So one of the things I like the most about our BMB is the chance to hear from and interact with moms quite different than myself. One difference that has struck me is how young many of you are! In my social circle it's very unusual to have kids before your 30s and TBH I'm not sure I ever would have gotten started if I weren't staring at a fertility deadline! I adore DD and am looking forward to our next LO, but I really enjoyed my many years of independent adulthood pursuing my own interests and pleasures too. So for me "someday" finally became "now" because I knew further delay might make kids impossible. Please share what made you decide now (or when you had your first) was the right time to become a parent! Edit: I should also add that I didn't meet my husband until I was in my 30s (I'm so grateful I didn't marry the man I wanted when I was 25!), and he also wasn't ready until we had to be.
Re: GTKY: Babies, why now??
Five years later, we're married and decided that we were ready for another. I didn't want there to be a huge age gap between DS and our other children, although he has a cousin who is the same age and they're two peas in a pod. This time was planned in a sense that we just decided we would quit BC and see what happened, and it happened that next month.
In my area, women tend to marry out of college, start their careers and start families younger - mid twenties. I don't know what I would have done. First time I was thrust into motherhood. Second time, I'm easing in again. Like any other momma would say, it hasn't been easy, but I wouldn't trade my family for the earth, moon, and stars. Mom life is the best life!
Anyway, LO was a super surprise, and we decided to keep it because there's a very strong possibility I can't have another one. (I'm 26, he's 28. In FL, well a lot of the South actually, 19 is the normal age to get married.)
Baby #4 Due November 2017!
Baby #4 Due November 2017!
So all that plus my hormonal yearning for a baby added up and we decided to start trying this summer. I had consistently low temperatures and a short cycle so I was convinced that it would take a while, but I got pregnant the first month. We are both thrilled!
I always thought I'd wait longer, because my mom was 40 when I was born, but marrying someone older than me really made me rethink that. I'm glad for that now, because having kids now means my parents will still be able to be active grandparents.
With this LO, it was very much a surprise and unplanned. We wanted the kids to be about 2.5 years apart but didn't feel ready for several reasons. We wanted to sell our wast coast house and get out of our current rental which is small. In August I was two days late so I bought a cheap test "just to see" both came back positive. I had tested abut a week earlier bit I just had a feeling. I had to buy a FRER and an ept test just to make sure. I will be 31 and DH will be 33. We are done after this. I tease DH because we always knew two.was our number, but he kept pushing off having #2 and so before my BFP I told him if I had the baby before I was 33 I would get the surgery, otherwise he would need to go under. He didn't l9ve the idea but agreed.
I always wanted my first before 30 (around 28 or 29) but I happened to meet DH at that age. As much as I wished I had started having kids then, I'm glad I waited to have kids with the man I see as my partner. And we got to do our own thing for 4 years. I hope we get lucky again for us to have a 2nd in the next few years. I was pretty much a single child till my brother was born when I was halfway into elementary school. I'd like our kids to be a few years apart in age so they can hang together.
After building a house, paying off all our bills, multiple vacations with friends, and maintaining a savings account we decided it was time.
I will be 30 when our baby girl is born and DH will be 29 ( unless I go a bit past due date and in that case DH will also be 30)
I'm so so so glad we spent the last 5 years really enjoying time with each other and didn't rush into anything. Our family also encouraged us to wait and I'm so glad they did.
I've had friends that have had babies between 20 and 24 and a few have told me they wish they waitied a bit longer.
When I got married at 26, I lived in constant fear that I would become pregnant... That I would be in charge of nurturing my career, caring for a mean drunk and raising a baby. I couldn't be saddled with that kind of responsibility. My ex just wanted to drink, play video games, and entertain the idea that he could be the next Louis C.K. He couldn't be bothered to help with anything unless I repeatedly rode his ass. Eventually (and thankfully) the marriage ended.
During the divorce (well actually a little before) I started having feelings for my coworker. I know. Risky and very rebound-ish. But I couldn't help it. He was so different from my awful ex, and I could see we were pretty much the same person with similar values. And he was dead sexy.
Well, one night after several margaritas, I made a move and got shot down. To be fair, he had a girlfriend at the time (but he had made it clear to everyone he wasn't happy). It took him almost a year later to make the move on me. We've been together ever since.
I have no doubt in my mind that I have been in love with him longer than we've been together. And maybe it was that magical mix of love hormones and seeing how amazing he is with children that made my ovaries start to squirt with a fury. Seriously ya'll, the dude is a child magnet. All kids love him.
We'd talked about having kids and MAYBE getting married someday, but it wasn't until I had to take out my IUD, because of a weird and somewhat rare side effect, that we conceived. It was a mostly planned pregnancy. I'm 32. He's 38.
We both just flow together. When things come up, we just deal with it. There's no drama. I don't have to worry about him, because he is responsible. We both have the same level of cleanliness. And he makes me feel loved and safe. So yeah, my ovaries couldn't help themselves. I met the person I was meant to love for the rest of my life. That's why we're having a baby.
Edit for clarity
Ive always wanted to be a lawyer but now I plan to go to school for social work (less demanding). This may seem really... I don't know, depressing, but we've received a lot of support from both sides of the family and we're really excited and very much in love. And for the record, I was on very careful BC and we used condoms! LO is a surprise but we really can't wait. Things happen!
Husband and I took a strange and winding path to babies; they were a late addition to our 5-Year Big Plan. I came home one day and announced to my then-boyfriend (now-husband) that I had signed up for the LSAT, and that I intended to go to law school. He was immediately supportive and began pushing me to go for the best full-time program I could get into, even if it meant quitting my job; his rationale was that supporting me now in my career might mean more flexibility in the future for him to start the small business he’s always talked about. We started planning a big Europe trip together, too, as kind of a last hurrah before school. A couple months later, we added property ownership to the plan as a means of investment and in hopes of lowering our cost of living. And if we were going to buy property together, marriage needed to happen, too (he'd been planning on proposing on our trip, but we moved that to before we closed on a home). Our plan was we'd get married in the late winter, buy in the spring, go to Europe (if we could still afford it) in the early summer, and start school in the fall. We’d spend hours every week crunching numbers and discussing possibilities for the future and making sure we were right on track.
Except that I didn't get the scholarship we were counting on, so we decided to re-apply a year later. And we couldn't find what we were looking for on the market, so we decided to postpone buying property, too. One evening we were talking about the fact that according to the new schedule I'd be at least 34 by the time I graduated law school and 36 by the time I got two years into my career… and suddenly, the plan was to have our first child a few months before school started, and our second while school was in progress. Age was a factor (he’s five years older than I am), as were career considerations. We assumed it would be less disastrous to my career to have our children while I was in school than to take maternity leave too soon after starting a career in a highly competitive field. We were also hoping that my class schedule, when I started school, could be arranged in such a way that we could rely less on daycare than if we were both working 40 hours or more per week.
So he did end up proposing in late January, as planned. Two weeks after that, we got married, exactly on schedule. Our Europe trip became our honeymoon, and a few months later, I was pregnant. Realistically, everything else about our plan is on the backburner indefinitely, but I’d say things turned out okay.
DH and I met at our crossfit gym about 2.5 years ago. He was in the end stages of divorcing his ex (it took nearly 2 years because they kept filing stuff wrong), who he has 3 boys with - ages 15, 13 and 6. I made it clear when we started dating that having (well, trying for) at least 1 kid was non-negotiable for me. Honestly, I'd love 2, but not sure we can swing that financially with the 3 we already have. We got married in February with a honeymoon planned for May, so started trying right after that. I'm 31 now and DH just turned 38, so we didn't want to wait any longer. I had a mc at 5 weeks in early July and got pregnant again my next cycle with this little girl.