Have name changed as I’m usually woefully sloppy with giving out identifying details about myself, and am a known MNetter in real life, so thought I’d make an attempt at privacy for this. Sorry in advance but this will likely be long.
I have always felt very strongly that I wanted to be married before having children. No judgment on whatever anyone else chooses to do, and I know often the decision is taken out of people’s hands anyway, but I’ve alays felt I wanted to be absolutely committed to someone before deciding to bring a child into the world with them on purpose. Plus the legal protection of marriage plays into my reasoning in no small part. I’ve been 100% sure I will get married before trying for kids for as long as I could possibly have been thinking about such things, it’s never been in doubt for me (and actually I’d have considered it a deal breaker if a partner hadn’t agreed to it)
I am 30, DP is 28 and we’ve been together for 6 years. We are very settled and happy together, he’s a fantastic partner and my best friend. We’ve decided we want to get married, and have been talking about when to have children. We’ve been talking about it for a couple of years actually, but turning 30 ramped it up for me.
We were looking at getting married next year, but even trying to do a wedding on the cheap (big stately home do’s are not us) it was still getting expensive very quickly. We are lucky to have lots of friends and family we really love and would want to share the day with. I tried to cut our potential invite list down to the absolute bare minimum and still couldn’t get it below 70, not including kids. This is a lovely problem to have but it does add up the costs even just in food and drink. I considered briefly eloping or doing it just with immediate family and best friends (which would still take us beyond....30 or 40 people at least!) but I just couldn’t do it, I want the people I love there. So we’ve decided to marry instead in 2020, on a date that’s significant to us and I think worth waiting for, and enables us to save for the wedding we want. I am happy with this decision after a couple of months of worrying how to make it all work, and the pressure of figuring out how to sort it in that time has just gone. But of course this pushes back TTC by at least a year if not more, date is about 2.5 years from now.
So now I’m thinking, why don’t we just try for a baby now? There seem lots of very good reasons to just go for it, and try to have a baby before the wedding. But I’m really going back and forth on myself. DP knows how I’ve always felt about being married first and had agreed with what made me happy, but he doesn’t feel so strongly about it so wants me to be sure of my feelings.
My good reasons include:
- I know 30 isn’t old, and I’ve no reason to doubt my fertility, but I’m conscious that having your kids younger is generally better for health reasons. I also recently had some cervical cell changes discovered at a smear (it’s fine for now but they’re being monitored as early stage at risk) and the thought that I could put off and put off trying, and then have the choice taken away from me by something like cancer feels me with such deep dread.
- DP has a medical condition which could impact sperm motility. It’s not for sure, and potentially a low risk, but should it be the case it could take us longer to conceive and I think we should consider that. At the moment time and age are on our side.
- Our relationship is wonderful and solid. I know I have a true partner in DP, he won’t be ‘babysitting’ his own kids, and he doesn’t ‘help me with the house’, he does his perfect fair share of our life together (if not more at times). He is fair and patient. I can completely rely on him. Marriage would solidify that legally but I don’t have any fears about him leaving or his skills as a parent. He is already a wonderful uncle, in fact he’s probably more child friendly than I am, and ‘Dad’ to our cats. I know he will care for and support me and any children amazingly, whether we’re already married or not.
- My DDad died very suddenly, young, recently. Both my grandfathers also died young, I didn’t know them. It has brought mine and my other loved ones mortality into focus (unsurprisingly) and I want to make sure my kids know my DM and DPs wonderful parents, who are all already brilliant and involved GPs, and have them around in all our lives for as long as possible. DM is on heart medication and hopefully will live another 30 years, but her DM died when she was 33, and I know she’s always felt her absence in hers and is children’s lives. The longer we wait the less potential time I see.
- I am close to my siblings and cousins and want my DCs to have that opportunity too. Our sibling’s children are already appearing and I’d love them all to be close in age.
- We live amongst a great support network of friends and family we can rely on, emotionally and physically. We are very lucky in this regard.
- Financially we are just about fine. Could always be better of course, but DP is on an upwards trajectory and even as we are now living costs including childcare would be fine. We don’t own our house, but we live near London and prices are nuts. If we waited to own we could be waiting a long time!
So yes, many ticks in the yes box! But what about some cons?
- We have some debt. Not crazy but needs dealing with, any decision to TTC would have to be accompanied by heavy duty knuckling down to saving and debt repayment, but I think knowing why we were working hard to do that quickly would make it easier.
But number one negative - I fear I will always judge myself for not waiting, for going against my own beliefs that I’ve always held so highly. I’m not worried about anyone else’s thoughts, I don’t think it would bother anyone else at all which way round we did it, but it might well bother me, and I’d hate to have that niggling regret in the back of my mind - I guess that I didn’t meet my own standards for want of a better term.
But I’m conscious that anything can always happen, we can’t plan life to a tee and sometimes maybe we just need to go for it? I am a worrier and do always feel like I need to be in control of ‘the plan’ but recent events have shown me sometimes you really can’t plan.
Fully prepared to be told I’m being utterly ridiculous, but after rolling this around in my head gettings nowhere for a few weeks I thought I’d present it to the wonders of MN and see what you all thought.
So, if you made it this far, thanks! Would be grateful for any advice.