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Kayla's husband promised her he wouldn't be a surgeon.
Then he promised he wouldn't be one of the hard ones. Then he became an orthopaedic surgeon.
If you laughed and winced at the same time just now, you're in the right place.
I sat down with Kayla MacNeille, physician spouse, mother of three and debut novelist, to talk about the parts of this life nobody warns you about. She met her husband in undergrad. She had one baby during medical school and two more during residency. None of them were fans of sleep.
And like so many of us, she heard the advice early. Don't expect anything from your partner during training. Just get through it.
She didn't agree with it. She absorbed it anyway.
That's the part that stopped me. Two years out of training, Kayla described something I hear from so many women. Residency was supposed to be the obstacle. Once it was gone, everything would settle. Instead, she found a household full of patterns they had built out of necessity. Nobody's fault. Just habits that now needed to be noticed, pulled apart and asked a hard question. Did we build it this way because we value it, or because it was all we had?
One of my favourite moments is when she realized, months after training ended, that they could simply hire a babysitter every Friday night. The option had been there all along. They were just out of practice at considering it.
Then we got to the writing, and this is where Kayla's story really got me.
Somewhere in those sleepless years, someone suggested she step back from writing until life calmed down. She sat with that longer than she'd like to admit. Then she decided the opposite. Writing was the one thing no call schedule or crying baby could touch, and it poured energy back into her instead of draining it. She finished her first draft before her second baby arrived, late at night with candles lit and coffee house music playing. That draft, started in 2018, is now her debut novel, Haunting Coretta Jones.
I'll be honest. I'm a big believer in sleep, and my own early residency years had a lot more Netflix than novel writing. So you'll hear me working out my own hypothesis in real time.
What I keep coming back to is this. When you have something that belongs only to you, something you tend and grow that isn't a person, it gives life back. You end up with less time and somehow more to give. The maths doesn't add up. It works anyway.
Kayla said she felt less resentment toward training once she realised she didn't have to check every dream at the door for ten years. I haven't stopped thinking about that.
If you've been waiting for a calmer season to have something of your own again, I think you'll hear yourself in this conversation. Grab your headphones and come listen.
What You'll Learn (with Timestamps)
- [00:30 - 01:40] How "I won't be a surgeon" turned into orthopaedics (and three kids)
- [01:50 - 03:00] Why "don't expect anything from your partner" sticks, even when you reject it
- [03:10 - 04:30] The patterns built out of necessity that need undoing after training
- [04:30 - 06:40] Asking "what kind of family are we?" once time, energy and money show up
- [09:10 - 12:30] Why Kayla kept writing when she was told to step back
- [26:50 - 29:15] Protecting something of your own during training, and why it feels like magic
Resources Mentioned
- Haunting Coretta Jones by Kayla MacNeille: Buy on Amazon
- The Veins of Venice, Kayla's next novel: Pre-order on Amazon
- Kayla on Instagram: @author_kbmacneille
- Kayla on TikTok: @author_kbmacneille
- Kayla's website: kbmacneille.com
Your Next Steps
- Take the "Are You in Survival Mode?" Assessment
- Schedule a Complimentary Consultation to see if coaching is right for you
- Learn more about coaching with me
- Connect on Instagram: @supportingphysicianspouses and @kendra_itgetsbetternow
- Listen on Apple Podcasts
- Listen on Spotify
