While I don’t have the Baby Rabies and have no desire to (intentionally) raise a child as a single parent . . . I do have my days of relating very strongly to this. I’m not married, not dating, not old enough (yet) that the fact that I’m single now means I’m doomed to old maidhood. But there are days when I think “It’s not fair. Why does my sister-in-law get to lead the life I want to lead and I don’t?” (She’s married to my brother and is soon to be the stay at home mother of two). And I have other friends who are married but in the “no kids (yet)” phase. Some of them are just not ready yet, some may never choose to have children. And then I hear about teens or twenty-somethings who aren’t in a stable relationship, aren’t financially prepared to support themselves (let alone a baby) and it makes you wish that pregnancy was the result of turning cartwheels under the full moon or something rather than the result of sex. You know, some activity that you would only do if you wanted to have a child, not just for fun.
The emotional “It’s not fair!” is a part of all of us. We just have to understand when it is appropriate to complain, and when we should resist.
But you are not alone, and I think you appear to be handling the situation appropriately.
Without trying to sound snarky, Do women really compare themselves to others when deciding when/if to have children? A couple posts here have a theme of: Soandso have kids/are pregnant, now its my turn kinda thing.
It’s not a comparison, exactly. It’s just sort of a ‘well, we got married around the same time, why can’t we have kids, too?’. I don’t begrudge my friends and family their babies - I’m thrilled for them. I’m just frustrated with my own situation at the moment.
Maybe some women do get married/have babies/buy a vacation home in terms of ‘keeping up with the joneses’, but that’s not what it is in my case. It’s that I’ve always wanted to be a parent, and think now is a great time to do it, and unfortunately, my husband doesn’t necessarily agree with the timing. Seeing my friends and family doing it just makes me long for it a bit more.
It’s not that you compare yourself to others when deciding to do something. But when you already know that you want something, and you want it really badly but are waiting for an auspicious time, and people around you are getting what you want, it’s hard. Even when you know waiting is the right decision for you, it’s hard. And when these people haven’t put in as much time as you have at some particular level, it’s even harder. And when you know you’re going to have to keep waiting for long time, it’s even harder than that. So, yes, there is a certain element of “dammit, when’s it going to be my turn already?” in there, but not in a keeping up with the Jones’s sort of way.
…AND, while this may be unpopular to write, un-PC to say and flying in the face of feminism, there’s all these HORMONES!
Really, one cannot underestimate the pure hormonal biological imperitive that many people (women *and *men, but most women more strongly than most men) start to feel around 28 - around the time, incidently, when fertility in women begins its wane.
Of course, we’re rational beings.
Of course, we’re intelligent creatures.
Of course, we’re not simply the sum of our chemical messengers.
But added on top of family and society pressure, friends having babies, and just how darned cute the things are, it can be a heavy load to handle.
Are you under the impression that feminism denies the existence or effects of female hormones? Not so. It merely says that women should not be discriminated against on the basis of them (nor anything else, of course).
Oh yeah…I can relate. Even though I’ve never wanted a human child, I wanted a fur baby so badly I wept over dog food commercials. Nipper was as wanted and planned for as any child. (You can puke at that if you want to…) My husband and I called it “Puppy Fever”.
I’m not sure how serious your endo is, and it sounds like you’re aware the impediment it may have on your fertility, obviously you’ve discussed this with your husband.
That being said, if you are planning on trying to have a kid in a year, I’ve known a lot of women (through my endo support group) who had a similar game plan and began “prepping” for the pregnancy early. I’m not saying to go off your pills, definately not. But! I would humbly suggest (knowing nothing about your situation) that you sit down with a specialist in endo sooner rather than later. I had the good fortune of being treated by one of the leading endo specialists in Canada, and her course of treatment for women who planned on getting pregnant was to begin treatment well in advance. Her usual rule of thumb was to go in and do a clean up (since endo doesn’t go away and you can’t know what’s really going on without going in for a lap). She’d excise away visable endo, verify that everything was working. From the date of the procedure, she advised her patients that a pregnancy in 6 months from then would be the normal minimum (no trusting those ovaries though, could be sooner!), but a year to two years was not unheard of without fertility treatment. My advice? Schedule a lap now, stay on your birth control. When you’re ready to have a kid, for real, your body will be ready and you’ll spare yourself the heartbreak of having to deal with a lap after 6 months with no success. IMHO…
Also, progesteron only pills caused me to go a bit baby wonky, fyi.
Yes; thanks for that spectacular final thought. :rolleyes:
As a 38-year-old who is presently waiting anxiously for the arrival of her first child, I can’t tell you how pleased I was to see that idiotic comment.
My opinion is that you need to find out post-haste whether your husband even wants to have children. This is something best discussed before marriage, but in your case your time is running out and it doesn’t seem that he wants anything to do with them.
A good hour-long conversation will hopefully determine where he is on this matter. If he’s stringing you out with no intention of breeding he’s a jackass. Maybe he just wants another year but surely have have discussed this before?
No way in hell you should ever breed with the guy if he doesn’t want them. Find out soon if he does or does not. if he does not you must decide whether the future baby is more important than your husband.
He does want them, he just wants to wait a little longer than I do. Having kids has never been a question, it’s just been when to have them. We discussed that deeply before marriage, including what would happen if I were to get pregnant prior to marriage.
He’s committed to having kids, we just disagree on the timing issue.
Rebekkah, that’s one issue I have with my OB-GYN. My old doctor wanted to do a laparoscopy a few months ago, since she knew how much trouble I have, but this doctor wants to wait until I have a problem getting pregnant :rolleyes: . It’s not so much pregnancy that I want to take care of it for, it’s the freakin’ pain. It took me several years to find a doctor who took my pain seriously, and now it’s like I’m back at square one. I can’t go back to my former doctor because I’m in another state, so I guess it’s a wild goose chase to find one like her. My current doc even looked at my old records and decided the lap wasn’t necessary, contrary to my old doc’s recommendation.
Sat On Cookie, good luck with your birth:). I’m looking forward to hearing about the Bite-Size Cookie’s arrival!
Surgery is such a double edged sword, because it can cause scaring that can interfere with pregnancy (sigh). That being said, I’m all for finding another doctor. If you’re in pain now, best get it looked after BEFORE you have to deal with a tiny little baby :). Plus, I would suggest that this doctor has his head up his ass if he thinks should take a six month gamble on getting pregnant w/o surgery, given your age (not that you’re old, but fertility drops after time) AND more importantly, the fact that you are in pain.
Also, having a game plan for getting to the getting pregnant part might allow you to feel more proactive about having a baby, and thus assuage some of the baby mania, since you are technically working on it
Yeah, I love how a couple of posters decided this thread was the place to air their opinions that women in their mid-thirties and older are “too old” to have kids. Real sensitive, guys.
Now, how in the hell did you get that from “He wants to wait a year before we start trying”? If he didn’t want anything to do with kids, he wouldn’t have worked out a financial plan that would allow them to have the sort of housing and financial situation they both want for their children and then start conceiving said children within the next year. Did you even read the OP, much less the thread? Sheesh!
Elza, I’m sorry you’re being beset by so many sanctimonious, illiterate fools. You’ve got enough on your plate already without their bullshit.
Ehh, it’s easy to ignore. I did a bit of a double-take at that one because I don’t think I stated anywhere that mr. e was on the fence about having kids, he just differs on the timing for it. We probably wouldn’t be married right now if he hadn’t told me before we WERE married that he wanted kids.
I’ve gotten some great advice in this thread - it’s easier to get past the ones who haven’t read the full thread and just go to the ones who’ve given me appropriate and helpful advice.
It sounds like you’ve done all the right things (in terms of discussing what you both want, agreeing on plans to ‘feather your nest,’ thinking about medical possibilites and options, etc.) and now you’re just stuck with the waiting. It sucks – both the baby-fever and the feeling that you aren’t both on the same page right now.
Maybe I can help you look at the waiting game just a little bit differently and help you feel a bit better about the wait. I was already pregnant when my husband and I got married almost 19 years ago. While I don’t in any way regret having my wonderful son – nor his wonderful sister who followed less than a year later – it would have been nice to have a little just-us time before the babies came along. Maybe it would help you to think of this pre-baby time as an extended honeymoon period. Which is really what it is, after all.
It is, and I’m definitely enjoying it. I mean, yeah, we have only been married five months, so it’s not like we SHOULD be in any rush. I think what’s hard is that I see these girls on the ‘other board’ (you know which one I’m talking about) who are still in college and have no money who are getting pregnant, yet we’re attempting to be responsible and give it time. I don’t know. It’s just very frustrating, and I’m trying to stop comparing us to others.
Oh, well. We’re still able to pick up and go away for a weekend by just leaving the cats some extra food, so we’ll enjoy it while we can. I’m also looking into Consumer Credit Counseling, which would give us some more money during the month while still paying off my bills, so the financial situation thing may become easier soon, too. We’re not broke, far from it, but it would make me feel better to get rid of this debt.
We’ll see. I have a feeling we probably shouldn’t have kids until we can avoid screaming ‘F*CK!’ at the top of our lungs when we stub a toe . We’re going to have to institute a swear jar, or our kid’s going to be like D.W. in the Arthur cartoons and her ‘bleep’ word.
All I can add to this thread is my personal experience. About 4 years ago, we were you are now. My wife was ready, I was not. I couldn’t even say when I would be ready.
We came into a but if money, and rather than do the responsible adult thing of investing it, or paying off some of the mortgage, we got on a plane for Nairobi, and spent a month bumming around Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Incredible trip in many ways, and about a week after we returned, I turned to my wife and said, “I am ready”.
In hindsight, there were a number of things that were holding me back. Not feeling I had done enough with the freedom I had, not fully appreciating the world, and what beauty in it I could share. Not feeling adult enough for such a commitment, and so on. The trip gave me new perspectives on many thinga, and when things went wrong (and when they go wrong in Africa, they can go really wrong. Luckily the lion had recently eaten), I learned some things about myself, and my priorities that I hadn’t anticipated.
You just now mentioned you’ve only been married 5 MONTHS . That changes a LOT of things. Having followed the thread since the start, I figured you’d been married a few YEARS.
If you’re having a panic attack over this at 5 months into the marriage you need to slow down, take a deep breath, and think carefully about this. Kids are forever, marriage ought to be forever. Even if you’ve known this guy for a few years and maybe even lived together for awhile before marriage, actually being married is a BIG difference. It’ll take a year for you both to settle into your new lives as half of a team rather than a solo.
Until that settling in has occurred, you hardly even know the person you’re going to be married to then. He won’t be the person you dated, and neither will you.
My advice: NEVER have children sooner than 2 years after getting married. It takes that long to become your married self, and for the other person to do the same. Then you’ll know who you both will be for the next 20 years. And you can decide then whether the “new you” and the “new him” are really cut out for the long haul together, much less with kids.
I don’t have statistics (maybe Google does), but in my circle of friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc., over the last 20+ years, there’s beeen a real correllation between having babies soon after marriage (more than 9 months though) and divorce or at least major unhappiness.
Take the time to do it right. 5 months is WAAY early in my opinion. Good luck whatever you do.
