Here we primarily consider the planning of a maternity leave for a female physician who is pregnant, working during her pregnancy, and planning on returning to the same job afterwards.  We realize that there are many variations on this typical scenario, including women who stop working earlier in their pregnancies for either medical or personal reasons, women who do not return to the same job or even to work at all after they have a baby, women physicians who adopt children (who though they do not have the physiological changes associated with pregnancy and birth, do experience all of the same family changes associated with having a new child), and male physicians who become parents.  Although we understand that each of these variations comes with unique challenges, we hope that this section provides some general financial and logistical strategies for planning a leave during which time you can welcome a new child into your home and your lives.