To have had a baby after being with DH for less than six months?

[itwasshelter]

Absolute insanity really. I think it’s worked out, hard to say. I do wonder how much we really have in common?

I think having a baby with someone you had only been dating for a few months was risky but glad it seems to be working out. And you've gone on to get married and have another child?

I got pregnant 4 months after meeting DH. It was a learning curve, but it's been fine overall. DD will be 21 this year.

Yes, got married when dc1 was about fifteen months. Around six months later found out we were going to be parents again (it was planned but we really didn’t think a second was on the cards due to my age - we were very fortunate.)

DP and I had our child 11 months into our relationship. I'd gotten her pregnant 2 months in, but we didn't know. In fact we didn't find out until DP went into labour.

We were still living apart when DD was born, we didn't move in together until DD was three months old. And it was hard, we'd never lived together as a couple, and now we had to live together as a family, as parents.

DD is now 18, and heading off to university this September, at which point it will just be me and DP for the first time in our relationship, for anything longer than a long weekend.

And it's slightly scary. I don't know if we'll still be together 5 years from now, I don't really know how we work as just the two of us.

I do know however that I love her, and I love our life over the past 18 years. And that even if for whatever reason we don't work out without DD being the glue that holds us together, then the last 18 years still won't have been a waste, or the wrong thing to do.

@itwasshelter , you may well have had a kid too quick, or got married to quick. There's no way to know, so there's no point worrying about it until / if you find out that's the case.

Your Op was vague.

Shall we move on, as I think any misunderstandings have been smoothed over and it’s not really adding to anything, is it?

Well, I was pregnant within a month of meeting Dh… odd looking back but I didn’t even feel it was a gamble. It was (genuinely) accidental but at the same time we were both ok with the idea. We were married a year later and stayed married until his death.

‘Le mariage est une loterie’

I could have been you OP. Similar concern around age, I was 35 when I met now DH and knew I wanted children - was already looking into going it alone and if anything meeting him put those plans on hold somewhat.

Bit longer than 6 months but it was just under a year when we moved in together and started ttc in earnest (and if I’m honest we had played it a bit fast and loose with contraception before that too).

It didn’t work out that way for us - took 4 years to get pregnant, and in a way I’m glad because we did have that time together first, and navigating all the fertility stress and disappointments together definitely helped me see the kind of man DH is and that my initial ‘good feeling’ about him was right. But if we’d have got pregnant back when we started trying I’d have been delighted whilst also shitting myself what did I think I was playing at. I hope it would still have worked out and we’d be where we are now - we’ve been married 6 years, DD is 5.5 and we’re happy. Definitely worked out.

I was actually 39 when I met DH! So you feel like a positive spring chicken @AliasGrape ! I’m so pleased it worked out for you though … I’ve been very lucky, I didn’t think I’d ever marry or have children and I do still have a ‘is this really my life’ moment a lot.

Hi op it doesn’t really matter some people can wait 10 or 15 years and it not work out your doing ok so I wouldn’t worry too much about it no one’s life is guaranteed and if it did fail you’ve got a beautiful baby out of it. My neighbour got pregnant after a month one guy moved out in October the new guy moved in November and she had 2 other kids to 2 different dads so your not that bad.

This is such a backhanded compliment 😂

if you are both decent humans and no one is abusive , yes, you can make it work out, with or without much romance and a lot of sex

How old were you when you got pregnant?

I used to be against rushing into marriage and kids but all of that went out of the window after 35 😂

I’m 36, been with DP for a year, and would be 100% fine with getting pregnant now (although we won’t because I’m on the coil and we have some life plans first). The plan is to start TTC in 12-18 months.

Younger me would have thought anything less than 5 years together before having a baby was madness, older me is much more relaxed.

I was 39 when I got pregnant @Crushed23 . 40 when I had dc1. As it turned out I got pregnant fairly easily at 42 and had a second child at 43, so I did have time but I had no way of knowing that when I met DH and plus I do think more than one child would have been out.

FIL too to be fair; dd made him wear an Elsa tiara subsequently forgot about and went to his dentist appointment wearing!

Nah lol

My dh moved in with me in the February. 1st child born 9 months later.

I was pregnant with my first baby after being with ex for 3 weeks! Relationship didn’t last forever but we were together for 12 years which isn’t bad.

Though there’s no marriage or baby yet, I feel that way about DP! I can’t believe my luck. My last relationship (which at the time was my most serious relationship to date) ended when I was 34 and I thought it was game over. Met DP at random out in the wild (at a rave!) age 35 and it has been great since. Yes, it’s the honeymoon phase still, but I definitely have a ‘good feeling’ about him 🥰

I don't understand the question, when you've been together for years now. Why are you asking, when everything has worked out fine,?

46 now and definitely feeling every day of it at the moment!

I do think things move quicker when you’re a bit older and when you both know exactly what you want. Also I think I had already been through the mill with various aspects of my life, not just relationships but that too, and so I did have faith in my own resilience if nothing else. Plus I know so many stories of people together for years and years and they still get blindsided.

I was with my ex 13 years, absolutely believed I knew him inside out and the way that ended was the shock of my life - I don’t think length of time together is any guarantee really. If DH turns out to be a similarly secret bastard at least I know I’ve proved my ability to withstand it before!

Wow that’s amazing! You’re right that we have no way of knowing how good our fertility is. I’ll be 37 going on 38 when we’re able to start TTC due to circumstances, which does worry me, but there’s always fertility treatment, I suppose. I also believe I could make peace with being child-free if we have no success at all, but not sure how DP would feel.

When you say “it’s not perfect” above, do you mean the usual stuff of family life and the stress of raising kids, which being together longer before having a baby wouldn’t mitigate against (ie all couples seem to experience some impact to their relationship after children, regardless of how long they’ve been together). Or are you referring to something that you later discovered about your DH that may have given you pause for thought had you discovered it before getting pregnant? If you see what I mean.

I got pregnant after id been with now-DH for 6 months too. We were mid/late 30s so not a disaster. I miscarried though and had DC1 exactly 2 years later.

I’ve sometimes wondered what it would have been like if I’d had that baby. There were moments with a young baby that were really tough, and it would have been even tougher if the relationship hadn’t yet been solid.

I’d also always wonder if he only stuck with me because of the baby.

So as devastated as I was about the miscarriage I think it worked out better. We also had a lot of fun in those 2 years pre children - with hindsight we maybe should have waited a bit longer, but age wasn’t on our side .

DH and I started dating in December, by April I found out I was pregnant (completely unplanned), July we bought a house and DS1 was born the following a December. We got married when DS1 was 2yo.

The other challenge we had is that I was only 23 when I got pregnant.

We’ve now been married 25 years and despite having similar worries about how we’d cope as the boys grew up it’s actually been lovely to have time together from the first time ever really.

It’s not been easy but I wouldn’t change anything.

Same for me and my husband, been married nearly 14 years now. But I do think a bit of luck was involved!

Ah love this! He does sound like a keeper! And how wonderful to have such lovely grandparents too.