# Your child - planned? \[edited title\] **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 2, 2011, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527 "2011-05-02T23:51:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527/61 "2011-05-03T21:00:27Z")
…is dead! Dead tired of home safety inspectors that don’t provide a free estimate! ---
**Author:** ![GilaB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@GilaB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GilaB)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527/62 "2011-05-03T21:49:58Z")
I’m in the midst of my very-planned-via-fertility-treatments first pregnancy. ---
**Author:** ![YaraMateo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/58f4c7/32.png) [@YaraMateo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YaraMateo)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527/63 "2011-05-03T22:27:04Z")
> [@Max\_Torque](#): > > I don’t want to hijack the thread, so I’ll note that the thread I started back when this all happened is [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=387858), and say no more. Thanks for the link. ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527/64 "2011-05-03T23:19:42Z")
All 4 of mine were planned. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527/65 "2011-05-03T23:31:45Z")
Don’t have kids, but I know my brother was a total accident, and I was an accident with perfect timing; as in, my parents made the decision to try for another as they wanted 2.5 years gap, then found out my mum had got pregnant despite birth control around a week earlier. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527/66 "2011-05-03T23:49:16Z")
> [@GilaB](#): > > I’m in the midst of my very-planned-via-fertility-treatments first pregnancy. Ha! Between me, you, \*\*Little Bird, \*\*and **pbbth** , that’s four decade-long SDMB posters who are pregnant with our first right now! ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527/67 "2011-05-04T00:30:26Z")
One child. Pregnancy unplanned, birth planned, keeping her also planned. There’s a difference between an unplanned pregnancy and an unplanned birth. Unless you discover the pregnancy very late on (which does happen occasionally) or you’re in a country/culture where abortion is forbidden, then most births are planned. My daughter was born just after my MA and just before I started my PhD (which I didn’t finish due to complicated reasons related to being a parent). There is a statistical correlation between mainstream educational achievement and the age at which you have a child. This is partly because, the older a woman is when she has a child, the more likely she is to have to plan a pregnancy for biological reasons. There’s a lot more to it than that, but the discussion slips too easily into often quite unpleasant value judgments. ---
**Author:** ![Kilvert\_s\_Pagan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@Kilvert\_s\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kilvert_s_Pagan)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527/68 "2011-05-04T00:31:53Z")
two kids, both planned. ---
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527/69 "2011-05-04T03:52:12Z")
Two kids, both planned. I’ve had one unplanned pregnancy, which had to be surgically removed because it was ectopic. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Bird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Little\_Bird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Bird)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527/70 "2011-05-04T09:23:27Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > I am 16 weeks too! When are you due? October 20! _Technically_ I’ll be 16 weeks tomorrow, but some times you just gotta round it off, amirite? > [@MandaJo](#): > > Ha! Between me, you, \*\*Little Bird, \*\*and **pbbth** , that’s four decade-long SDMB posters who are pregnant with our first right now! Whee! A whole new generation of pedantic nerds! Someday they will rule the world… 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527/71 "2011-05-04T11:07:06Z")
> [@Little\_Bird](#): > > Whee! A whole new generation of pedantic nerds! Someday they will rule the world… 🆒 I, for one, welcome our new pedantic nerd overlords [sub]who will be taking care of me when I’m old and decrepit[/sub]. ---
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527/72 "2011-05-04T12:27:00Z")
Well, we’re talking about the _level_ of ‘how planned are we talking about?’ so I’ll address that: with our second, I just decided it would be nice to have another baby when my first was about 4YO, so I told my husband that, and he agreed. Because I was on the pill, it was recommended that I be off the pill for 90 days before trying to conceive, so I went off the pill and switched to another method. After that, we simply “pulled the goalie off the ice” (to borrow a phrase from Paul Reiser), and let nature take its course. My only real thing with timing was that I didn’t want another summer baby. The last month that I carried my first-born was _miserably_ hot, even in air conditioning. So I decided that if I wasn’t pregnant by (X) date, we’d stop trying for a few months, then start again. But it only took me (by my estimate) about two weeks to get pregnant. The third took a little more, uh, intervention on our part. My husband was working out of town by then and only home on weekends. I was almost 37, and apparently, not as fertile as I’d once been. After six month of not succeeding, I bought some ovulation-predictor kits, and a few times, I had to call my husband in the middle of the week and say “Hey, you’d better take a vacation day tomorrow and head home tonight!” I really didn’t want to have a baby at age 40+! After a few months of that, though, success. I was 38 when **mudgirl** was born. (Everyone said “Oh, she’ll keep you young!”; I don’t know about that, but she sure as hell has kept me entertained!) ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527/73 "2011-05-04T12:36:12Z")
I edited the title to make it a bit more descriptive. ---
**Author:** ![Walkabout](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/46a35a/32.png) [@Walkabout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walkabout)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527/74 "2011-05-04T14:00:23Z")
We tried for 4 years for the first one, so I’d say she was unplanned. We thought it would take just as long for the next one to come along, so we didn’t take any precautions, but I was pregnant within 3 months, so I’d say he was unplanned, but very welcome. ---
**Author:** ![StuffLikeThatThere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc8723/32.png) [@StuffLikeThatThere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StuffLikeThatThere)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527/75 "2011-05-04T14:14:56Z")
Sort of both. We adopted both our boys, and both times we had been pursuing adoption and had all our paperwork ducks in a row, but had put the process on hold for various fairly serious reasons. And then, both times, there was a surprise conversation/phone call and a baby that we weren’t ready for, but couldn’t say no to. Thank God. I don’t know what I’d do without the little hooligans. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527/76 "2011-05-04T16:11:55Z")
I was friends with a guy named Richard, in high school; I was a senior, he was a junior. He had been adopted (as a newborn) after his parents had been married several years, and had been unsuccessful in conceiving a child. After those years, they both saw the doctor, and his mother was told “I’m sorry; you’ll never bear children”; hence, the adoption of my friend. FF 16 years. Richard’s mother is missing periods, putting on weight, experiencing hormonal symptoms, etc. Being 43, she attributed all her symptoms to the onset of menopause. It wasn’t until months later, when she was _absolutely unable_ to drop the extra pounds, no matter what, that she went to see the doctor. She was seven months pregnant. :eek: Two months later, at the age of 44, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![YaraMateo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/58f4c7/32.png) [@YaraMateo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YaraMateo)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2011, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527/77 "2011-05-05T03:13:35Z")
> [@Ellen\_Cherry](#): > > I edited the title to make it a bit more descriptive. Can you edit it to Was your child planned? I like that better. ---
**Author:** ![Kiber](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kiber/32/317_2.png) [@Kiber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiber)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2011, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527/78 "2011-05-05T16:54:43Z")
First Child - Planned Second Child - Unplanned, but on the to-do list (just not that close to the top) Third Child - Unplanned and actively avoided (2 types of Birth Control) All loved and adored. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2011, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527/79 "2011-05-05T20:15:57Z")
> [@norinew](#): > > I was friends with a guy named Richard, in high school; I was a senior, he was a junior. He had been adopted (as a newborn) after his parents had been married several years, and had been unsuccessful in conceiving a child. After those years, they both saw the doctor, and his mother was told “I’m sorry; you’ll never bear children”; hence, the adoption of my friend. FF 16 years. Richard’s mother is missing periods, putting on weight, experiencing hormonal symptoms, etc. Being 43, she attributed all her symptoms to the onset of menopause. It wasn’t until months later, when she was _absolutely unable_ to drop the extra pounds, no matter what, that she went to see the doctor. She was seven months pregnant. :eek: > Two months later, at the age of 44, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. > > 🙂 Whoa. I can’t imagine what that must have been like. My mother had Littlest Bro a 42, but he was (a) planned and (b) preceded by three siblings, the oldest having been born eleven years earlier. ---
**Author:** ![soulmurk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@soulmurk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/soulmurk)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2011, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527/80 "2011-05-05T20:56:34Z")
My wife became pregnant with our son within weeks of our starting dating… so yeah, unplanned. Turns out I wasn’t that great at the withdrawal part of the withdrawal method. Probably had something to do with all the beer… Our daughter was also unplanned, but I strongly suspect I was the only one not planning for her. We were pretty successfully using the rhythm method, but I believe my rhythm was deliberately thrown off. If you were wondering, or laughing, we use protection now. I insist. She’s always said she wants three… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-child-planned-edited-title/580527.md?page=5)