@absolutelybloodyanonymous
I’m 39 and suffered recurrent miscarriages and multiple rounds of IVF. (Veternan of MN infertility page) Would love another and time is obviously of the essence for me but seems frightening to think that we don’t know the effects of the virus on the foetus and new figures showing more hospitalisations and illness for infants.
I am being honest in asking aiBu and feels quite goady to have everyone boast about their comfortable jobs and savings when so many others are on the breadlines.
Ok without boasting about our jobs or savings, even though they are legitimate things to bring up when you mention a recession. We bought a house at the lower end of what we could afford, it needs work. But if we both lose our jobs (unlikely but can’t boast about that
), our mortgage payment is actually relatively low. It means we won’t be able to do up the house but that isn’t the end of the world. It’s not an unsafe house, we’ve don’t the improvements to make it safe, it’s just dated. Kids are fine growing up in a dated house. If we get trapped in negative equity it’s not the best thing, obviously, but we could live here for the next 10 years. Probably longer, if needed. I guess that boasting too, even though our house was the bottom end of our budget and we were sensible with not going for the amount we could on a mortgage 🤷♀️
Speaking of 10 years, it took the country about 10 years to get out of the 2008 recession. You seriously expect people to wait more than 10 years until we’re out of a recession. Was your first born between 2008 and 2018? Did anyone question you why you were TTC during a recession? Would you have mentioned your secure job is pushed on your decision to have your first? We also don’t know how long Covid will last. It could be here indefinitely and included in the regular vaccine programme or it could be dealt with in a year. But you can’t wait to know because you just don’t know. It sucks that you feel your circumstances aren’t right for another child. However, there are couples with different circumstances to you. Some still trying for their first.
As for me, I’m in the category of clearly batshit crazy to you. I’m 30, we’re TTC our first and likely only. We have a personal preference that we don’t want children after 35. We also have a personal preference not to use fertility treatment (however, I wouldn’t dream of writing a goady thread about those who do). So time is a little bit on our side but ticking away slightly due to our personal preferences.
However, I know how quickly you can lose someone. My grandma was in hospital (a few years ago), not on high dependency just a regular ward. She had an infection along with some existing health conditions. I visited her on the Sunday (I like 200 miles from my family), she was sat up in the chair, she was on the mend. I left at 5pm on the Sunday and she was dead by 6am on the Monday. A friend of my mums died of Covid. She was only a few years older than my mum, that brought it close to home and made me concerned for my mum. My mum knits beautiful things for babies and has knitted some beautiful things for my friends. I want her to be able to knit some beautiful things for me. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’m losing someone because of this pandemic. That might be someone who is vulnerable or someone due to missed routine appointments or even if someone is delayed cancer screening. I don’t want to piss away any more time with these people and I want to give them a chance at meeting my child. Maybe that’s melodramatic for you but I lost 3 relatives in a 20 month period. Every year since 2014, either me or DH has lost a close family member. No deaths so far in 2020... what a great year to get that title. Although we almost lost FIL at the beginning of the year, before all this kicked off. I’d really like my child to know their grandad. DH didn’t get a chance to know either of his grandads as they died before he was born, he wants his dad to have a relationship with out child.
As for risk, I’m in a very low infection area. There have been a few hundred cases, not deaths, in my district council area. We have loads of open space (am I boasting again?) and there seems to be a correlation between densely populated areas and infection rates. My family live 200 miles and many are vulnerable so not taking any additional risks themselves. My in-laws live in another country. We aren’t travelling to see family. If I am pregnant all our family will be understanding about us not travelling to see them, if we chose not to. If I saw my family, I know they would be willing to isolate for two weeks before. Which is pretty easy as my mum is on permanent work from home. I might not get to see my dad but he’d understand. Both DH and I are working from home for the foreseeable future and both workplaces are recognising pregnant women/partners as being vulnerable, no matter how pregnant they are. I would need to update the risk assessment for me and they will provide me with additional PPE for the few occasions I can’t work at home. Which has been four times in 5 months and 3 of those have been outside. We’ve not been socialising massively and we will cut that back if needed. We’re both introverted and have a smaller group of friends anyway, especially local ones. We’ve been going over and above the guidelines. We were using masks before we were told to. If we go for a meal, trying to keep our local economy going, we try to stay in for the next two weeks. We are still maintain social distancing, even though I’d love to hug someone other than my husband. We don’t enjoy shopping for fun, so no additional risk there. We enjoy being outside, even if the weather is bad. You can’t completely eliminate risk but we’re doing as much as we can.
HTH you to stop being such a judgey fucker!