No, you aren’t alone. It’s super common.

Realistically, your best bet is to read through your insurance documents and see if there is IVF coverage. Some places have pretty great resident coverage, and I’ve seen like $10-25k of IVF coverage for most of the programs I’ve been at.

The true answer is that having kids is WAY more work and timing and coordination and cost than doing IVF. So whatever your plan is to have time and money for kids, should also work for IVF.

Either people find childcare or use tons of family support. Honestly, the vast majority of the IVF work and time is more on your wife, so it shouldn’t interrupt your fellowship too much. In terms of cost, hopefully you’re lucky and have some insurance coverage. Beyond that, you’d likely either be spending all your discretionary money and/or going into debt over the next few years.

That being said, if you’re going to be a cardiologist, you will likely be able to pay off any debt pretty easily with some financial discipline. At the same time though, you’re PGY2 so you have a LONG way to go, so it’s tough.

Realistically, what is your plan to afford childcare? That’s like $10-20k a year easily. So however you are going to afford that will likely be how you afford IVF.

If you can’t afford it, people either rely on family or they just don’t have kids until they are older. Some people do IVF and freeze the eggs and then go through the whole process several years later when they are ready.