The Fever

lewispm

I have the baby fever, as all of you can probably tell. Realistically, I want to start TTC this summer, but I'd be ecstatic if I got KU today. H is on a totally different timeline, however, and we had a pretty intense discussion last night about it all. I ended up almost in tears. The hardest part for me is his reasoning for wanting to wait until K is at least 3 before TTC. His reason is finances, which is not a valid reason at all for me, making it really hard to see eye to eye.

See, we live pretty comfortably. We spend $ on extras we don't  need (lawn service, maid, misc. shopping and eating out) and still get by with $ going into savings most months as well. MH has some pretty huge law school loans that we make payments on, which is scary sometimes, but we don't have trouble meeting the minimum payment (and pay extra frequently) or anything like that.

Plus, MH recently got a large raise. He plans on putting every last cent of it into his loans in order to get rid of them, which is fine, but its still so angering to me that despite our comfortable living, he would use finances as a reason for holding off on baby #2. We are much better off than either of our parents were at this point in life and better off than a lot of our friends with more than 1 child. I think the importance he places on money is just much higher than my own. Its very disappointing. I desperately want my kids to be close in age (around 3 yrs max) and it is much more important to me than 1 less year of paying school loans or having a maid or lawn care service. Ugh.

There is no real point to this other than to rant/complain about my frustration really. I just hate that we have such differing views on this. I would be willing (and happy!) to compromise a lot more "luxury" purchases than he would in order to have #2. It's just so frustrating to me.

lewispm

The saving account idea is great. Maybe I can start putting all my Scentsy $ in a separate account.

@summergirl1211 and @jfreshHe wants to have ALL of his loans paid before baby #2 would be born. which may not even happen by the time K is 3 if any unexpected expenses come up. That is another thing that worries me. That he might keep pushing back the timeline and pushing back the timeline and never be ready. We have over half of the loans paid off already and can get the 2nd half paid off in 2 years if we dedicate his entire raise to loans. It'd be awesome, but I'd rather have a baby.

Thanks for the suggestions and sympathy, ladies. Its a pretty emotional topic for me these days. I just really worry he will never be ready and I will end up nagging him until he gives in, which I'd take, but obviously that wouldn't be ideal. I want him to WANT a new baby! Is that too much to ask?

lewispm

mightybee said:

It really sucks when you're not seeing eye to eye on these kind of things. Any chance that he just doesn't feel ready to have another child and is using the finances as his excuse to wait? Or is being financially stable just really, really important to him? Either way, I wouldn't want to go into another pregnancy/birth having to "convince" my H that we should have another baby. That's not fair to anyone.

The bolded is exactly how I feel and is a huge source of stress for me And being more than financially stable, as in living very comfortably with $ to spare, is very important to him. Not me. That is where we butt heads.

 

lewispm

PaddyB said:

I would be frustrated as well.  My husband sees things very similarly--this lead to us not getting married until we were "more financially stable" and had been together 5 years.  

Is there anything else you can counter with?  For example, if you indicated you wanted to be done having kids by X age, and why, would that persuade him at all?

Yes. His main agreement with me as to why we should have them sooner rather than later is that he wants to be relatively young parents. It's not enough to get him on board with TTC sooner, but at least he recognizes we have a similar desire to be younger parents.

lewispm

Thank guys. As far as the luxury items, I would cut them out in a heartbeat (maid, lawn service) but MH is the one who is adamant about keeping them! He is slightly OCD about cleanliness and our yard, and obviously I enjoy not having to clean to his standard all the time since we have a housekeeper 2x a month that does most of the deep cleaning for us (she is very cheap but does a great job!), but I am not even the one who wanted the maid to begin with!

I think I just really trying to save $$ in every possible way that I can. Maybe that way he will see that we are already living below our means and a baby wouldn't change it THAT much. At least not in the first couple years. Thanks for all the honest advice.

And I hope I didn't come of braggy or snobby sounding in this post. We are by no means, rich! LOL. I think I may have overstated how comfortably we live in order to get y'all on my side, anyway. Whoops. We do pay for a few "luxury" items like lawn service, maid, and spend way too much money going out to eat occassionally. We have been budgeting a lot more than usual in the past 6 months or so and have even had to talk about cutting out some of those luxury things we pay for and rarely go out to eat anymore. However, with MH's raise, it is enough to pretty drastically change the way we live, yet we are going to continue on as if he didn't get it and put it all towards loans. I would much rather put MOST of it towards loans and use the rest as a baby#2 fund, but he is not happy with that idea.