How do you know you're ready to have a baby?

[FreckleBee]

Hi everyone, I've just joined but have looked at the forum many times over the last few months. Pleased to be a member now!
My husband and I think we are (almost) ready to start trying for a baby. Personally I just "feel" ready, emotionally. Two people at work are currently pregnant and I feel majorly broody around them. Thinking about starting a family takes up much of my mind and has done for many months.
Financially we are fine, we have good supports and are happy in our relationship. But we have a holiday coming up in 8 weeks and I don't want to risk being pregnant then, we are going with family and friends. We are thinking of TTC on the holiday.
But the wait has got me second guessing myself! Thinking am I ready for this? Will I make a good mother etc etc etc..worrier alert!
It feels so right on the one hand but so grown up and real on the other! I wondered if anyone else felt like this prior to trying or does everyone feel 100% definitely sure!

I think everyone feels like this. I do still! Its on my mind every day, I know I'm ready but I have moments where I think 'oh god I won't be able to do this will I' etc. Its shallow but I'm terrified I'll get fat & not loose the weight...I'm only short & curvy enough as it is.

If you look at the pregnancy board, it seems everyone hits 39 weeks & has the same worries if they're ready xx

Thanks BellaBoo, that's reassuring! I worry that any doubt means I'm not ready. But actually it's probably good to have a balanced view.
I understand about the weight thing as it will impact upon self esteem! x

I don't think, having had a baby, that anyone is ever truly ready. I was financially ready, professionally ready and emotionally ready. I thought. Then I had a baby and it changed my life. You can't really ever know that you're ready for sure because you don't know what having a baby will bring to your world - they are all different.

Incidentally, I'm exactly the same size and shape I was pre-pregnancy

I can't say I was 100% ready when we started trying for a baby but in the end it took us three years to get pregnant and you can bet I was 100% ready by then!

It such a massive step... It sounds like what you're feeling is perfectly natural .

I have a baby and I still don't feel ready!

There isn't a perfect time, and as it might take months (or years) to get pregnant there's not a lot of point in trying to pick a date that works.

We decided that since we were more than 50% sure we wanted kids we should just go for it or risk not getting around to it.

I am still not sure I am ready.

I have 4

Don't ask yourself whether you want a baby or whether or not you are broody (I never was) - ask yourself whether you can see yourself with a 5 year old, a 15 year old, a 25 year old and a grandmother (if you are lucky).

Like I said, I was never broody in my entire life; a combination of only finding DH when I was 31, our respective jobs and a number of MCs meant I only had DS1 aged 37 and am very lucky to have the size of family I always wanted. I never particularly wanted a baby and still maintain they are overrated but just could not picture the rest of my life without a family.

Hope this makes any sense at all.

Good luck!

For me a big part of it was realising that I was happy to give up partying at the weekends. No more Friday and Saturday nights out - still plenty of late nights though.

ChatEnOef I think you are so right, seeing family members and friends have families and how much it has turned their world upside down (in good and bad ways!) reminds me of this!

CanISay and whereisshe you both make good points what a baby may not happen straight away! So maybe I'll have more time to get my head around he idea I'll be a mama!

I do feel ready, it's hard to explain but when someone broke their news to me that they are expecting I swear I felt I could burst with emotion! I even said to dh I think my ovaries just shouted at me...he looked at me a bit bemused!!

Wow Pacific those are some wise words indeed - I cannot imagine myself with a 15 year old at the moment (being only 29 myself) but definitely the others! I like your way of looking at this and will spend time thinking this over.

It's more unusual to hear of big families these days but I think it's lovely - do you have a mix of boys and girls? I grew up in a 4 child family and it was just the best! x

Ha!
Thanks, but I am not sure that I qualify as 'wise' having totally voluntarily planned for and had 4 children… . 4 boys btw and no, I did not just 'keep going for the girl' as a lot of people seem to feel keen to wonder out loud….

I mean it though: I sometimes get the impression that the excitement of TTC or being pregnant is such that the hoped for end result, namely a whole new person, gets kinda overlooked IYKWIM.
Feel free to ignore me - I also get very huffy about overhyped wedding worries when the party seems to be more important than the marriage; you know, the whole spending the rest of your life with your newly betrothed (rather than huge do with sudden come-down afterwards).

Having had children has been the single hardest, exasperating, difficult, challenging thing I have ever done (and am every likely to do). It is also the most fun, interesting, challenging, getting the best out of me thing I am ever likely to do .

Wow four boys! Congrats!!
I think you are right and reading what you have put does scare me to death... Am I ready to face this big challenge!? I suppose my answer is I don't know. I certainly see my self being a mother but I'm pretty frightened I won't be good at it!
Lots it think about but giving myself time as holiday not for 2 months yet.

I have two children. I remember finding it very difficult to picture myself as a good parent. But my mum dismissed all of that. I was very much an accident when she was a teenager.
She did fine. She has a strong sense of responsibility.
I was 29, very aware i am was as 'responsible' as my mum. But she pointed out I was asking the question, I had a target of whp I wanted to be as a parent. Coming at it on purpose doesn't mean you know abojt it all. But motivation counts for a lot.

FreckleBee, the fact that you are fretting about whether you'll be a good mother suggests that you are likely to be

Don't over think it too much - on paper having children is monumentally terrifying, in reality we all just kinda muddle through. Your potential baby/child will soon have sorted you out (my babies turned me in to a far more 'hippy' mum than I ever thought I'd be: co-sleeping, using slings, 'attachment parenting' far more than I would have chosen, but that's what they taught me).

You'll be fine

Don't forget, there is a difference between not being ready, and being scared! I think everyone is scared of being a parent (in a good way), it'll be the hardest but most amazing thing you will ever do. You can be as ready as you will ever be, but most people will always be slightly terrified that they will be responsible for raising a tiny human into a proper free-thinking, independent adult!

Oh and p.s. I do fee exactly the same! We are ttc and I sometimes get waves of fear that I won't be able to be a good mother, or that I will do things "wrong". I think it's completely normal to be honest

I don't think there's any point in waiting until something about you changes and you suddenly feel ready for a baby. Because having a baby will forcibly change you anyway (if that makes any sense).

Thanks for all of your replies, I stopped looking on here for a couple of months to try and not swing my mind one way or another and just see how I felt.
The news is that my husband and I are now TTC and we are delighted, scared, excited, terrified, emotional and crazily impatient (me) all at the same time.
Thanks again x