BSOTB - Moms and Moms-To-Be, share your wisdom!
Baby Sorta On The Brain...
We're not ready to start trying yet, but we are ready to start thinking about when we would be ready. I know this is a highly-personal decision, but I was just wondering if you would be willing to share your stories/thoughts on how or when you decided you were "ready".
Did you have certain criteria that had to be met first or a list of things you wanted to do? For example, I am currently unemployed, so I want to be sure to find a job and be financially stable before I have a baby. I'd also like to buy a house to raise the child in -- the place we are renting now is way too small. I'd also like to travel internationally a bit. MH and I have only been married about 6 months, so I'd like to enjoy just being married for a bit before we introduce another change.
Were you influenced by your "biological clock"/age? I had always thought I'd have a baby before I was 30, but it looks like I missed that deadline. MH is older than me, and I know the age of the father doesn't have as much affect on the baby's health as the mom's age, but MH is worried about being an old father and being mistaken for the grandfather. I also remember an old professor who had children late saying it was a trade-off -- he and his wife were more emotionally and financially ready, but they had a lot less energy than younger parents do.
What are some questions/concerns we should be thinking about? Do you wish you had done anything differently? Is there ever really a "right time"? Any other words of wisdom or advice? TIA 
Re: BSOTB - Moms and Moms-To-Be, share your wisdom!
I am under 30 and I actually thought I could've waited longer, esp none of my generation of my family and friends are engaged/married/have kids but now that everything has happened, I'm really happy that we had our baby when we did. I know we want more than just 2 kids so I guess it's good to get an earlier start since my childbearing years may span longer than someone who wants just 1-2 kids...so something like that is worth considering.
The only thing is I don't know which state you live in but does your state have paid benefits for maternity/family leave? If so, it's an extra benefit in getting a job beforehand. If not, it just depends on how important your career is to you. If you have health insurance through YH and may want to be a SAHM anyway and your state offers no paid benefits, then I wouldn't let the job part weigh too heavily unless you enjoy working/can't afford (either financially or professionally) to take a longer break from your career...or if you work for a company that offers paid leave. Those are some things you can also consider. Either way, GL! Everyone and every family is different so I hope you'll figure a time that'll work for you and YH!
Is there ever a perfect time? Probably not. There will always be things that could be better - finances, wanting to travel, etc. - plus you never know if you'll run into fertility issues. But, all of that said, I do think that there are some times that are better than others to start TTC.
And I think it's a combination of things and not a simple answer - at least not for us.
We wanted to be financially stable. I don't think it's necessary to have the child's entire college fund saved up before you TTC or anything crazy like that, but aside from a mortgage and a car payment we were debt free. I know this isn't possible for everyone, but I do think that not having a massive amount of consumer debt or living paycheck-to-paycheck is important since babies come with a lot of unexpected expenses. I also did a "baby test budget" to include costs like daycare, etc. I don't think you need to plan for every eventuality - like multiples or a special needs child - BUT I am glad that our proposed budget had plenty of wriggle room, because when we found out we were having twins, a lot of those estimated costs suddenly doubled!
I don't think that buying a house is necessary, although I know that many people do and will disagree with me. But in some areas, renting can actually make more financial sense even if you're not building equity in a place. Clicky (not necessarily that post, but follow through to the other posts she links to). We do own a house, but were planning on buying regardless - so I wouldn't do it JUST because you want to have children, but because it both makes financial sense and is a goal of yours anyway.
It was partly the biological clock. Not wanting to have kids by a specific age, just the urge getting stronger. I've mentioned before that I like the alarm clock analogy - one day your baby alarm clock goes off. But you look at your life and say, "No, not yet," and hit the snooze. And that happens over and over for a while, until one day it goes off and you realize that you don't want to hit snooze any more.
We initially agreed that we'd wait until we'd been married a year before TTCing, but it only ended up being about 6 months.
That's not right for everyone, but by that point we'd known each other for 5 years and been living together for over 3 years (and didn't experience any real changes after getting married), so we didn't need to get used to living together or anything. (I hope that makes sense...I feel like it's coming out more garbled in text than it is in my head lol!)
Anywho, I think your thoughts are similar to what mine were - especially about wanting to travel. Since we have been together B and I have traveled a ton. I absolutely HAD to go to Japan before we had kids and I'm so glad we did. Definitely travel now if that's what you wanna do.
I definitely felt my clock ticking (I'm 32) and we felt like there was no reason for us not to start a family because we are financially stable with no debt besides our mortgage, we have a home, we have good health insurance, and B is able to stay home with Kaya when I work so we don't have to worry about child care.
I agree that you're never REALLY ready, as much as you think you are. But there just comes a time when you're not NOT ready. You know?
I agree with the rest of the ladies. There's never really a right time. DH and I agreed that we'd start TTC when we were 30, which would have been in April 2010. Well then I really started feeling my clock tick at 28, a yr after we got married. We talked about it A LOT and then agreed that no time is really the right time and so our journey began.
We lived in a one bedroom condo at the time and figured we could make it work for about a year or even two. While we were TTC my mom got diagnosed with cancer and we decided it was time to put our condo in the rental pool and move back to the midwest closer to family.
I'm 30 now and one my way to 2u2. I will say that I think if I would've done this much younger, my body would have bounced back a lot quicker. I feel like now that I'm a little older (not that I'm old by any means) I feel like it's taken me time to even get close to where I want to be. Besides that pregnancy and raising children is exhausting, completely exhausting! I mean if I was 23 doing this, I could be up all night no problem. Now I'm a walking zombie sometimes, ok most of the time!
All of that said, I wouldn't trade the way we did it for the world. We're financially stable. We live in a great neighborhood with excellent schools. We own both of our vehicles and have only student loan debt. Most importantly, we're in a loving, committed relationship and we're dedicated to each other and our children. We want to be the best parents we can be, at 23, I don't know if I could've said any of that....
lots of great thoughts here already. here's how it worked for us -
We had originally planned to be married w/o kids for at least 2 years before TTC. (We were already financially stable (no debt aside from the house), good jobs with good benefits, etc.) We agreed to try to have our first kid before i turned 31, so we could have another a few years later. My parents were 60 by the time my sister finally graduated from college, and it's been interesting to see how their lives have changed and how much less stressed they are since she left the house. I decided I wanted to be younger than that to have more energy when my kids are young, and to be able to enjoy our lives after kids before 60!
MH is 6 years older than me, so many of his close friends were having babies by the time we were married, and now they pretty much all have children already, except for the one couple who got married after we did. So I think that helped both of us feel more ready, earlier.
After less than a year of marriage, we decided we were ready, and talked about trying that fall - but in the spring, we went on a few different vacations (weekend trip to portland, 10 days in alaska - which was *amazing*, etc) and realized that just the two of us was so @#$#%$ awesome - we weren't *quite* ready to give that up yet. so we decided to wait some more, until the following spring. and then we just didn't want to wait anymore! (I love Lisa's alarm clock analogy! so true!!)
so, even though there's still a lot more travel we want to do, we just decided to go for it.
eta: a few more thoughts on traveling...MH and I agreed to try to take a week a year where we'd leave the kids with grandparents and travel on our own, in addition to a week a year of traveling w/our kids. here's a site I've been really enjoying about traveling with kids - wandermom.com. she's actually a former coworker of mine, and they're about to take their 2 kids out of school for a year to travel the world - definitely not for everyone, and i don't know that we could ever do it, but it's been super interesting reading how they're preparing for it!
Thanks, ladies! So many great things to think about...I'll be sure to share them with DH. I guess it makes me feel better that there is no "perfect" time...because then I'd be waiting for a long time!
Good points about healthcare and finding a job. I'm in Hawaii, so I don't think there are any state-paid benefits? Anyone know for sure? Also, I am covered under my husband's insurance, so that is good. When I got laid off from my job, a few people mentioned that it would be a good time to have a baby because then I could be a SAHM. The only thing is I don't feel financially stable enough yet. We don't have any debt -- paid off all the student loans and bought the cars outright -- but my husband is in construction, so (1) he is paid hourly, which has been rough in this economy, and (2) I am worried about what happens if he gets injured/sick and can't work, especially since it is such a physical job and he is getting older.
Buying a home is definitely something that we had wanted to do, even without children in the picture. Maybe it shouldn't be such a high priority or be included in the "criteria" list. I am sure we could make our current rental work if we needed to.
Oooh...I didn't know father's age made a difference. MH is 38, so that is something for us to consider too. We want to have at least 2 children, so that is another thing for us to keep in mind.
Sandra, I love the idea of leaving the kids with gma/gpa to take a trip once a year. And travelling with the kids would be fun too, just different and a lot more expensive!
Anyways, so many great thoughts...I'll let it all sink in for a bit. Sometimes I get a little overwhelmed when I look at this board because there are all these questions/stories/considerations that I never even thought about! There is so much to learn!
I love Hawaii!
Tara & Ian . 4/24/2008 . The Kahala Planning . Married
Does he have income protection insurance in case he gets injured? That might be something to look at if it's a concern for you.
Thanks for the idea! I'll look into it...
Hopefully it will be useful to you! It can be kind of expensive, but a lot of Aussies in physical jobs get it.
i pretty much agree w/everyone else in that there is never a perfect time for anyone, that's just how life is. it's hard not to over analyze though and get overwhelmed
we definitely wanted to be married and travel some and be just "husband and wife" before becoming "mom and dad." we were married several years before TTC. we were faced w/the decision of when based on DH's training... i knew i could not wait until he was done w/his program but then that put us w/having to deal w/the hardship of him being gone long hours when she was first born. in the end we just had to move fwd based on when things were "not as bad" b/c there was no "perfect" time. and really, even though we tried to time it a certain way, you never know how long it will take...and it took us about a year, something i never expected, so our timing wasn't even how we really intended for it to be. that said, we were just grateful to get PG after all that time
as for financial stability, i don't think you necessarily need to wait until you find a job if you would consider being a SAHM and you guys would be ok on just one income...but i do agree with suzie orman (have you seen her show?) that you really should aim to have an 8 month emergency fund...that is, your monthly expenses x 8 in a savings account so that if your DH were to lose his job, you guys would be ok for 8 months while he finds another job.
oh and i agree w/sandra about leaving the kid(s) with the grandparents while you travel...and we intend to do that...but we still haven't done that. it's so hard emotionally to leave them. not to mention, if you are BFing it is hard to store up that much frozen milk to leave on a trip like that. some women may have no problem doing that, but i did find the thought of having to store up that much to be a bit overwhelming. i am sure when she is older we'll do that...but for now, we don't foresee doing that any time soon.
Jaime & Brent
Oahu, Hawaii | Sept. 9, 2005
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