[name_f]My[/name_f] husband and I are trying to decide whether we’re ready to have a baby, and we’re having a tough time. All of the practical issues (work, child care, finances, etc.) seem do-able, although not ideal, but I’m still just not completely sure that I’m ready to take the plunge. I’ve talked to some of my relatives, but they all just say that “if you wait until you feel ready, you’ll never do it.” I know what they mean, but this is not exactly helpful advice. I just want everything to be perfect for my baby, even though I know that’s not possible.
Obviously not all babies are born after careful consideration from their parents but for you Momberries who did plan and decide to get pregnant at a specific time, how did you make that decision? What did you think about when deciding whether/when to get pregnant? What were your criteria for being “ready”?
In an ideal world, the only criteria I’d have had would have been would have been to be completely financially stable (we were doing okay, but it could have been better) and for my DH and I to be in good health (we were). Everything else can be gotten around. [name_u]Truth[/name_u] is, you’ll never be 100% ready. But having money in your pocket and good health on your side will take a huge weight off your shoulders
For us I’d say that it was more that we both knew we wanted to have kids at some point, and that we couldn’t think of any particularly good reason to delay it. It seemed to us that sooner was better than later because the longer you wait, the more chances of fertility issues, the older you’ll be in relation to your child and so forth. So if there had been a good reason to wait, we would have, but yeah, couldn’t really think of anything pressing.
We are comfortable and confident in our relationship, in what I guess would be a common-law marriage or a registered cohabitation or something in English (no particular plans to ever get married so that wasn’t an issue), both in good health, own a flat (although I don’t think that’s particularly necessary - in fact we will have to move in the next two years because we only have one bedroom), bf is well-established in his job with a good salary, I just finished my postgraduate degree and got a professional job as well (although I won’t ever be making as much as him, just because of the nature of our chosen fields), maternity/paternity leave and childcare options are pretty good in this country, I have a fair amount of savings…
I would guess it very much depends on your personal feelings and situation, I wouldn’t call our situation a checklist of any sort. As I said, we just couldn’t think of a good reason to put it off. I am 26, he is 34, so I suppose his age could have been a factor, maybe if we were both mid 20s we would have waited a bit longer. But that’s an alternate universe, so I don’t really know. [name_f]My[/name_f] biggest thing, personally, was that I wanted to be in a long-term, committed, stable relationship with a man I’d like to have children with. It sounds like you’ve got that.
[name_f]Edit[/name_f]: To clarify, I’m about 7 weeks pregnant, so I don’t know whether I’d quite be considered a mother yet and I don’t have any experience of parenting, but this was the decision making process for us in trying for this pregnancy.
I had just finished my bachelor’s degree and DH and I were visiting the school we were planning on attending for graduate school. I found out that my department wasn’t accepting applications for my major that year. On the drive home, we decided that if we didn’t take that year as an opportunity we would miss out because I didn’t want to be pregnant/go on maternity leave while I was in school. It took us just over a year to conceive. I was 2 weeks from my due date when I re-applied for grad school. [name_f]My[/name_f] son was 6 months old when I started my masters program. We had been married about 6 years when we had our son. We’ll be celebrating our 11th anniversary just after I have baby #2. No more after this, I’m getting too old and want to do other things too. We always planned on just 2 kids, so it’s working out great. Financially it’s not perfect, but because of school it will never be. Overall we are fine and have lots of support from family and friends. I can’t wait to meet this next one. I love being a mother more than I ever thought I could or would.
For us it was about practicality not specifically about a “feeling”. We wanted kids at a certain time (after we’d been married a few years), in a certain way (only two, the first had to be headed into kindergarten, and I wouldn’t have any past 32). So we did that and it’s working well for us.
Nothing made me feel ready! It didn’t matter that we had been married 11 years, owned a house, and DH made enough for me to stay home. Basically, we were well into our 30s and realized it wasn’t wise to delay it any longer fertility-wise.
I suspect my inability to feel prepared was related to the fact that my mom had a daycare in our home for 10 years. I saw a lot of little troublemakers!
No children yet but DH and I have discussed it at length. We don’t have so much a checklist so much as “do we have some money set aside for emergencies?”. Right now we’re waiting until he can switch jobs and picks up rank since his job has him gone for months at a time and he doesn’t make enough to support three people even with my income because of where we are.
Right now we’re looking at trying for kids in 3-5 years when he should be home more and we have a bit more money.
I don’t think I’ll ever be 100% ready or have a situation 100% perfect but that’s okay.
[name_f]My[/name_f] impending 30th birthday made me feel ready, lol.
But seriously, I knew very shortly after I met my husband that I wanted to marry him and have kids together, but he took a little longer. I wanted to wait until I knew our relationship was strong, and he wanted us to be married first, so we did that, and Then decided to wait 1 year into our marriage to start trying. This also meant that I’d be done with my Master’s degree before baby came.
Inevitably, there’s no perfect time as others have said, but I do think some times are better than others. I say your situation sounds pretty good! Also not sure how old you are, but that’s also something to consider, as risks for certain genetic disorders slowly rise as you get older.
We were financially ready for a baby and there wasn’t anything else that we wanted to do with our lives before having a baby. However looking back now sometimes I feel like we did kind of rushed into it and perhaps it would have been nice to have a couple years to have been just husband and wife before starting a family. It did take us eight months to conceive though and if we had waited a couple more years I probably would have been going even crazier. Anyways I think if your financially ready and in a good place in your relationship then everything else will work out and whenever you have the baby will be your perfect time.
We had our first when I was 25 and my husband was 26. We’d been married for @ 2 years. We just felt ready and I think part of it was because we were both raised with the mentality that the #1 most important thing in life is family. We our now 34 and 35 and expecting our 4th and last baby, and our oldest is almost 9. I’m glad we didn’t wait any longer than we did. Raising our kids has been hard and rewarding and obviously put some stress on our relationship, but it has strengthened us. [name_f]My[/name_f] husband has a very stable job with great benefits, not that he will ever make lots of money b/c of his chosen field, but we are both frugal and very good with money so we know 4 kids is something we can handle.
I agree, you will never feel like everything is perfect or that you ever have enough money for kids. I say as long as you have a strong relationship, and good money management skills, and children is both something you want, then go for it. Your definitely not too young in my opinion!
I have wanted children with my husband for as long as I can remember now. We’ve been together since I was 16 but waited 10 years to get married…after uni etc…
Funnily he’s always been the one to say lets do it now but I wanted to wait until my masters was over as he is on a very unstable income and I’m the main breadwinner so that year of no pay was tough. After it was done I became the eager one, his mum was poorly and I kept thinking all that mattered was that I had a family and although I love my career it’s not the be all and end all. He then became the reluctant one but it only took a few months to persuade him! By that point it was the fact I really wanted to go on a skiing holiday that was putting him off but we ended up not going anyway.
As far as money we are not stable at all income wise but have savings, I can locum for good money if necessary we have family around and we dont like to do things when we ‘should’. So far no comments from either set of parents about how we’ll get on financially as they’re all too excited but I have worried about it a bit.
I figure the baby wont cost much if we don’t allow it too. We don’t need to decorate a nursery and most things have been gifted to us. We’re going to use reusable nappies and cut the cost everywhere we can!!
Good luck!
I was ready when I knew that having a child and doing all the ‘kid stuff’ was more important and exciting to me than ‘adult stuff’. It didn’t feel like a sacrifice because it was what I really wanted. The biggest sacrifice for me is peace of mind, as I can be a bit overprotective sometimes.
I don’t know if I ever felt 100% ready, but decided not to put it off any longer after I turned 32 last year (20 weeks pregnant now).
We are not too financially secure right now but how much longer could we put it off? It wasn’t worth the gamble to us.
Thank you everyone! All of your advice is so helpful, we were starting to just think ourselves in circles with no input from anyone else. It’s nice to hear the perspective of someone else who’s been there. And congrats to everybody who’s expecting!
Jackal, I love the idea of thinking, “what good reasons do we have to wait” rather than “are things as good as they could ever possibly be under any conceivable circumstances,” which is basically the point that I had gotten to. (And yes, I do consider you a mother!)
Moonkai, I’m going to be 25 in a couple of months but my but my husband turned 28 this year which is part of why we’ve started talking seriously about it… the 30th birthday is looming on the horizon. He realized that by the time the baby would actually be born (after prep time and then pregnancy), he would be close to 30 if not over the line. He doesn’t want to be an “old” dad and drew the cutoff at 30 for some reason I’m not really clear about.
Hungrymuse, I worked with children at a mental health facility, talk about troublemakers! It kind of cured me of wanting children some days, but now I have a different job where I’m getting a more balanced perspective and I’m wanting them again. I also majored in child psychology so I learned about a lot of “what can go wrong” type scenarios… it’s definitely something I worry about.
Frobskottle, I feel like that’s how we’ve been our entire marriage! One person feels ready, but the other person is feeling reluctant, then suddenly we switch places. It’s like we do too good a job of convincing each other.
Tfzolghadr, thank you for the thought-provoking questions! I’m going to talk to my husband about them tonight.
We’re planning to wait at least a few months either way to have checkup appointments, take vitamins, and all that other stuff, but right now we’re definitely leaning toward doing it. Thank you everyone for your advice!
We didn’t consider having kids until we were about 34. We just never wanted them before. But it was good timing for us because by then we had good jobs, a house, had travelled and partied and were ready to have a different lifestyle. We had been together 11 years by then and knew each other well, had gotten over the early rough patches and knew we wanted to be together.
[name_m]Even[/name_m] though we thought we were ready, having a child is a shock to the system. You can never truly be prepared for what it does to you, your lifestyle, your relationship and view of the world.
Besides all the particulars like housing, a stable partner, finances, a shared parenting philosophy, etc. I was just READY. I was 32 and while I still think that’s young, I got all my youthful adventures under my belt in my 20s. When we started TTC I pictured my baby every day. I was so excited to start this new stage of my life, to shift my focus and direction.
Maybe I would have been ready sooner had I met my husband earlier, but life just works out the way it works out.
I know how you feel! [name_f]My[/name_f] DH has been ready since (before) we were married 9months ago! I am 25 but he is 28 and says the same thing about “not wanting to be an old dad.” I have to say things are pretty stable: we are married, own a house, and both have great jobs plus we have been on 3 major vacations since we’ve been married so I feel like we did the “travel” thing. [name_f]My[/name_f] only concerns are #1. [name_f]My[/name_f] mother was recently diagnosed with cancer and will be undergoing chemo & radiation, so my focus is of course on her and her health. Plus I obviously want her healthy and excited to enjoy the pregnancy, baby, etc. with me. So hopefully all of that will be behind us in a few months when my DH and I are thinking of TTC… and #2. I am in FOUR weddings between now and [name_u]November[/name_u] so I know it’s kind of silly but I would like to enjoy those fully without worrying about my dress size, drinking, noise, feeling sick, etc. etc.
I am hoping once our one year anniversary approaches I’ll be “ready” but we’ll see…I’m perfectly happy waiting until anniversary #2 but Idk if I can convince DH!! (Doesn’t help I am a labor and delivery nurse so I see the good and BAD=very good birth control)!!!
but for you Momberries who did plan and decide to get pregnant at a specific time, how did you make that decision? What did you think about when deciding whether/when to get pregnant? What were your criteria for being “ready”?