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f/u on TTC...if you were on the fence about kids.......
what pushed you into the at least one rather than none for us category.
i think i have an unnatural fear of being responsbile for a child.
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Re: f/u on TTC...if you were on the fence about kids.......
I too feared the responsibility. It is 18 years of serious care taking and then even if they strike out on their own after that there is still worry and $ and helping them out etc. Also it is not like I had a lot of experience beyond the occasional babysitting. I am still shocked they just let you take that baby right home from the hospital. I even agonized over my first cat knowing the commitment it would take.
However I 100% knew I would regret not trying to have kids. DH and I both wanted a family with children. I wanted to share the joy of the holidays and help the kids with their school work and kiss boo-boos and plan cool birthday parties and help them choose a college and watch them get married and play with my own grandkids someday. Granted that comes with a lot of crap - literally when they are young, there is a lot of poop, not to mention puke and pee.
So while we weren't exactly on the fence about it, I looked at it as 'would I terribly regret not trying?' Just another question you can ask yourself and not the only reason to have a kid certainly.
I'm 3 weeks from my due date and I still have this fear. I think it would be unnatural to NOT have this fear. Actually, my biggest fear is doing the best we can and having a kid who is just mean or bad. But I couldn't imagine not having kids ever, so we got to a point where it seemed like there wasn't any reason to wait longer (there's always a reason, but no concrete, immediate reason) and we stopped preventing.
I wanted kids for many of the reasons tracy stated but I also know a few older men who never had kids; I worked with a couple of them, married for decades but child-less by choice. They said they loved it when they were younger and their friends were complaining about diapers, $$, not having a social life; they were still going on vacations and out to fancy dinners. But as they got older they started to regret it and by then it was too late. It was always lonely at holiday time (nieces and nephews are great but they don't go to their uncle's house for the holidays), there was no one to turn to for support if one of the spouses got sick, it was always just the 2 of them. One of them had to quit his job that he loved but that required a lot of travel b/c his wife could not handle him being gone that much; they have literally never spent more than 1-2 nights apart in 30+ yrs of marriage. No matter how busy your life, I think it'd be lonely without children.
As for having a 2nd one, one of my friends was set on just one, then her H's Mom got really sick, ended up losing a horrible battle w/ brain cancer and they decided they did not want their DD to go thru something like that alone, so they had another child.
Ha ha, I love it! I was single all through my 20's, so now that I'm married and rocking my third pregnancy I am still in amazement that I'm responsible for anyone besides myself!
This is a legitimate concern. I think I was probably a bit naive about how a child would change the dynamic in our relationship. It takes a lot of work and very open communication so that resentments and scorekeeping doesn't take over. I feel like we are working a lot harder on our marriage now that we did when it was just the two of us. More work, but our marriage is better! So that's a positive!
I am a total control freak and really kids have helped me let go - you just can't do it all. I do tell myself to let it go and keep the worry in check but I feel like I am a lot better about it than my sister - who really hates even leaving her daughter with a babysitter to go out for a night. However we have gone away for the weekend and enjoy nights out with the help of SIL and other babysitters.
Now the whole it falls to mom thing is a real concern. DH has stepped up but it is certainly not 50/50.
You might be interested in reading my post from earlier in the week - it doesn't exactly cover the same issues you're raising here, but it did generate some great insights on motherhood in general.
https://community.thebump.com/cs/ks/forums/thread/39869127.aspx
Daughter born at 34 weeks due to PPROM, July 2012
Expecting baby #2, May 8, 2015
May 2015 signature challenge for January: "You had ONE job!"
We were never on the fence and DH and I started discussing children in the hypothetical from super early on in our relationship. However, my advice is to think about which you'd regret more: having a life with kids or without them. You have somewhat of an idea of what it's like to have a LO thanks to your niece, would you regret never experiencing that for yourself? Or could you see you and DH living happily with just each other (and Wrigley, of course) and the freedom to travel, be spontaneous and eat out whenever and wherever you desire? Do you see having children as adding to life, or when you think of them do you think more about what you'd be missing out on? I know the finances are a big concern for you right now, but speaking from experience, they do end up working out regardless.
There aren't any right answers, and your answers may change from month to month and year to year. (Although with the amount of time you spend on the Bump I'm guessing you do think about babies a fair amount of time
. )
re: "mom does everything" mentality?
You've just got to start training the DH early. Send him out for last minute baby supplies a couple weeks before the due date. Make him change the first poopy diaper (and 1/2 the diapers after that!). Make him get up in the middle of the night to bottle feed a few times a week (even if you're BF'ing... or, at least make him wake up to bring the baby to you!), make him take the day off work to take the kiddo to a couple of well visits (or, sick visits for that matter!), etc.
While I could have done a lot of these things a lot faster or more efficiently... that would have totally worked against me in the long run.
Is it weird that I never had that fear? I was worried about what the baby would be like - would he cry all the time? Would he never sleep? Stuff that I couldn't control . . . but I was always pretty confident in my child-rearing abilities. I've been around a LOT of kids, I've babysat and worked as a camp counselor. There are lots of classes you can take in terms of learning how to take care of a baby. But the other stuff - teaching them responsibility and morals and whatnot - I'm actually looking forward to that. You know? You and your husband get to work together as a team to kind of sculpt this little person into a real, thriving adult. It's so cool.
TTC #2: BFP 12/17/11, m/c 1/7/12 and D&C 1/12/12
baby blog/cooking blog
it still amazes me that I am responsible for something and I am good at it :-) seriously, I never baby sat, changed a diaper, had any interest in others people's children, spent any amount of time with kids, etc... and it is great fun when they are your own!
wine - no joke, I got drunk and spilled my feelings to John one night over dinner.
I did realize this after my nieces had left after spending time with us last summer. They enriched our lives so much more than I could have ever expected.
In my 20's I NEVER really had that pang to be a Mom but knew I couldn't see my future without kids. The baby bug did bite me once we had an oopsie, got pregnant and then had a m/c before carter (right before I turned 30) I never knew how much I wanted one until I lost one.
Not going to lie, having a kid is the hardest thing I've ever done but also the most rewarding. It's also a HUGE strain on a relationship but once you get the hang of it, it's not that bad. ;-)
We took our long planned European trip that we always wanted to complete before having kids...while there, we visited old family friends and one of my "brothers" son was one year old...we both got hit with baby fever after meeting Josua! A month later, BIL was in a serious jet collision which was fatal for the other pilot...he left behind a pregnant wife but our SIL was also pregnant. I was away on a business trip during all of this and when I got back - we decided it was time. And Bambino happened within a couple weeks.
Before we started trying the successful time, we had tried a few months before with no success but also a year prior, we weren't trying to prevent with no results...
Basically, I decided I would regret not having a child later on in life (and getting old enough that I couldn't put off deciding much longer). I never really got the baby bug while we were thinking about it and I knew it would be hard based on what my friends and family said. They also said it was the best thing they ever did, despite it being the hardest, most tiring job. You might remember me posting about how I found a book called something like "Do I Want to Be a Mom?" and knowing that I couldn't buy it and have it on my shelf for my future child to see one day. My future heart won out over my brain that time.
3 years later and it has been even harder than I imagined because of the issues Troy's faced, but I don't regret it for a second (although I am tired and as others said in the other post, do miss some things). I even take it to the other end of not regretting it and kind of wonder if we had started sooner if it would have changed the things that have made us decide not to have another child - my age now being one of them and age-related (possibly) pregnancy complications being another. Plus the issues Troy's faced, and possibility of another miscarriage. We couldn't handle going through any of those again - we've barely stayed sane dealing with each of them once.
Despite the issues, I will say that after seeing how amazing my son is, I did finally get baby fever for a while, especially right after he was born. After the wringer we've been through, though, we've discussed it a lot and were both a little sad about it but feel like we are making the right decision not to have another. This time, the decision had to be made by my brain a little more than my heart, but I don't think I will regret it.
I am not a baby person. I figured we would have a kid eventually (DH and I were always fuzzy on the details), but I was not interested in the pregnancy/birthing/infancy ordeal. That was all very scary. What changed for me was seeing a lot of my close friends not only have babies, but have babies, seem to enjoy it and stay true to themselves. It was like a light bulb went off - "If they can do it, so can I".
All of the bridesmaids in my wedding have daughters in the 2-3 year age range and seeing them handle all of the terrifying pregnancy, labor and tiny baby nonsense with aplomb gave me a lot of confidence in taking the plunge myself.