Jealous of mums

[Riley2015]

Hi I know I am being unfair but can't help the way I feel. Just wondering if anybody else has felt like this?

I feel really jealous of my friends with children and wish it was me!

I want a baby so much but I have just started a new job and we have bought a house that needs quite a lot of work doing to it. My husband wants to wait a year so I have been in my new job a while before ttc and we can get some more work done on the house.

I am just finding it hard waiting when all my friends have children and babies seem to be everywhere. I know my turn will come but I can't stop feeling jealous !

it is going to happen though just in a year. enjoy the time you have now as once you do have a child everything changes good and bad. I had my dd quite young and unprepared so while I obviously adore her i do wish I had that bit of time

Put your energy into getting the house ready and making a good impression with your job. A nice home and good income will be a good foundation for a child. Maybe start saving for your maternity leave so the plan feels real.

Don't under estimate this time alone as a couple, a stronger relationship can only be of benefit to future children.

If your childlessness is simply a case of you choosing to wait until a more convenient time, then YAB a bit U.

Take the time to spend doing your house up, have one last holiday to somewhere "grown up" and just enjoy spending time together.

If it helps, there will plenty of us who'll be equally jealous of you. We love our baby, but I do sometimes regret all the things we never got to do because she came along so quickly.

I know you are all right it will be worth waiting for a better time in the long run.

We got married this summer just gone and everyone keeps mentioning I'll be pregnant soon which is making it worse !

There will never be a right time to have a child. You could get pregnant soon (having looked up how long you have to have worked there by x week of pregnancy to qualify for maternity leave) and have enough time to get used to the job and sort the house out.
But having a baby changes things. I'm glad I had the chance to go on lovely holidays and the doing up the house stage was fun. (DIY is miserable and draining with a child.)
Equally I didn't get pregnant when I expected to - it took 6 years. So never hold back on your life plans cos u are waiting to get pregnant.
Plus he should have some say but I'd discount the diy and job settling argument. If he's just not ready for it and using it as an excuse you need to know.

How old are you?

Two pieces of advice:

1. The grass is always greener

2. Parenthood ain't all it's cracked up to be (currently gong through the trauma of having a borderline anorexic and self harming teenager)

I totally understand albeit for different reasons. I was told at 17 that I would never have kids as I didn't produce viable eggs and spent my twenties finding life incredibly hard battling with the desperate desire for kids and watching my friends settling down and starting their own families. it is very hard!

through god alone knows what miracle I got pregnant in 2013 with no medical intervention just a failing of contraception (even my gynaecologist was shocked) and it is amazing but I also struggled to reconcile that I was going to have a baby.

your feelings are perfectly natural but your dh isn't saying no he is just saying let's wait one more year. however only you know if that will be his response next year too.

depending on your age you may have ample time or very little so you need to decide on your priorities. there is never a perfect time but in the midst of renovating a house is definitely a less good time than others!

I'm only 27 so I have got time. I've just always wanted to be a mum x

then you need to have a serious conversation with your dh

I know how you feel - I was you, only older. DH and I had been together for a long time - 5 years - before I moved over to the UK to Holland and we got married. But we married late and then we were doing the sensible thing - me getting the nice public sector job with the better than basic maternity pay, making sure I was eligible, saving as much as we could. And all the time the clock was ticking, I was getting broodier.

We knew we were going to ttc so we just used the time to get in all the stuff we would not be able to do with a baby - rock climbing, caving, abseiling, all nighters in pubs - and enjoyed it all, knowing it was the last fling. I'd advise you to do the same - a child is life changing and if you can come at it from the position of maximum financial strength, that is definitely the way to go.

Have a look on the conception board. There will probably be a waiting to TC thread.

(And if there's not you can start a new one. It's nice to know you're not alone).

Echoing 'the grass is always greener' above. I have a DD and absolutely adore her, but sometimes look at my childless friends and wish id made the most of being relatively care free! Spend the year doing all the things you'll struggle with once you have a child, for example going out past 7pm without it being a military operation in babysitters/bedtimes etc. And enjoy being hungover without the joy of a toddler clambering all over you at 6am .

We got married this summer just gone and everyone keeps mentioning I'll be pregnant soon which is making it worse !

How extremely rude of them! Not to mention tactless. How can they possibly know about the workings of your innards not to mention your husband's?

I can relate.

When I was younger I wanted children so badly. As soon as I got married, the craving was driving me insane. I cried every time I had a period, I got weepy if I saw newborns, it just upset me all the time. I wasn't able to wait. It consumed me.

So I do understand how you're feeling and I think it can be a perfectly normal way to feel. You wish that you had a child. There's nothing at all wrong with that, if that's how you feel.

You are being very sensible about it. You want to start a family but your head knows it is not the right time for you.

My head was told to stfu and I really wasn't very sensible at all.

Your turn will come, as you say. Don't feel bad about how you feel or allow anyone else to make you feel bad. As long as you aren't showing how you feel to parents, or being mean, then it's ok.

As others have said, focus on the practical things that you want to do in preparation for it being the right time to have a child.

Your mates only show you the good bits! Yesterday a (childless) friend of mine sent me a picture of her feet literally up on a bar stool in front of an open fire with an enormous glass of chilled white wine. She was going to stay there all afternoon. I was changing my 4th crappy nappy on my teething one year old, knackered as I'm pregnant and had been up since 5am. The grass is always greener.
You'll hear people say that there's never a good time to have kids and to a certain degree they're right but a secure home and a good relationship are a pretty good place to start. I agree with pp about maybe saving a baby fund to cover mat leave might make it feel real but in the future rather than just in the future.