Question for females

not a female, but was interviewed at UVA by a 4 who has two children, she had one coming in and had another during residency. She was doing well and very respected by peers and faculty

thanks bwoods. any other opinions (male or female!) out there? i've seen other posts on this board that make it pretty clear a pregnancy during residency is definitely a bad thing... but not sure about before residency?

I am both female, and a resident myself. I do understand your concern. I don't have experience myself, but can echo what I heard/saw on the interview trail.

There are residents out there that are female and have children, both prior to and during residency. One I spoke with had a child prior to starting residency and was considering having another at the present (she was a 3 or a 4 when I interviewed). Another chief at Georgetown told me during my interview that she had 2 children during residency and her staff and residents were wonderful about it.

I honestly don't know that this is the norm around the country. I guess the one thing I would take is that I was never asked in any interview what my child bearing plans were, and I have been married for 6 years. I guess I had better things to talk about during interviews other than whether or not I would try to have a child during my training. Who knows, maybe I am just jaded that they don't have a right to ask, nor can they do anything about it if you have a residency spot.

Regarding pregnancy, while I generally believe that there is never a good time to have kids, I think there can be really bad times to have kids. I would guess that residency falls into the latter category.
From a work perspective, no matter how supportive the staff and other residents may be, someone will be covering you when you are out (on maternity leave) and it will be a burden on them (and their families). From a parenting perspective, it is impossible to be both a great resident (or any kind of more-than-full-time employee) and a great parent - there simply aren't enough hours in the day. You can do what most women with demanding jobs do - do your best at both and still feel like it isn't enough on either end.
Maybe I mis-read, but I think your post asked about having children before residency and not about pregnancy in residency. I think that if you had kids before, you just make the best of it - it is what it is. But if you are choosing to start an ortho residency, I think that the wise decision regarding pregnancy, is to wait until residency is over if at all possible. Just my thoughts.