When is the right time to have a baby?

[Gangle]

Hello everyone. First time on mumsnet and not yet pregnant so not really sure I should be on here but . . . question: When is the right time to have a baby? I'm 30 (31 in August) and got married last year and have started feeling v.broody of late. However, I have some reservations which mainly revolve around getting fat, feeling unattractive, loss of independence, leaving a fab job and never having quite the same relationship with my hubbie. Did anyone else have these fears and, if so, what did you do to overcome them? Any thoughts greatly appreciated.

[fryalot]

Hi Gangle. Welcome to mumsnet.

Sorry - you won't want to hear this, but you will get fat, you will feel unattractive, have loss of independence and you won't ever have the same relationship with dh.

However.....


It's well worth it.

btw, Mumsnet is not just for mums. We even have some...





men!

[Twinklemegan]

IMO there is never a "right" time. If you wait for the right time you could end up leaving it too late. Just go for it.

[DimpledThighs]

any time and no time is the right time

[Rumpel]

I don't think there is ever a right time. You don't know how you will be - you might pop back to your pre preg size in no time, you might have a great pg and look amazing and feel fantastic, it will probably bring you closer to your hubby (after you get over the initial couple of months). You could keep your job and request job share.

The thing is if you leave it until you feel ready it might never happen. We would have loved children years ago but my DH was in a very serious accident and took a couple of years to get well enough to TTC. We were half expecting to have conception problems but were really lucky. The thing is though - you don't know until you try. I'd say discuss with your DH and go for it!

[SenoraPostrophe]

the right time is about 4pm imo. then you can have afternoon tea afterwards.

[bristols]

Totally agree with the others. I think Twinklemegan has summed it up perfectly. For me, once I'd had DS (6 months ago), I have enjoyed all the changes in my life - relationship with DH is different but better, my career is happily on hold for the time being and the 'loss of independence' is short lived. We're beginning to get out and do things without the baby now and up until now, we only wanted to do things with LO anyway! Good luck

[SenoraPostrophe]

sorry...

really though: why are yiou paranoid about being unattractive? when did you last see an ugly pregnant woman? ok so you might have a few pounds to lose afterwards but ya know, there are more important things. you don't have to leave your fab job either unless you're a professional abseiler or something.

[Twinklemegan]

Yes, you have to bear in mind that it might not be as easy as you think. We're all brought up to think that one missed pill and bingo. But it took us four years.

[lemonaid]

Do you definitely want children eventually, or is this a "should I have them at all?" dither? What does your DH think?

I agree that there's never an absolutely "right" time, and that you will you will get fat / feel unattractive / lose some independence / change your relationship with your DH. None of those things needs to be entirely negative. It's a bit like a roller coaster -- if you are sure that you'll enjoy yourself once it gets going you grit your teeth and get on even though you know that all the way up to the start of the first drop you'll be thinking "why am I doing this? Can I change my mind now, please?"

[MadamePlatypus]

Re: getting fat and unattractive, we all get older and find it more difficult to lose weight whether or not we have children. I certainly get more excercise running around after my toddler than I ever did on an average day pre-children (and I used to have a 14 mile round trip to work by bike).

No you won't have the same relationship with your hubbie, but that will change in 2, 5, 10 years anyway.

Re: fab job, its up to you how you choose to juggle children and job. Plenty of people do both. No their lives aren't perfect, but whose is?

Re: loss of independence - depends what you mean. You will have complete freedom to go to the zoo, legoland, build sandcastles run around pretending to be a dragon and not look stupid as long as you have a young child in tow.

Its good to think about how your life will change before you have children. However, its also good to remember that the messy, painful difficult bits of life aren't aberrations from the perfect life that you think you should be leading, they are life and you can't avoid them, with or without kids.

[malaleche]

Right time to have a baby is about 9 months after conception...

[Roskvawantingsomesunshine]

Hi there, and welcome. I wish I had discovered mumsnet before, or even during my pregnancy!

I know this is not terribly helpful, but I don't think there is a categoric answer to your question: it's whenever it is right for you.

I think I was really worried when I was pregnant that my life would never be my own again, but dd is now 6 months old, and I don't begrudge a minute that my life revolves around her. I just count myself eternally grateful that I have no financial pressure to return to work. But then, I had already given up a career to do my own thing, so that was not really an issue for me.

With regards to getting fat, I actually found, to my surprise, that when I was pregnant, I was happier with my body image than I have ever been: I was pregnant and proud of it. This must have showed, because I had more compliments on my appearance when I was pregant then before or since. What I did find really weird was the changes taking place in my body, especially as for the first time in years my body was doing things that felt, well, alien, and because it was my first pregnancy, I didn't know what was 'normal'. I found the book 'What to expect when you are expecting' really useful, and in this forum you have the benefit of anonymity to ask all those questions that you are too embarassed to ask your midwife, which is why I wish I had found it earlier!

Dh was absolutely terrified of becoming a father, but now he is completely enchanted with his little angel. He didn't make an issue of the fact that for a couple of months after dd arrived, all I wanted to do in bed was sleep, but I guess that might be more of an issue for some men. It is a bit of a transition going from being a couple to being a family, but neither of us have any regrets about becoming parents.

However, the days of getting ready to go out and being out of the house within five minutes are long gone - it took a while to get used to allowing at least 15 minutes to dd's kit and dd into the car to go anywhere!

Good luck, whatever you decide.

[whyamisoweak]

Trust me, being (temporarily) fatter, having a less exciting career and a less than perfect relationship with your dh ( again temporarily) is a small price to pay for the joy a child can bring.
Go for it

[pointydog]

don't even think about the right time.

people think about it too much.

[Gangle]

wow, thank you for all the messages - really helpful to have so many points of views. In answer to one of the questions, yes, I definitely want to have them but just not sure when and wondered if there was a magic time when you suddenly know it's right but from the responses, it seems that there isn't! Completely take on board the comments about the time it could take to conceive. One thing is though that lots of friends I have who are a few years older than me don't even want to think about trying yet which makes me think I have years when in reality perhaps I don't. Also, I've been reading endless books on pregnancy and childbirth which either make it seem awful or really glamorous (eg Jools Oliver's book) so hard to get an honest answer. Probably thinking about it too much!

One thing though - does the advice to have children under 35 apply to all your children or just the first one?

[mum03]

I have been lead to believe that the quality of your eggs goes down rapidly from age 35, and your risk of down's syndrome or the like goes up significantly from that time. Fertility decreases gradually, but the fertility rate in books says that it drops significantly after 35, and that applies to all pregnancies, but it is an individual thing. Having said that I did not have my first until I was 35 and my second when I was 36 and now contemplating a third child at 39!!!! One collegue of mine waited til she was 33 and then immediately went into premature menopause so could have no children, whereas other women are naturally concieving children well into thier 40's and beyond.

I think that is always a case that you say "oh no - what have I done", when you finally get pg. But it is a journey that has many rewards. I think the fact that you are already contemplating it, suggests that now might be the time for you!?

[Biglips]

hi Gangle and welcome

A few of my mates were asking me when was i gonna have a baby? i said when im ready but i wasnt sure when i would be ready though...one of my friends said to me that You will never be ready!...i had a baby a month before i turned 30 and its was perfect timing as i had a long hard think - well about a year!...before i decide to have a baby and i love her to bits

[Gangle]

Mum03, why did you decide to wait until mid thirties? Was it just the right time for you? I have other friends in their early thirties who say they are by far the youngest in their NCT groups. Do you think it is something you definitely don't regret? Do people ever wish they'd put it off a couple of years or is it vice versa, ie you wish you'd done it before? Worry that if I go ahead and do it (assuming I even can get pregnant) I will think ohmigod, what have I done, I'm not ready by which point it's too late! BTW, DH is desperate to start trying so feeling the pressure a bit!

[majormoo]

Hi gangle. I had my first baby at 29 and was the youngest in my NCT group. I think whenever you have a baby you probably get a degreee of that 'oh my god what have I done' feeling no matter how old you are, as it is such a change to your life. I met my DH when we were young, so perhaps that's why we ended up being the first out of our friends to have a baby. I'm now 32, DH 34 and this year LOADS of our friends are expecting babies, so that must be a popular age to get down to it!

Personally, I wish we had started trying a couple of years earlier, as we now have 2 kids but would possibly like a third, but are unlikely to try after I'm 35

[JodieG1]

I was 23 when I had dd, she's now 5 (just was at the end of feb) and I have ds 3.4 and ds2 7 weeks old. I'm 28, 29 in Nov and we are done now. I'm glad I had children young, always wanted them before I was 30.

[fortyplus]

Gangle - Hi and welcome to MN. All your worst fears will be realised but you won't care - I wouldn't have thought of myself as having any maternal instincts at all until I had ds1 when I was 32.

Go for it! You'll wonder why you didn't do it earlier

[skerriesmum]

I had my first at 32 and felt it was a good time for me as I was going to take a career break anyway, and had already traveled loads, been with dh for six years, etc. I just had a second baby (I'm 36) and want to have a third in two more years!
It does change your life, and there are positives and negatives, but nobody I know with children has ever regretted having them. It is the most amazing experience. Go for it!

[Chandra]

Reading at your first post I would say you are not quite yet ready, if you perceive maternity like that there' along way to go.

Although if we concentrated in all the things we loose, the human race would have never existed... obviously, being childless you have no idea of what you are missing. The truth is that once you have had a baby around for a few weeks you will start to wonder how on Earth did you manage to leave without one

[Chandra]

to LIVE without one!