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Original poster

I want a baby but my boyfriend wants to wait

135 replies

WelshFarmGirl · 08/04/2019 16:37

Hi, I'm not really used to posting this stuff so please bear with me.
Me and my boyfriend have been together for 4 years this year. We moved in together at the start of this year after a long battle to get him out of his mother's house. We are not engaged (even though he knows I want to be) but that's another story. We are 22 and 25 which I know is young.

Okay, so my parents were young when they had my older sister (they were 21) and had me at 25. My sister had her baby at 21 and my aunts/uncles/cousins have all started families young. I always said by the time I was 21 I would have had a baby. I understood that university needed to come first so i concentrated on that and am graduating this July and going to work straight out of university. My job means I am able to work from home. So having a baby is the next step for me. We are a settled couple. I had my fun drunk times in university so I'm done with all that.

My boyfriend on the other hand wants to wait. He's slow with commitment and doesn't want children until he's 30. I don't want to wait until I'm 27 to start my family. His mother had him at 35 so she convinces him waiting is better. He was an only child so it's not like she had to factor in more than one pregnancy. I would like 4 children if I am able to carry and have children. And so I'd want to start trying soon because I don't want them all close together.

I know I sound really needy and I do keep on at him about it a lot but I just don't know what to do. I really can't stop thinking about having a baby. I am on the pill and taking regularly (I don't want to fall pregnant accidentally in case he thinks I've done it on purpose). His mother does make comments on how I'm planning to trap him with a baby but if I wanted to trap him I would be done it 4 years ago! But every month I hope he'll say okay let's try.
What should I do?
Please help!

OP posts:
ABC1234DEF · 09/04/2019 16:30

Given your user name, I'm guessing a sheep farmer. Where is the baby going to be while you're herding? In its car seat? What about dosing? Dipping? Lambing? A baby isn't supposed to be on a farm honey

www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/pregnancy/why-should-pregnant-women-avoid-sheep-during-the-lambing-season/

MumUnderTheMoon · 09/04/2019 16:39

Here's the thing, when you choose to have a baby with someone you are tying yourself to them and their family for ever. So setting him aside how do you feel about his (overbearing?) mother being your child's granny?

Interested in this thread?

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Families
Apoiads · 09/04/2019 16:40

At the very very least, you're going to have to look at having enough money to A. take maternity leave B. have the money to pay for someone to farm while you're not able and C. childcare for when you're farming.
Your DP has another job. He can't mind the child or farm!
Babies aren't like lambs. They don't just get up and run around after a few hours!

Apoiads · 09/04/2019 16:43

The mother is not overbearing. I'm sure she stays well out of her sons life, but if my ds had a girlfriend who wanted to have kids and get married while he was 25, I'd be saying, honey, do what you want, but what about a year in Australia? Why would you want to be tied down at this age?? And I am far from interfering. I'd just be asking the question.

Jessgalinda · 09/04/2019 16:55

I am just trying to put myself in the mothers position. Her sons girlfriend is still at Uni, not working full time, but apparently owns a farm that makes the equivalent or a good full time wage, she is early 20s and desperate for a baby.

I would be worrying about what happens when she earns less or zero. I would be worried she thinks its easy to run a farm as a fulltime job and care for a baby, how would that even work as he has a job too.

I would be thinking she may want him to quit his job to support the farm. I would be worried it's not in the slightest bit realistic.

I would also have my doubts about the girlfriends wonderful family, who appears to have kids very young, everything was blissful growing up on the farm with both parents out all day farming and having young kids, who are so supportive that when the sister couldnt look after the baby, the baby was looked after for 6 months by a young girl who had a farm and was at uni.

I would be thinking if it's all true why couldnt the parents help out.

I would be concerned the girlfriend wasnt living in the real world, or not being honest.

powershowerforanhour · 09/04/2019 17:20

I imagine the OP has considered farm safety. My two siblings and I had a healthy dose of fear put into us at a young age of bulls, cows with calves at foot, the slurry lagoon, PTO shafts, the silage face, etc. If the slurry in the slatted houses was being agitated or there was a lot of tractor work going on eg silage cutting, we were kept in the house, packed off to grannys or allowed to go and watch the silaging from a distance, while granny came to mind us.

The OPs parents are in their early 40s. I don't imagine the OP is going to be left all alone with a baby, a farm and no help from parents and possibly a part time farmhand or farm relief services as required.

I have lambed ewes and penned them up, milked ewes and tubed lambs, forked silage, carried feed and water buckets, walked the fields checking the turned out ewes and lambs, ringed and marked lambs alone with a baby on my back. With a helper (husband/sister/brother at weekend, part time farmhand during the week...plan accordingly) I have done the more elective jobs like weighing, dosing and foot bathing with her on my back too, although I prefer to leave her in the house with mum for the latter jobs as there's only so much your back can take.

SoHotADragonRetired · 09/04/2019 17:24

I don't imagine the OP is going to be left all alone with a baby, a farm and no help from parents and possibly a part time farmhand or farm relief services as required.

Apparently her sister was left to it with a baby, to the extent that the baby had to be cared for by a full-time student for six solid months.

Jessgalinda · 09/04/2019 17:26

The OPs parents are in their early 40s. I don't imagine the OP is going to be left all alone with a baby, a farm and no help from parents and possibly a part time farmhand or farm relief services as required.

Surely if her parents dont have their farm anymore, the sister baby would have been looked after the OP for 6 months?

As the parents are in their 40s, they likely have jobs themselves or their farm. Granny may not be on hand to have the baby at the house.

OP says she will be doing childcare herself.

powershowerforanhour · 09/04/2019 17:31

Your current boyfriend is a different question. You are young enough to sit tight for a bit but if you think he is going to be a heeldragger or mummy's boy, then think carefully. The years of waiting for a heeldragger to pick their feet up and get on with it are stressful. Not saying he is one- it's perfectly reasonable for him to want to wait- but he has some form (slow to fly the nest) and 5 years is quite a long time to stress yourself wondering whether he will try to move the goalposts at the end or not.

powershowerforanhour · 09/04/2019 17:46

I had assumed the parents and OP were going to work the family farm together, with a succession plan in place. As for the sister's baby care for 6 months...hmm perhaps more details would be outing?

As far as "live a little!"- she has, at uni and "advance your career" - if this is the family farm then in her early 20s she has probably already been acquiring the skills over the past 10-15 years.

mimibunz · 09/04/2019 17:51

People like you piss me off. He doesn’t want a kid.

Mitzimaybe · 09/04/2019 18:07

He was reluctant to move in with you and you've only lived together for, what, three months? You want to get married; he doesn't. You want to have a baby; he doesn't. You are on completely different pages and it sounds like maybe he's not all that into you.

Honestly, relationships shouldn't be this hard work. You should be having fun in your 20s. I think you should call it a day, let him go back to his mum's and look for someone who wants the same things you do.

Jessgalinda · 09/04/2019 18:19

I had assumed the parents and OP were going to work the family farm together, with a succession plan in place. As for the sister's baby care for 6 months...hmm perhaps more details would be outing?

Why would you assume anything.

She may have been acquiring skills. Huts it not family farm. She claims to have set up her own business.

I am sorry but there is not reason for a teenage girl who is a fulltime student, to also have to take full care of a baby for 6 months. When her parents are so supportive, apparently. They could have done something? And OP claims having a baby young worked for her sister? How did it?

Putthatlampshadeonyourhead · 09/04/2019 18:31

If the OP parents cant possibly step in when their daughter can not look after her own child and the only other option is a young uni student, then its doubtful they will be able to step in to provide regular child care.

I certainly wouldn't have a baby, if they are what I had to rely on for childcare.

powershowerforanhour · 09/04/2019 18:40

She claims to have set up her own business
Own flock number?

ILoveMaxiBondi · 09/04/2019 18:42

All these details about who owns the farm, whether OP knows farm safety and whether granny can give a hand with childcare are completely irrelevant. She doesn’t have a partner who wants to have a baby with her.

Putthatlampshadeonyourhead · 09/04/2019 18:47

ILoveMaxiBondi

I disagree. If she truly wants to squash her baby fever, then the details are relevant. That's what will put her off wanting one.

own flock number

No idea, first off she said she had a job and would start work straight from uni. Then it was 'my business is now on its feet', then she added 'I am a farmer'.

I would assume she has her own flock number. But who knows.

Maybe she does live on the family farm, which might be one of the reasons the boyfriend didnt want to move in. Maybe it's not really her own business. Who knows?

mummywingingit · 09/04/2019 18:49

My husband is younger than me, so naturally I wanted things earlier than he did.
He made it clear he wasn't ready for marriage or babies at that time, but some day would be.
I loved him, so was willing to wait until he felt ready.
We bought our house after 4.5 years together, engaged after 6 years, married after 7 years and baby after 9 years.
Yes I would of loved to of been married and had a baby sooner, but I would never want him to do it against his will.

You just have to be patient if this is the man you want to spend your life with and have children with.
If it's a case of wanting a baby and marriage right now and you aren't happy to wait then he isn't the one for you if you can't respect his choices.

SenoraSurf · 09/04/2019 18:53

You wouldn't be entitled to any mat pay as you'll not have worked surely? Seems like your being impatient.
Have you considered a pet?

powershowerforanhour · 09/04/2019 19:13

Well that's right in a way ILoveMaxi.
I guess she can get plenty of advice and share other people's experiences about farming and parenthood on farming internet forums.
I don't understand the patronising and sneering of some posts on this thread like "She claims to have set up her own business". Why wouldn't she? I know plenty of farmers' kids who have set up their own businesses based on the farm quite young, a pair of brothers who took over the running of a big farm in their late teens when their father's mental health declined - they also had a sideline buying and selling hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of secondhand machinery and implemented a couple diversification strategies over the next few years, one of which required a big bank loan but succeeded and nets them big money now; and another woman who was widowed with very young children, kept the farm and made a go of it.
Yes it's possible to go tits up as well and easy to lose money farming but I feel OP is getting sneered at partly due to her age.

QuaintDuck · 09/04/2019 19:13

Just to say I'm mid 30s I work, have a husband, 2 children under 4 and FUCK ME ITS HARD!!! And that's with supportive families and a DH who desperately wanted children. We spent almost a decade travelling etc before we had kids and I still dream of holidays without children's activities etc and I like being a mum!

Apoiads · 09/04/2019 19:25

The thing about this OP is that she's never going to be able to travel, so she probably thinks why not have kids!
The BF on the other hand, is not tied to the farm.

OP, there's a reason why farmers marry into other farmers.

ILoveMaxiBondi · 09/04/2019 19:25

Agree power. I don’t want to say my opinion/experience of babies/farming as I fear if would be seen as encouraging the OP Grin and truthfully I think it’s not what she should be doing right now. A willing partner is just about the most important factor and without that its a big fat NO.

FloatingthroughSpace · 09/04/2019 19:27

hand up I had 4 kids, starting at 31 and not even that close together due to losses etc. Still squeezed them all into my 30s.

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