When to *have* children...

In My Humble Opinion
1

Inspired by the “Whether or not to have kids” thread.

My husband and I were married about seven weeks ago. We’ve lived together for about ten months now, including the eight months prior to our wedding - so we have had time together as a new couple. Since we currently live in an apartment, we’re house-hunting and hope to move by January or February. We’ve planned to start a family in the next year or two. So technically, we’ve got a ‘plan’.

However, I’m finding myself more and more anxious to move up the baby-making. Part of it is silly, and I realize that - one of my favorite authors just wrote a book on new motherhood, the goods, the bads, and the uglies, and even though she had no problem giving the bads, now I have this overwhelming urge to hold my own baby in my arms. I know that’s purely emotional, so I’m not taking it quite as seriously - but I finished the book last night and spent the next half hour daydreaming about my own little one. However, once we buy our house, the plan is to use an additional amount of $ from the loan (the houses that we’re looking at are appraising for more than they’re selling, so according to my dad, we’d be able to take the mortgage for the cost of the appraisal) and pay off my debt. So our bills would be down to our mortgage and living expenses. We’re a two-income family, and we’d stay that way after children unless DH gets a job that’s about double his current salary. Being a SAHM just isn’t for me, although that may change when I try to take the little one to daycare. So finances-wise, we should be okay.

My husband is a little less enthusiastic about starting this soon. I think he’s coming around, though. He points out cute babies to me when we’re out, whereas it’s usually been the other way around. And he’s started talking about ‘when we have children’. Obviously, I want him to be 100% in agreement with me - our mantra is “If you don’t have kids, I don’t have kids” when it comes to one of us changing our mind about parenthood or dealing with infertility issues. We want to be positive on this - it’s not like we can give the kid back if we don’t like it.

How did you know when it was time to take the plunge? Was it something you just did, or did you give it lots of thought beforehand?

Honestly, the hardest part I’m having issues with are the emotional ones. My head knows that it would be preferable to put off a baby for a year or two, but my heart is just going crazy. I’ve always wanted to be a mom and I just grin when I see babies and little kids. I don’t just want a baby, I want a child of our own - a child that we are totally and unequivocally responsible for raising. And it doesn’t help when well meaning friends or family see me with their own kids and say “You’re so good with them! Why don’t you have one of your own?”.

I guess I’m just looking to see when others knew it was time.

Ava

2

When the test came back with two blue lines we knew it was time…

I think ‘ready’ is a misnomer. I don’t believe you ever really feel ready. Then they hand you a child and you know you weren’t ready.

If you and he both feel you could love a child and enjoy raising one then go for it. Pregnancy doesn’t quite happen on cue so don’t stress that part too much! Good luck!

3

Follow your head. You’re doing the right thing, building a good nest for the little one.

You’ll never be completely ready. But having a house and enough money to buy the crib and the car seat and the diapers are a good start.

Tell your “well-meaning friends” that you’ll have your baby when everything is ready for it.

We look forward to hearing about the birth of MiniAva in 2005 or 2006! Congratulations!

4

For us, we had all the basics in place like steady job, savings, house, maturity, time together as a couple…then it just felt right and we had a bun cooking in the oven first time we tried.

5

Yeah, that’s my other worry - with endometriosis, I’m supposed to have a laparoscopy in a few months, and with that, they say the best time to try is right after the lesions and stuff are scraped off. Since I’m approaching 30 (3 months), I’m feeling the crunch. I want to have my kids while I’ve still got the energy to enjoy them! But I figure it’ll take a few months at least - on the other hand, we have many, many ‘unplanned’ children in our family - so I could be more fertile than I think :D.

ivylass, I certainly hope we get to do that!:slight_smile: We could handle it financially right now if we absolutely had to, but I think we need to be a little more secure. I also have those friends who say “If you wait until you can afford it, you’ll never have kids!” - well, that’s great, but there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be a little more financially secure either. My sister’s one of the worst - she’s good at pressuring.

China Guy, congrats on your two new little ones! I saw that in another thread. Lots of fun nights for you soon, huh?:slight_smile:

Ava

6

Fuck kids, hold out until you can have grandkids. A heap and a gob better, more fun less mess.

7

Most important thing is be married first.
Then over 21 at best.

8

Married…check.

Over 21…big time check… :smiley: .

We’re about to get started on the pre-approval for the mortgage, so hopefully, we’ll be in a house in another two months or so. We’ll see. In the meantime, I just heard that ANOTHER of my friends is pregnant…that makes…hmm…six in the past TWO months. Well, at least when we do have one, we’ll have lots of baby-sitters!

Ava

9

There’s no wrong time.

For breakfast, kinderfleisch sausages are a succulent way to start the day. Strips of ‘piglet bacon’ , as afficionados call it, go well with eggs or stack of pancakes. Or, use child cube steak to put the homme in ommelette.

There are almost too many choices for lunch to list. So, we’ll skip on to dinner. We can start with a soup course. I’ve found that some traditional recipes adapt very well. Children soup with matzoh balls is a favorite of mine. But, there are baby beef stew, wee one wantons, and bwains soup. The last is properly served using the vault of the child’s skull as a bowl. This gives the dish a certain understate elegance. It’s a good thing.

Of course, any salad that calls for meat may be made with children. For the main course, we have steaks, baby back ribs, children Kiev, children Marsala, baby medallions over angel hair pasta, and so many more. There are dishes sweet, spicy, strong and subtle.

Some will tell you that the flesh of children has no place in a dessert. Others will admit mince meat pie, but insist that this is the lone exception. Those people have never mixed the still warm blood of a child with just a touch of black pepper and poured it over a decadent chocolate ice cream. They have never crunched on children’s eyes coated in coconut and caramelized sugar. They have never mixed a child’s spinal fluid with Kahlua, shaken with ice, strained into a chilled glass, and topped with whipped cream.

Yes, any time is the perfect time for children.

10

I think it’s less about being financially ready (having enough to be able to cover medical bills and all the basics is a good thing, but if people waited until they could “afford” a child, very few would actually have them), but it’s more about being emotionally and mentally ready to have the massive change in your life.

My husband and I, when we married 1.5 years ago, felt that we were ready to try. We had been together for nearly 5 years before we married, so we knew we wanted children once we got hitched. I’m in my early 30’s, and have had problems with infertility (PCOS), so we prepared for the worst while hoped for the best.

We felt that we were as ready as we could be–we both had jobs that were steady, although our finances were “okay” we felt that we could support a baby, and we were having a hell of a time conceiving (so much so that we started to research our alternatives).

Then, about 6 weeks ago, I get laid off from work. A week later, I find that I’m pregnant. :eek:

So, basically, babies come whether you’re ready or not. You can prepare as well as possible, but if you’re the kind who believes in fate and/or the workings of a higher power, a baby is going to land in your lap when it’s time.

11

And, DocCathode: maybe it’s because I’m rather hormonal and touchy right now, but your post was really inappropriate.

12

That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever read here, and I read the TMI thread. Twice.

13

I’m not hormonal – althought I hope to be in the next six months – but I could not agree more.

That post wasn’t funny. It was disgusting.

14

Yeah, that was pretty bad form, Doc. A little too long and too detailed to be funny.

That said, I’ve been a dad now for just a shade over 4 1/2 months. I’m still working out the kinks on the whole process, to be honest. It’s a pretty big adjustment to go from just-the-two-of-us to whaddayamean-we-can’t-go-to-the-movies-for-awhile? and still maintain your sanity.

My daughter is a wonderful little girl, and she’s expanded the way I look at things in a big way. But I’d be lying if I said that the sacrifices aren’t difficult. I think it’s that way for everybody.

However…and I have yet to find any other parent that will cop to this, so listen up…

I have been continually surprised at the ways my life has not changed. There’s never a shortage of people who make parenting seem like an epic, life-changing event…and believe me, it is, in a lot of ways. But these same people will frequently tell you it changes your life in every single way, and that’s just not true.

We’re still the same people we were before we had a baby…just a little more aware of how our actions affect others, maybe. We still love each other the same. We still even indulge in the things we love to do in between the diapers, formula, baby-talk and photography. We just find new ways to do the things we love.

(For example, we love to go to movies. With a baby, that’s more difficult, since we don’t frequently have a sitter and choose not to subject people who paid a ton of cash to an unpredictable infant. So now, when we want to see a movie at the theater, we go to the drive-in, which is perfect. If she wants to cry, we can take care of her, and not have to bother other people.) :slight_smile:

FTR, my wife and I are both 30. Do I wish we’d waited longer, or had kids earlier? Not really. We wouldn’t have been any more prepared had we waited a 100 years more, and finding out she was pregnant the day before our 5-year anniversary seemed like a timely coincidence.

15

I started to get that urge to have a baby really bad, to the point where I couldn’t think of anything else. My husband went along with it. That’s basically how we decided. It’s probably not the best way to do things, but I don’t regret it.

We haven’t been married very long. The baby’s due March 29th and our first anniversary is April 10th. We got in our time as a couple long before. I wanted to have my children while I was in my 20s. That way not only do I have more energy for them, but my mother can enjoy watching her grandchildren grow into adults.

16

I’ll cop to that. The floor is covered with toys and I know all the words to all the songs on Bear in the Big Blue House. But I also still read the same books, play the same video games, go to ceramics a couple times a week …

The kids join your life. They assimilate into it. People who try to do it the other way around go insane.

17

avabeth, You sound just like me 8 years ago… although I was somewhat younger when I felt like you did. YMMV, but from my “been there-done that” tale, all I can say is, wait until the hubby feels ready. Don’t worry about the money, the house, etc. Where there is a will, there is a way. But if he lacks the will, if he feels like you rushed him, it is a resentment too difficult to recover from. I also have endometriosis, but you are ahead of the game in that you know it before you are starting to try. I went through over 2 years of treatments before we figured out that was part of the problem. I got pregnant about 6 months after my surgery and have a wonderful 4.5 year old boy now, but am no longer married to his father. The infertility battle played no small part in my marriage failing. It wasn’t the only factor, but at least 30% of the problem. Waiting for your husband to be on the same page as you emotionally would be the one and only thing I would consider in your shoes, if I had it to do again.

18

Oh, yeah, doing this without his full, 100% approval isn’t an option. I don’t want our kid to have a half-hearted dad. And I don’t go for all of the ‘he’ll come around’ stuff, either. We’re in this together.

However, we did discuss it this weekend, and when we move into the house, we’ll re-evaluate. There’s a good chance we’ll start trying then, in another 3-4 months. If he’s not ready then, I can live with that. Initially, we said two years of marriage first, but it seems we may compromise and go with one year of marriage or less.

I appreciate all of the advice. I never realized that this would be such a hard decision to make - on the one hand, I’m more ready than I’ve ever been, but on the other hand, it scares the crap out of me. I’m starting to realize that fear isn’t going to go away, so at some point, we’re just going to have to say “Let’s do this”. But as far as being a parent emotionally - I think I’m ready.

Ava

19

Your approach is similar to how we did it. I was never someone who fawned over kids, but I thought I wanted them someday. Somewhere in there thinking about having a baby ‘someday’ turned into ‘now’. I don’t know what caused it but it was a change in my heart. We aren’t rich but we were stable, which is more important I think. Emotionally stable is more important than financially stable, although being able to afford baby things makes everything easier, for sure. Babies are expensive, but on the other hand they can do without a lot of the stuff that’s out there, too.

My husband always wanted kids too but I was the one who brought up the change of kids someday to 'how about now?" I think he was a little suprised and it is definitely scary to make that leap but we were both sure about the decision.

I agree that in some ways a baby is the biggest change, but on the other hand you are still the same person. My husband remarked to me the other day how he was suprised at how naturally everything fell into place. Our son is 3 months now but it seems like he has always been with us. Not to say it’s always easy, but it is simple. I don’t know if that makes sense. I think the love you have for your baby makes the change and the work easier.

Congratulations, and good luck with everything. I hope you have a happy pregnancy (that’s exciting and quite an experience in itself!)

20

Here’s one idea you may want to consider. Since you’re so recently married (even with the previous living together) why don’t you consider taking about, say maybe 6 months to a year to have a “honeymoon” year first, and enjoy life as a couple. Find things you like doing together, travel, go out, etc. This will help build/solidify a foundation for your marriage.

The first year or two of parenting have been pretty confining for us, given all our families are in other cities, and childcare can be tricky to obtain. It was good to get our indulgences in first.

Also, a wise man with whom I work warned me about the danger of making your marriage all about the children. More than one couple found that, once the kids move away to college, they have nothing to do or talk about together anymore, and wind up splitting up after 20 years, which is sad. Your honeymoon year could let you find these things which you can hold on to, in a more constrained manner, once the little ones come.

As for when I knew I was ready for fatherhood? I had always been somewhat irritable by what I considered “badly behaved” kids: toddlers throwing tantrums in supermarkets, kids running around in restaurants, etc. But when an inquisitive two-year old in the adjacent seat wanted to type on my laptop aboard a flight returning home, while I was trying to finish my trip report, and I thought it was funny, and endearing, and cute, to my great shock, I realised I was ready. :slight_smile: