Another thing to consider is that many other people in this country work just as hard, sometimes more hours per week (considering doctors cap out at 80hours/week legally at work) and they make significantly less doing things they do not enjoy. My father works over 80 hours a week for the military (which is a salaried job) and it is something that he doesn’t truly enjoy and that he feels is not rewarding. I have had family friends work more than 2 or 3 jobs to barely make enough money to pay bills and get through hard times. The trifles you talk about (crayons in the dryer, bickering between spouses) are experienced by everyone, whether or not they are a doctor, intern or medical school student. So have a reality check for yourself and make it point to really look at what real obstacles are and what other things are faced by everyone, regardless of their careerpath.

It seems that either your spouse is well-established in his/her career and can help contribute to child care or the couple has the non-medical spouse stay at home exclusively (often jettisoning his/her own later workplace viablilty). Chalk that one up next to the bitter arguments about overcooked pasta and who gets up more in the middle of the night. The couple that is able to have a daycare or nanny look after their child for most of it’s waking hours might wonder why they bothered to have kids in the first place. Sometimes, there’s no middle road.

You may find yourself pressured into working when your spouse at home is too sick to care for your kids, hoping your child remembers where her sippy cup is if your spouse is incapacitated and couldn’t quite make it to the phone. Hospitals will use you shamelessly for cheap labor with the pretext of it being essential for “educational purposes”. You have to pay your dues.

You can try and plan a pregnancy, but babies are conceived and arrive in their own sweet time. I suppose you could always schedule a C-section so the neither the hospital you’re working for or the hospital where the baby is being born is overly inconvenienced. The first year of residency is hard on a physician-in-training, but it’s just as hard being the bitch of the bitch, following the student doctor wherever the system takes him/her. Heaven help you if that person should have a bedrest pregnancy or sometime in those many years get into a car accident.

You may also have to deal with having only one car. Crayons sometimes find their way into the dryer with white coats (let’s hope you don’t get “magenta” like I did). Benevolent parents may become less generous, withdrawing financial support because you won’t let junior get a puppy before he’s three. You may constantly have to justify even incidental family purchases to your parents. “Doesn’t the generic toothpaste work just as well?”

You’ll need to work hard with little thanks. You’ll need a lot of luck. Someday, when you’re almost past your childbearing years, you might finally get your shot at the American Dream…or you might still be paying off your massive student loans and then get sued for malpractice.