Aibu to join the bandwagon and ttc?

[DexyMidnight]

Ok so I appreciate it is never a given that one can conceive easily or indeed at all. I also appreciate that you should never have a baby unless they really really want one, and you are 100% sure you are ready to be a mother/father.

The rational side of me completely understands this.

The irrational part of me is completely panicking b/c life was amazing, we had so much fun with all our friends, completely hedonistic work hard play hard lifestyle, amazing holidays, lots of disposable income and now the 5th couple in our friendship circle is pregnant and i feel like the rug has been pulled from under me and suddenly i feel like maybe we should be having a baby too?!?

I have suddenly developed irrational 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em' attitude and i just wanted to know if anyone else had a baby b/c all their friends were and it turned out ok for them?

In case relevant : married 2 years, own mortgaged house, have rental income and good salaries, could afford f/t childcare fairly easily (for one kid at least)

Thank you again @queenaravis. I do know that in the end it's a unique choice and outcome but i do so want to hear from more people like @lottapianos to know im not alone in feeling this way.

@waitingon it's not the fact she couldn't make it it's the fact that this awesome powerful woman i knew seemed, in that moment at least, to have morphed into a 50s housewife. Fathers can't babysit their own children; they parent them

Hi @paper thanks. It sounds like your DP instigated things in your situation. Were you relieved? Sometimes i think id love to fall pregnant accidentally so the decision had been taken out of my hands. Other days i think id hope conception didnt come naturally to me (i know that is a wicked thing to say) so i could say we tried but things werent meant to be. I just hate the burden of the decision

It sounds to me that you would be doing it for the wrong reasons at the moment. You still have a few years on your side so I would just wait and see how your feelings develop. I’m slightly similar to you in the sense that me and my hubby had a great life, very social, holidays, disposable income etc and I was unsure if we wanted children but I was 33 and it seemed after 17 years together we should really make a decision! So we decided to “see how it went” off of contraception and I was pregnant within a month!!! The difference with me though is my friendship group were without children so I very much felt like I was a bit “alone”. However ...two of my closest friends are now pregnant!! I’m currently lying here with my beautiful 7 month old daughter and I wouldn’t change anything. I definitely struggled to adapt in the newborn days but now my LG is growing I can finally see the light!! I think you should take your friends out of the equation and ask yourself whether YOU really want children ... are you prepared for the complete change? The selflessness? The sleepless nights? Putting someone before you? The laughter? The fun? The love? The awe? The bond? .... it truly is magic but only when you’re ready x

Thanks dreary i might do a fertility test to see if i have time on my side. Scared to know the answer but it might help with tbe decision

Yes it's fair to say DP was the kickstarter. I'm glad for it (I've avoided too many things out of fear and anxiety), as I think I would always have wondered if I should have tried - but (and I don't think it's wicked, it's all so difficult) would probably also have been accepting if I'd turned out infertile.

I wasn't keen on pregnancy/birth/babies but enjoyed older kids so am now reaping 'reward' for the hard first few years. If it's babies you prefer then can you actually imagine the long-term with older kids??

'I just hate the burden of the decision'

I recognise this so much. It's an enormous decision to make, and one of the few in life that is completely irreversible. You are far from alone in feeling ambiguous about the whole thing, even if it seems like everyone else knows exactly what they're doing! It sounds like you're feeling very lonely and left out and a bit directionless, and that's entirely understandable. It gets better, I swear. Trying to make friendships with other non parents helps enormously. I find it really validating

If you lose your friends to motherhood (which isn't actually a definite, it depends on the person), you will make new ones.

I don't have kids and nor do many of my friends. I have met them through work, hobbies etc and they are around to have fun in the evenings and weekends and not just at a 2pm playgroup.

Yes @lotta its the fact its irreversible. Don't get me wrong i take my marriage vows seriously but at the end of the day if my husband and i decided to part ways all our friends and family would stand by us (assuming of course there had been no horrible betrayal).

What are you meant to do if you realise parenting is an awful decision? Have the child adopted? Would your friends stick by you?

Oh my head is a mess i really just wish i was 10 years younger or 10 years older :(

It's a horrible feeling when your head is all over the place. I would gently suggest that it's definitely not the right time to be making life-changing decisions. It doesn't sound like you're itching to have a baby - far from it. Like I said, you feel very left out and wondering why your life doesn't seem to be on a definite path like your friends' lives do. I do recommend Gateway Women - there are lots of women on there who are highly ambivalent and struggling with the decision

Another thing that might be useful is thinking how you would feel if you did a fertility test and were told that it was highly unlikely you would ever get pregnant naturally. Would that feel like a shock? A relief? A loss? A mix of all of the above? It may help to clarify your gut feeling. And try to imagine what you would like to be doing on a Saturday afternoon in 10 years time. Do you see children in that picture? Or would you rather you had other options about how to spend your free time?

I actually don’t think it’s the worst thing if you’re in a stable place to have a child.

For one, having friends around you with babies is much easier as you can help each other and just hang out with babies and feel like your social life isn’t 100% over.

Also, I do believe that a lot of people make big life choices - marriage, children, buying a home etc - because they watch other people doing it, and a lot probably convince themselves after the fact that that wasn’t why but they do.

I probably got pregnant really because I saw friends trying and struggling and was thinking better to start earlier rather than later. Also because my best friend had them and because I was itching to get on with the rest of my life. If no one around me was doing that I probably wouldn’t have wanted to be the first / would have assumed that waiting was better because everyone else had come to the same conclusion too.

@lotta - this is great advice. Also to @wheezing, thanks. I keep revisiting this in my head: how many people really ever feel ready for something so alien and (as @lotta says, irreversible)?

People - generally - say its life changing and life affirming and profound and indescribable so how can they be 'ready' for it? Sure you can be financially ready and domestically ready and in a stable relstionship but i think we all agree that's ideally not enough. So what does "ready" mean? How do you "know"?

Why does everyone else "know" and i dont?

Gah sorry for ranting im just trying to process thoughts. All your views are very welcome and very helpful.

I will check out gateway@ lotta

'Why does everyone else "know" and i dont?'

I know it seems that way, but remember you're only seeing the surface of people's experiences. You don't know how many parents are ambivalent like you, or only going along with it because their partner is desperate for a baby, or are now regretting their decision, or feeling terrified about the future. People get tons of validation for having kids, and it's definitely still seen as the 'right' choice to make and the 'natural' thing to do. It's very hard to be on the outside of that.

I dont' know if anyone is really fully 'ready' but I think it's definitely possible to feel much more ready than not ready if you know what I mean.

There is nothing wrong with you, you are entirely normal and WELL DONE for giving this issue lots of thought and not just blindly following the crowd. It's just tough to be apart from the crowd, especially on a massive issue like this. Find your tribe. Gateway Women is a good call

Hi @DexyMidnight

I had the exact same feelings as you.

Everyone around me... at work , all my friends , all my husband's friends were having kids.

Several kids.

I feel I've completely lost all my friends, and for a while , I too felt like you "maybe we should because everyone else is" etc.
They all traded us in for other couples just because they had kids.

It is a sad feeling.

Anyway, 5 years later and the people we know are still having kids. Even people we thought would never have them.

But we've made a few new friends and we stay in touch with our old friend's but it's not the same. They're acquaintes now I guess

It definitely wasn't a good enough reason for us to have kids.

We are very happy in our relationship (probably the happiest out of all the people we know)

And what's that saying... "being child free in your 30s is like being in your 20s... But with money"