Married Life
ejh08278
member
Please visit my blog! re-discoveringhome.blogspot.com
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Baby Fever?
in Married Life
Ok... after 1.5 years of marriage I am starting to feel it. Any advice on how to decide if it's the right time to have a baby?
Thanks!
Thanks!
Please visit my blog! re-discoveringhome.blogspot.com
Re: Baby Fever?
DH and I have been talking babies since before marriage. I got baby fever VERY early and his faded fast. I sat him down and ask him his feeling on starting a family now, 3 mth, 6 mth, a year. It was great for us because he opened up about wanting to be just us for a little. We waited a year and then I brought it up again. At this point we had just hit our 1 yr anniversary and had a brand new home. We both agreed that we would like to get our savings account well in our comfort zone and go on vacation JUST US to Bahamas. So, now we have decided to wait until this January and go on vacation in May. We figured there is a chance we get lucky and get pregnant right away but there is also a chance it may take a few months so May is a perfect date for us.
Basically, you both need to sit down, look at where you live, how you live, how you pay bills, your free time, your job status, health insurance and anything you want to do before you have a baby. If you feel secure with all your answers then it is time to discuss going off BC.
BTW, introduce yourself on the Getting Pregnant board the ladies can help with any answers you may have.
TTC 19 months ~Started RE in March 2014~
DH was not ready for IUI so we waited
~Started acupuncture in May 2014~
~~BFP 7/6/14~~~EDD 3/14/15~~It's a girl!!~~
Have you and your husband discussed it at all?
Are you ready for your life to be forever changed and turned upside down? Are you ready to have your needs/desires take backseat to another person? Where are you at in your career, and are you happy with where you are? Financially, how are you and your husband doing......just getting by, socking away a ton into savings, somewhere in between? Are there any big goals - home ownership, finishing a degree, etc that you really really want to accomplish soon?
I love my sons. They truly are my reason for living. But I'd be lying if I told you that being a parent was all fun all the time. It is hands down the hardest, most often thankless job that you will ever do. My life in no way resembles what it did 5 years ago before my oldest was born - in a lot of ways it is better, but being a parent means sacrifice too. We aren't spontaneous anymore, there's a lot less disposable income now, we really don't have any "down" time anymore, it's a lot harder to find time to reconnect with my husband, since we're so busy and tapped out at the end of the day. Your marriage will likely hit some rough spots (lack of time, lack of sleep, frustration.....it's easy to snap and shut down communication).
I wouldn't give them up for anything. I love being their mother, and I love them so much that it hurts my heart and brings me to tears when I think about it. It is so much fun to see them grow and develop into their own personalities.
But it's hard. And I'm glad that I waited until my late 20s and 10 years into my relationship with my husband before we took that plunge.
H and I set goals and guidelines for when we'll be ready to TTC.
We both have baby fever like crazy, but we just remind ourselves of the plans we've already made, and the fever just gives us more incentive to achieve those goals.
We looked at a few things. We decided it was time when we both had good jobs and were financially stable and mostly out of debt, when we'd been living in our house for a few years and knew we could afford it and when we both felt ready to put someone else's wants and needs before ours for the next 20 years.
For us, that meant we were 10 years into our relationship and 5 years into our marriage before we even tried. I don't regret that for a minute. I would never give up the years we had alone together before DS was born. I love being a mom but like PP said, it's not easy. It's the most rewarding thing I've ever done but also the hardest, on more levels than I was even aware of before having DS. DH and I credit our relatively easy adjustment to parenthood to having so much time together before he was born. We had a very solid foundation to build our family on. It helps that we have an easy kid for the most part but we have a lot of friends who had kids in the first few years of their relationships/marriages and it seemed to be much harder on their marriages than it has been on ours.
This. I have baby fever baaaaad BUT I have goals that I would love to be met before TTC (i.e. finishing my degree, paying off debt, etc.) and that is what's keeping me on track.
Plus, like PPs mentioned - spend some alone time. Random getaway weekends (even if it's just to a B&B a few hours away), staying up late for no good reason, etc. Just have fun and enjoy "us" time.
Is it hot in here? Nope it's just the baby fever!
DH and I have been talking a lot about babies since getting married, and we both want them sooner rather then later. But, I have a few things that I want to do before taking the plunge, namely paying off credit cards, getting a full time job (between jobs at the moment because we are relocating for DH job), and dropping around 15-20 pounds to make sure that I am at a healthy weight preconception.
But to answer your question, only you and your DH can know when it's the right time for you, talk about it together and figure out what your priorities are.
We got baby fever really bad when we were newlyweds. But DH was still in grad school, and we didn't feel like we could swing in financially, particularly because I really want to be a SAHM or work part time when the time comes. We had plans to start TTC as soon as we were within 9 months of DH's thesis defense. Which was like 3 years out at that point.
Somewhere in the interim, I feel like we really hit our stride as a couple and realized we don't need kids to be a family. It's been 7 years since then (been a couple for almost 12 years), and I'm so grateful that we've had all this time to ourselves. We ended up taking most of a year off to travel the world recently. We've saved up a lot of money. I've finally reached a place in my career where I actually probably can work part time in my field if I want (which wouldn't have been an option 5 years ago or even 3 years ago). Whenever we do bring a child into this world, I think we will have more to offer it for waiting. We'd probably wait longer, but are starting to worry about declining fertility (not super worried yet, but time isn't really on our side anymore either). Now is the time to think about what your other goals are. What do you want to do for fun? What do you want to do to secure your future?