To ask what you would do in these circumstances?

[DecisionsDecisions321]

Sorry for the long post, don't want to drip feed.

To set the scene, I've been with my fiancee for 5 years, we are both 31 and we just bought a house that needs a lot of work doing to it (all we could afford, live in SE). We work in a niche industry which is almost entirely short term contracts (usually 1-2 years).

Following medical issues, last week I was told if I want kids its got to be sooner rather than later. Strongly advised not after 35 and IVF etc won't necessarily help then as the damage accumulates with age.

I just started a rare 3 year contract, so for the first time I have a contract that would qualify for occupational maternity leave (generous at 20 weeks normal pay but need to return for at least 6 months after), and may not get another contract where I'd get pay this good.

However, we weren't planning on having children for at least a few years and wanted to do several things first. We wanted to get married (not planned due to covid and travel restrictions for family abroad), travel (thanks again covid) and get the house into a reasonable condition. We also just don't feel ready and have almost no family support network as both sets of parents moved abroad.

If we ttc now, I would get potentially thousands more in mat pay, but no way we could fit in anything we planned before ttc. If we wait we can get more of what we wanted to do done, but big chance of losing a significant portion of maternity pay and gambling with issues getting more severe and making conceiving less likley/more difficult.

So AIBU to ask WWYD?

What do you want to do?

Wait a year and start trying then. In that year get married, have a nice long honeymoon and get the house done.

Honestly 20 weeks pay is not worth having kids before you are ready for.

You have only just found out about your health issues so it’s quite a sudden change considering you were considering trying in several years time.
Take a few months, plan a trip, enjoy yourself and figure out if you are ready for a child. You don’t need to make a decision right now.

If you definitely want children then I wouldn’t gamble given your circumstances. I would start TTC, say, within the next 6 months. Especially if you want more than one child.

6 months plus 9 months is a good window to get some things done - not everything you’d like perhaps, but one or two bits on your house, a bit of travel and a legal wedding (save big party for later).

It depends how important having kids is to you, surely? If you’re prepared to risk not having them for a bit of travel and a nicer home then crack in with your plans and roll the dice.

I really wanted kids so in your shoes I’d have set a year deadline to organise a small wedding and a bit of travel. Get the main house bits done and then I’d crack on and start trying.

Save for mat leave, have kids when you're ready. You might be ready in a few months, you might not be ready for a year or two.

Also consider what you'll do if you then can't have kids. No-one ever advises you to consider that and it hit me and DH like a truck when we found out we couldn't actually have them at all (cue the morons with "have you tried".. IVF / adoption / fostering. I need bingo cards).

Honestly, there's never a right time. Or rarely is! I think if you 100% know you want children, go for it now.

I left it too late, my medical issues rapidly worsened within just a 12 month period, a big regret that I didn't try sooner, and kept waiting for that elusive perfect time.

(cue the morons with "have you tried".. IVF / adoption / fostering. I need bingo cards

By far the worst "Have you tried not trying? When my second cousin's best friend's hairdresser was told they couldn't have kids, they stopped trying and then boom! Pregnant with triplets!"

There is never a right time, but if you do want children then given your health issues I would plan to start trying sooner rather than later, regardless of the mat pay issue. Personally I would plan the wedding ASAP (this doesn’t have to be expensive - in fact most people I know that have had costly weddings wish they hadn’t spent so much), have the best honeymoon you can (maybe multiple destinations if you can afford) then crack on. You can travel with children albeit very differently. You need to chat with your partner and work out what is important to you both and go from there.

If you have to ask others when the right time may be, it isn't the right time. What does your partner think?

Either way I think you need to get married first.

Give yourselves some time to come to terms with what you have been told. I have endo and underwent around 18 months of treatment including surgery only to be told my endo was aggressive and if we were considering children now was the time to start ttc but ultimately I would need IVF due to the scaring/damage/amount of endo deposits I had.

Children were something we planned in a few years time. We were in shock and took a week to discuss maternity, returning to work, looked at our savings pot etc. We had 18 months to prepare for the likelihood that it could affect my fertility but the surgery confirmed for us and the consultant the extent of it.

I wouldn't talk about it now, set a date for a couple of days or a week and then both come to that discussion. We had the what if we leave it and it never happens? What if we get pregnant immediately despite them telling us IVF in one years time and anything in between. What did happen was we decided to ttc and I became pregnant immediately. So much for planning!

Give it a few months to get your head around it and save then start trying. Plenty of parents do up their houses whilst they have children. You will always be able to travel together - those far flung countries will always be there. But you won't be able to have always have children together (if that's something you want.) there's never the right time or if there is (when the house is done, you've done the dream trip, climbed the career ladder ect) you may well find its too late. As yourself what is most important to you? (If it's travel or getting the house done that's perfectly fine but if it's children you'll need to align your plans around that.)

And to be brutally honest some men who say they don't want kids, actually find they do as they get older and can leave their partner for someone that can give them that. So think about what you want rather than being a passenger in this and be very open with your partner. Good luck OP

Spend the next year doing the house up and planning a wedding. Next year - get married, book some holidays, start ttc. You will be pulling your plans forward a couple of years but benefitting from the enhanced maternity pay and improving your likelihood of conceiving.

As said it depends on how important having a child would be. If you wait it might not happen. It isn't just getting pregnant, as we get past 35 the rate of miscarriage goes up. You need to be talking this through with your DP. Both infertility and rushing into pregnancy can end relationships.

For me I'd be ttc now - you don't know how long it will take. Do up the house and work as you go and then if you do become pregnant you'll still have a few months of work / house improvement.

If you wait and then you can't conceive how will you feel.

Is travelling and renovating really worth risking that?

31 - time not on your side sorry

What do you want? That’s the most important thing. You can get married for under £100 if that’s what you’re set on, you can travel most places now (holiday allowance allowing). Forget the maternity pay, you can save for that. You’ve got time to think about this, don’t rush into any decisions, it’s early days.

Wow, lots of replies. Thank you very much. I don't know how to tag people but really thank you.

My DP is really, really lovely. He is more worried about me. I asked what he wants and his reply was that he doesn't feel ready, and if he was being honest wouldn't for a while, but appreciates that by delaying it could mean that it won't happen for us (which he says would break his heart as he's always wanted to be a dad). He says he will go with what I want, but this only all happened a couple of days ago so I'll see if he still feels the same once the dust has settled a bit.

It is very fresh so I can see why lots of you are advising making big decisions on this quickly isn't the best idea, but to get the enhanced maternity pay I'd need to concieve within the next 7 months. So while taking 6 months to a year to do things is probably good advice, at the same time if we ttc in 9 months and were lucky enough to concieve quickly, I'd also probably kick myself at missing out on thousands of maternity cover that could have been used for baby/wedding/house by a couple of months!

Two things op.

1. Whilst this is a fixed term contract, statutorily you have employment rights after two years and technically this outfit would have to make you compulsorily redundant at the end of the three years.

1. If you start maternity leave towards the end of the fixed term contract, statutorily the organisation would have to pay you all of the outstanding contractual and SMP with your compulsory redundancy at the end of the contract. Also don't forget that you accrue contractual annual leave when on mat leave, not contractual.

That’s really tough. You’re having to weigh up all these different things and there are so many different potential outcomes and moving parts.

When we realised we would have difficulty conceiving but weren’t ready to have children at that exact moment, we did an ivf cycle and froze the embryo (only got one embryo from the cycle).

We were told that freezing eggs, for use later, does not give you as good a success rate compared to freezing fertilised eggs (very early embryos called blastocysts).

We were told that once you fertilise the egg and let it grow into a blastocyst (about 5 days old), it has a 70% success rate (if you have genetically tested it and the results come back to say it’s a viable embryo).

I don’t know if your medical condition affects your eggs or your ability to carry a pregnancy or something else. But if it’s to do with the age of your eggs then getting some out now, getting them fertilised and tested, then freezing the viable ones (ready to transfer back into you when you’re ready to get pregnant) could buy you time.

Quite literally buy you time… because it’s bloody expensive.

Also, as with anything, there is no guarantee. You could plan it perfectly and have embryos on ice, ready to transfer but if you haven’t had them tested, maybe none of them end up being viable.

And if they are tested, there is no definite guarantee they with survive the thawing process and be successfully transferred and definitely implant and no guarantee that if they make it that far, that they will definitely grow and pass the two week wait, then the 12 week mark… it’s such a roller coaster.

Only you will know what is the right decision for you.

If it were me, I’d be trying straight away but that’s because I now have a one year old and can’t imagine not having him. So I’d do everything I could to make it happen. Also because I now realise how hard it can be to conceive. I realise that I could start trying today and end up finally falling pregnant 7 years later. Or not at all.

You might fall pregnant naturally on the first try.

It’s impossible to know what you do without a crystal ball.

Life can only be understood backwards. Yet we have to live it forwards.

I’d sit down and have a heart to heart with your partner.

I wish we could have had more time just us, before our baby joined us. We both do and we knew we felt that way/ would feel that way before we did it. But we didn’t have the time, we had to choose. To start our family earlier than we wanted to or face the likelihood of never having a family at all.

We have no regrets but it’s been tough. Really tough.

Like others have said. There is never a perfect time, so waiting for that is pointless. But I appreciate some times are significantly better than others!

I wish you all the luck in the world.