Help...when to have children?

Thanks, folks. Wisdom from both of you. That's exactly it, RunLyraRun - I do feel as though I have to be sure enough for the both of us (and I'm not sure I'm that sure...). It's exactly that fear that if it goes 'wrong' in some way or I just found I wasn't 100% happy (it's a huge rarity but I know at least one friend who doesn't really enjoy being a mother, though she loves her kids of course) it would be that much harder, and DH certainly would blame me to some degree - though would probably be nice enough not to voice it (or only when things got really bad...). But what to do about it, that's the trouble! I feel the same as you re. the long-term thing - I do want this to happen in my life, and also to have DH's kid in particular.

It's a very interesting idea re. counselling, idealcamel. It's not one I'd thought of. I don't think DH would be keen but it might be good to air our views calmly in front of an objective listener. I'll perhaps sound him out - if nothing else, I want him to realize this is a real problem and one that is affecting me a lot, and I think he might be (usefully) surprised and startled if I suggest counselling. So it would be useful to discuss it, even if we don't go for it in the end. Yes, the whole issue of his indifference/disinclination is making the journey much harder. And of course it affects things like sex - not catastrophically, but when he suspects an agenda it makes it harder to initiate, and we're probably having less, ironically, to stop it becoming an issue, which is obviously not exactly ideal in the TTC context. Sorry if this is TMI! Sigh.

Anyway thanks v. much to you both - will keep you posted!

Levi I'm butting in here - feel free to tell me to fuck off - to wonder whether it's hit a point when counselling might help? It's bloody hard this TTC lark, especially when you feel like you're the person pushing for it to happen. And you may well need help making up your mind about IVF.

I'm also with Lyra in wondering whether you're uncertain because you're the one asking for babies and your partner isn't totally supporting you. Do you think it's having an impact? I know that my husband and I aren't in quite the same place about TTC - he's way more laissez-faire, while I'm obsessing - but I do know that he definitely wants a baby. I think I'd find this pretty annoying & depressing journey a lot more annoying & depressing if I was the one doing all the work. As it were.

PS Fab name. I loves me some Billy Bragg.

uncertainty, not uncertainly. typos are worse when they are real words, don't you think?

Hey Levi! This is a pretty old thread, but happy to resurrect it with an update

So, 3 months on from this discussion, I'm pretty surprised at myself for sticking with the "dare" idea and actually starting TTC.

I'm still terrified, terrified, terrified - of everything. But then I tell myself:

a) "everyone" does it, or none of us would be here, so can it really be such a big deal? The only reason we're worrying about it is because we are lucky enough to live in a society where we have the luxury of choice.

b) I don't relish the prospect of being pregnant. Or giving birth. Or dealing a with a tiny baby. But I DO want a person in my family who belongs to both me and my DH, and who will be around (hopefully) forever. So it's 2 years I'm not looking forward to, followed by 40-50 years that I am. Not a bad trade off.

My DH has warmed up to the idea at around the same rate I have, give or take the odd blazing row at times when one of us goes either on or off the idea out of sync with the other!

I think it would make a massive difference to me if I felt that my DH was doing it "for me" - it would make me feel that I had to be much more sure than I currently am. Sure enough for both of us, in fact. I would worry that if it "went wrong" in some way, or was just difficult at times (which is surely inevitable), then my DH would blame me, either openly or subconsiously, for foisting the situation upon him. Sorry if I'm projecting onto you here, but I wonder if any of that plays into your uncertainly?

Hi all,

Hope you don't mind me butting into this thread. I was on another (To TTC or not to TTC) and RunLyraRun posted there, and alerted me to this one (she was talking to someone else, so hope you don't mind me hopping over, RLR!). This is a brilliant thread. I feel very similarly to WinnieP and RLR and many of you. Mine is what is known as a cautionary tale to some extent, however: I'm 37, and have been TTC for four years, with increasing assiduousness. I'm still simultaneously dithering, though (if that's possible?!) as I still don't know if it's what I want. We're now in the position of being offered IVF, as what the fertility doc and nurse call "the best option" for us now (we have what they call inexplicable fertility, though I suspect DH's drinking, which will not desperate is fairly heavy and sustained, isn't helping). So in one sense, I'm an argument for getting on with it as we haven't got anywhere in years.

On the other hand... I'm still unsure about whether I want kids at all, even after all this. Obviously IVF often doesn't work, but it feels like a way more deliberate step than just stopping using contraception, or even than peeing on sticks or any of that malarkey (which I was doing for quite a while, but have now given up, to be honest, and back to just hit and miss bonking!). Sort of wish we'd started earlier in a way, but then wouldn't have wanted to get pregnant at 33 (and I was 33 when we started trying anyway) as I was only 31 when we got married and we wanted some time for us. And still do, in some ways.

I'm so torn - DH is not really keen on kids, which is a big disincentive. But I had the happiest childhood, and still have a great relationship with my family, and always assumed I'd have one of my own. And want that, at least in theory. And adore my nephew, who is 4 months old (though I definitely get the best of him - I can see it's insanely hard work). I'm frightened of regretting it later, whether I do or don't. Feel so similar to many of you on here. My top three worries:

1. It ruining my relationship with DH, on whom I would be foisting kids to some extent. (He's brilliant with kids, and I think would actually get on board in a big way, but his position is that he doens't really want them, and is only co-operating so that I don't get miserable and he doesn't ruin my life...).

1. That I will worry even more than I do already - the things that some of you have said much more eloquently than I can.

1. Am also petrified of the birth, and lasting trauma after it - am an utter wimp over pain, and have stupidly read some of the horror-story threads about childbirth on here...

OK, enough - sorry to ramble on and on - but so nice to read like-minded posts. (And very nice to hear about relatively late motherhood - which gives me hope, though four years TTC is obviously not the most positive of situations.)

I had never wanted children and warmed up to the idea late in life. Do you have friends who have children? I think that it's easier to contemplate if you can see friends becoming parents and still being the same people - just with a different lifestyle. We have several "model families" that we secretly admire and are trying to copy. Unfortunately before I became pregnant we also encountered friends who seemed to completely lose themselves in parenthood. The "if you're not sacrificing everything then you're not doing it right" school of martyr-parenthood. It did put us off for a while.

I word of warning - it's not that unusual in the first year to have times when it all seems so hard and you're so tired, and you end up arguing with your OH and you wonder what on Earth you're doing. It does get easier. Until you have a second (third/fourth) child and you start all over again.

I am uber-anxious about everything too and also wittered about getting pregnant for quite a while. I am now nearly 19 weeks pregnant with my first, and am AMAZED at how calm I am. Seriously. All my previous worries (about everything: work, health, money, life, people, blah) have faded into insignificance, and it's not like I am now overtaken with pregnancy worries - obviously it is worrying, and I do get concerned about things 'will we cope?', 'will the baby be ok?' etc, but I know that we WILL cope, and that it will be the best thing we have ever done. In fact, I can't wait to meet him/her in November. I really don't think you should um and ah too much over this: everyone feels worries and concerns about such a life-changing prospect, but you won't regret it. I"m sure. Good luck.

That too!

and bladdered.

After coming to MN and reading threads like this I feel so much better about being scared and going for it anyway.

Yay everybody here, old and new, frightened and seasoned.

In France, don't they send new mothers to a Ping Pong Ball Fouf Trainer to get you back up to speed?

lyra just come an join us now. You can up the collective gin intake nicely for a few months, especially as it looks like we may be a gin drinker down, or even possibly two!

triggerhappybaby, I'm looking forward to joining the mid-thirties TTC thread in September, if you'll have me. I have lurked a little this morning and it looks right up my street - I love gin and have a completely cream house

Winnie, maybe see you over there in a year or two? Given the parlous state of my ovaries, can't imagine I'll be up the duff anytime soon!

Drink more gin. We drink a lot of gin in the mid-thirties thread and we are almost all now prepared to bite the bullet even though we may have to miss at least one ski trip and perhaps default on Glasto next year.

Of course I'm not saying it is something that should be entered into lightly, but stop worrying and let the old hag Nature do what she will with you. There is nothing you can do now that you won't be able to do in the future. Except perhaps fire ping pong balls out of your fouf.

Winnie, I know it sounds like I've "turned in a mere day", but to be honest, I've been thinking/worrying about this for years.

It's not like I woke up one day last week and thought "gosh, I'm nearly 34, I wonder if I want a family!"

I met my husband when I was 28, and I remember on my 29th birthday saying to him "I don't want children, I don't know if I'll ever want children, do you still want to be with me if I don't?" And I've been flipping backwards and forwards on the issue ever since then, so we're talking almost FIVE YEARS of serious fretting, cogitating and procrastinating.

I think I'm looking for something to push me over the edge, and all these positive comments, coupled with the reassurance of knowing that being terrified doesn't make me a complete freak, are nudging me towards that precipice.

I assume it didn't just dawn on you a few days ago either. But maybe you haven't been working this through in your head for as long as I have, or maybe you've got the luxury of a bit more time to think about it - I think I mentioned that I have PCOS, which could really complicate things.

So. I'm off on holiday to Kenya in August, which means I've just had lots of really unpleasant vaccinations, and I'll be taking malaria tablets while I'm there. I imagine we'll be doing a bit of boozing too! But come September, it's out with the alcohol, in with the folic acid, out with the contraception, and in with seizing the day/grasping the nettle, and all the rest of it.

Maybe

Lyra and Winnie - I just think you're both fabulous. Just wanted to say have found this thread really interesting. I can totally sympathise with the way you feel, although I was one of the "feel the fear and do it anyway" ones. Two scrumptious boys later it was the best decision we ever made.
I really hope you go with the "dare" idea - perhaps that's what you need to jump start the idea. I don't think there's ever the right time, I remember thinking that just before we got PG the first time, but it just works.

There is never a right time. Once you have kids your life changes more than you can possibly imagine - the fact is once you've got them you don't care. I was a bit like you - never really felt broody, heard the clock ticking around 34 and went for it. Thank God I did - since having the children I can't imagine anything worse than not being able to have them. I'd get on with it if I were you otherwise you might miss out on the greatest experience life has to offer.

Obviously given that we over-think everything it would be madness to approach motherhood on the basis of a dare.

But how about if, as control freaks, we look upon it as taking control of the situation and making an ACTIVE DECISION to TTC? Because if we don't, and the decision is made for us by biology, well that's not a great place for a control freak to be, is it? I know I know, it's an appalling idea, but if we want families in the fullness of time, it's kind of the only way to get them.

And to be honest, what else are we going to do in our 40s if we don't have children, and all our friends do? We'll have no-one our own age to play with, and we'll be missing out on all that family stuff (although we wuld have tidy houses and great holidays).

As a frightful American acquantaince once said to me "sometimes you have to take the leap before the net appears"

PS Winnie, I hope you're not doing what I do and thinking "if I'm not grown-up enough mentally to do this, then maybe I'm also younger than age biologically, so this over-35 stuff doesn't apply to ME" - there are enough horror stories on here to tell you that that's dodo doodoo

Lyra - this is a double dare of epic proportions!

Thanks all for further comments, you are lovely here on MN.

Winnie, I know we're not ready, and I know we're terrified, but I think we might have to "feel the fear and do it anyway" - otherwise the choice could be taken away from us, and we don't want that, do we?

The missive from Royal College of Obs and Gynae this week was pretty strongly worded

Who knows, it might take so bloomin' long to have children that we might be ready (or at least, more ready) by the time they finally arrive.

We could arm ourselves with plenty of information and preparation, that sometimes helps with the fear? At least we know that there is an answer to ANY question we could think of - any many we could not - on MN.

I'll try it if you will!!

Just a note of caution - I can't comment on the readiness etc as within 3wks of meeting dh we had discussed what we hoped for in our future - luckily we both envisaged a family.

Anyway, I was married at 29, but decided to leave it so that we had some 'us time' at the beginning of our marriage - we started trying when I was 30 a year and a bit later. Ds didn't arrive until I was 36. No2 has failed to materialise (no, that's wrong - 2mc later, still not had a No2 that wants to stick around). I do hope that, when you feel that you are ready, you don't have to wait as long as we did - but it happens...

LOl at winnie and Lyra with their 25 headings and matrices.

I have 2 cats, didn't have a moments thought about getting them.

Having children was a completely different decision altogether, there's so much more responsibility (plus there's little chance of a dog or cat catching malaria in a gap year ).

I have likened having children to having cats to my friends except everything is multiplied a million times over. Children are a million times more hassle than having pets, but the love you feel for your children is a million times stronger and more satisfying.