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Need Advice on starting a family
Hello! My name is Summer, and my wife and I live just outside of Seattle.
My wife, J, and I were married back in October. We've been together for 4 years as of this July. J is strong, beautiful and the light of my life.
After we got married we went on a fantastic honeymoon cruise in Europe. One afternoon we were hanging by the pool on Lido deck and I saw a family walk by with their little baby, and I (mistakenly) asked "When do you want to start a family?". This caused J to break out in hives and say "What??...we JUST got married, why are we already planning the next stages of our lives??" I was a little hurt at the reaction, but at the same time I understood her rationale: We DID just get married, and we were on our Honeymoon. Why get ahead of ourselves? Let's just enjoy our time for now, and we'll get there when we get there.
After we returned from our Honeymoon we settled back into our lives. My cousin, K, had her first child not too long after we got back. After spending some time with her, J told me that she would like to plan on having a baby in two years. I thought that was PERFECT. It would give us more time to enjoy our marriage as just the two of us, to grow in our careers, become more financially stable and to really plan what we would want to do when that time came.
Well here we are, a few months later. We both have worked hard to lose weight, J is working hard in her job and is very well noticed and on the fast track to upper management, my job is slowly sucking my will to live, and I see babies...EVERYWHERE. I can hear the sound of ticking clocks at every turn, and whenever I see a baby my uterus does backflips.
The other night as we lay in bed I turned to J and said "I'm having a hard time." "With what?", she said. "With waiting 2 years to having a baby.", I said. She then began to rattle off the "Reason's We are Not Having a Baby Right Now", which contained "I just lost a whole bunch of weight and don't want to put it back on (when we do have kids, J will carry)", and "I'm doing really great in my career and I'm worried about what having kids will do to it." I quietly conceded and fell asleep.
I should note that about a month ago I talked to J about going back to school so I can get a better paying job. She was concerned about that because we're planning on having kids in two years, and since I want to stay home with them and not work, what's the point of dropping a bunch of money on an education that I'm not even going to use until our children are much older? It kind of ended up being a choice between going back to school or having kids, and since I so desire to have children, I quietly conceded, and said "Okay, maybe later, when the kids are older."
So here I sit, 28 years old, in my soul sucking job, on parole until I can have children in two years.
Any advice?
Re: Need Advice on starting a family
oh goodness, i understand the sentiments in your story well.
first things first: Hi summer!! so glad to "meet" you and congrats on your wedding!
and now to the topic at hand: ::sigh:: my wife has gone from "lets wait 5 years" to "lets never have children", and back again. I wish i had some magical solution to share with you, but the only way i've found to get through the tough times is patience and faith. Open communication is also a biggie - even if the end result is sticking with the current plan of waiting 2 years, openly expressigng your feelings to J (as you did very well in this post) will make a world of difference. I've also found that putting myself into a new project or hobby makes the time pass quickly and gives me something to look forward too as the minutes pass at my soul-sucking job
over the past year I've taken a cake decorating class, volunteered at the humane society (that was AWESOME. nothing like adorable puppies and kitties to make your heart swell), and we've just begun the process of becoming foster parents. I also do a ton of baby sitting so I can get in the baby snuggling i'm missing (although, admittedly, that can be bittersweet).
in summary, here's my suggested plan:
1) sit down with J and express all your feelings on the babymaking. confirm that 2 years is what your goal will be (and/or talk about settign new goal), then make a list of what what you'll need to do to be prepared for that goal (savings, job stuff, house stuff, education, donors, wills, ect). This way you can at least take babysteps and without changing the final date, you're still feeling as though progress is being made.
2) Take a deep breath, practice your very best patience, and remind yourself that the child you are meant to have will come when the time is right. (revisit #2 as frequently as needed....for me, this is multiple times a day
)
3) Get yourself a hobby - add some passion (and distraction) to your life!
Blogs: Our Growing Family - CT Working Moms
What worries me about this post is all of the "quietly conceded" business. Did you concede because you thought she made good points, or because you just didn't want to argue about it? When to have a baby and whether to continue your education are HUGE decisions that you need to make together. CTbride gave great advice and I especially agree with the open communication part - your feelings are valid and worth being heard, even if you ultimately make the decision together that waiting is best.
I also don't think it makes much sense to put off education when you hate your job and don't have kids. Yes, it can be expensive, but it's an investment and an investment you'll likely enjoy more and get more out of if you do it now rather than wait until you're a frazzled mom with kids in high school (or whenever you're planning to go back). My mom waited to go to college until my sister was in middle school and it was TOUGH to juggle everything. ?
I am going to agree with Leapgirl - if it is at all feasible, go to school before you have kids. We are in the midst of this now. My partner is in school (and only taking 1 class) right now and it is a huge strain on our family (we have almost 3 year old twin boys.) Because she is working full time too - there just aren't enough hours in the day and she is losing time away from the kids. In addition, I work full time and have to take the kids solo 2 nights a week and most of weekend (from wake up-mid afternoon.) It is exhausting.
We have had it both ways (school before kids and now after - we were both in grad school for the first 3 years of our relationship and it was night and day to doing it with kids.)
You may not use the education immediately, but if you want to do it, do it now.
I think CTbride gave you a lot of great advice - and just think that if you go back to school, the time will go by that much more quickly.
Good luck!
Hi Summer
I'm in Seattle (always nice to have people nearby) and I can definitely relate to some of your post.
My wife and I have been together for almost 4 years, but we knew from the very beginning (like the very first week) that we would have kids (it was a given for me). The timing was up for discussion, but for us it's always been more about my educational time frame and buying a bigger place. I'll be carrying the babies and hopefully staying home with them. You mentioned that J will be carrying, but do you want to also? I just ask because you mentioned uterus backflips.
Even though the central factor in our timing is my being done with my current graduate program, it's still been hard for me to wait. In the meantime, I'm focusing on personal and intellectual growth and skill building, part of which is through my Masters degree (which admittedly I may not use right away), planning our move and strengthening our relationship.
What are your goals short term and long term, other than having kids?
What kind of career do you ultimately want to have (pre-kids and/or once they're older)?
What would you want to go back to school for and how long would it take?
I completely agree with the idea of making a list of all the things you both want to accomplish (together and separately) before kids. Oh, and remember that whenever you want to have the first baby is at least 9 months after you get to start trying. That definitely helps me! So even though we don't want a baby to join our family until next summer, we get to start trying this fall.
Staying busy and focusing on all the small things that will make our lives easier/better when we do have kids is the way I get through the wait. Sharing with others in similar positions, here and in real life are also helpful.
One thing I'll mention, in case you haven't heard about it, is http://www.maybebabyseattle.org/ It's a monthly meeting (and monthly potlucks too) for queer people planning families.
Feel free to email me if you're interested in knowing more about Maybe Baby or other Seattle area specific info...joyseattle at gmail
Good luck with all the decisions and please stick around, especially on our Wednesday PCP/TTC check in.
I think you've gotten a lot of good advice from pps. I'm popping into this thread late, but just wanted to reinforce the suggestion about making a list of things you need to do before beginning to have kids. Once we really sat down and listed it all out, we had a huge list! And getting those things done really did make us feel like we were moving forward towards having (more) kids, even though we delayed our original start date by 13 months.
Our list included baby-related things like saving up for sperm, and less-directly-baby-related things like having a new roof put on our house and beefing up our emergency fund.
Also, as the person in the partnership whose promotion delayed our start date (we plan for me to carry and I didn't want to try to deal with a new job and ttc at the same time), I would suggest asking J more about her concerns re: childbirth and career. Maybe if you better understand each other's concerns you can come up with a plan that works for you both. (BTW, how old is J? will her age begin to be a factor soon?)
IUI #3 gave us the best 2nd anniv. gift ever: 2 babies! (born 03/09/10)
Peanut and Little Man are getting so big! 2 years old already!
finally blogging again at This Will Be: An Adventure
Wow, thanks so much everyone for the great advice and feedback, and we've had some great talks since I posted this.
We decided that we're going to take one more big trip next year (to Asia) and when we come back we're going to start trying to have children. In the mean time I need to find something that makes me happy, like finding a hobby or something that fulfill's me. Honestly my heart isn't in going back to school right now, and I STILL don't know what I want to be when I grow up. So in the mean time I'm taking guitar lessons and enjoying my youth....well..."sort of" youth! heehee!
Thanks again for the warm welcome!