is due in April, you'll go back after mat leave in May, and you'll only have 8 weeks max to scramble for child care before you go out into the regular banker's hours lab time. Might be a godsend.

You are not the first person to make it work, but please do not think that it's easy, and please do not think that residents in other specialties' experiences are remotely applicable to yours. You will find yourself in horrible zero-sum Catch-22s all the time-- fun things like "it's 6:30, my daycare is closing in 10min, if I don't pick up my child they call CPS at 7, but my patient is coding and night float isn't here yet." It's not PC to say this but it's true: you will be a worse resident because you have a kid. Is it worth it? I definitely think so, and I'm extremely grateful for my happy little accident.

 

[drcrispmd]

Women have babies in residency all the time. As a surgery intern it will not be easy, but you can do it. Interns do not have 24 hour calls anymore so that will help. You need to let your PD and chiefs know ASAP so they can alter the schedule if needed. Reachig out to other female residents who have had babies during residency is a good idea. Also, you are lucky your husband in also a resident because he will understand your workload and your need to rest when home. Get child care, pediatrician, etc lined up ASAP. Have back up for child care if your baby has a fever since some daycare will not allow children to go if there is a fever. Also, keep snacks handy and never go into the OR without having something on your stomach. Not a bad idea to have zantac, tums, and some zofran on hand too.

I have a friend who had a baby each year of her family medicine residency (3 total, delivered the first one the first couple of week of residency). She did perfectly fine.

 

[Impromptu]

There is never a "good" time to start a family. As others have said, babies happen in residency all the time. Your co-residents will have to pick up the slack while you are on maternity leave and for other pregnancy and baby related duties, so it is a politically wise to work as hard as possible while you can and stay on good terms with them. Maybe offer to name the baby after one of them. Though that might make it look too much like Grey's Anatomy.

 

[giantswing]

Let me say that if you or anyone else reading this thread chose to not keep it, religion obviously aside, there is nothing wrong with termination. I'm currently married and applying to a surgery sub specialty this fall, and I know if I got pregnant in the next two years, I'd terminate, hands down, no questions asked. I would do this because I could not be the type of mother I want to be and the type of doctor I'd want to be at the same time so early in residency. I could do it later during research as a senior resident, I just would never want to do it so early on in my training.

Best wishes!

 

[pathperson]

Ok so blonde clearly has a much better idea of what you're facing than I in terms of work duties.

However I still think it is doable for you. If push comes to shove just beg a retired grandparent to move in

I find that having a full time nanny is worth every penny. No $25 fee if you're 10 minutes late and then $1/minute thereafter, far less sickness in the kiddo...which means you and your husband will be sick less often too.

Frankly if you need to move into some more modestly priced housing in order to afford a nanny I would strongly suggest it. With both your schedules you're going to need a flexible person who won't mind if you come home later than planned.

If you hire a young person and let then bring their own baby to your home, that's a major bonus for them.

And carefully scrutinize your institutions child care/back up care benefits. How many days of subsidized emergency care do you get per year? If your spouse is at the same place, double that number!! Save these days for when the nanny calls in sick or your baby is too sick for daycare.

My place pays for 5 days of backup care per year. Know what the cut offs for the year are, as in which months. You can get a nanny at your house or drop off at day care. It's practically free for me to use. Also look into a nanny share with another resident. You could switch off whose house nanny comes to, depending on who is on call or has the worse schedule that week, maybe that person can have the nanny and all babies come to her house that week.

You'll figure it out!!

 

[drcrispmd]

You could also ask some nurses if they know of anyone to be a nanny. Sometimes retired nurses will do this to supplement their income or nurses who have quit. I know some nurses that have become a nanny for attendings here. Also check with residents. Do they have a spouse that is a stay at home parent? I think the nanny sharing idea is a great idea as mentioned above. As for a back up, again resident spouses. I know one of the females in my residency had her babysitter get sick one week and one of the other residents wife who has kids was able to keep her child for her.

You have options. You and your spouse need to sit down and figure out what is best for the two of you. Good Luck with whatever your choice is.