How did you bring up THE CONVERSATION

[CraftyGardener]

Hi everyone. I hope you’re all keeping well! I will try to keep this brief. I’m curious to know how other people have broached the topic of TTC with their other half’s.

To give you some context, we’ve been married 10 years and have always been very clear that neither of us want children. But times move on and now that I’m in my 30’s I’m finding that every month (around ovulation) Mother Nature comes round and instructs my hormones to make me broody as all hell. This coupled with a few health issues on my side means that I’ve done a full 180 on the matter.

OH has become less vocal about kids (or lack of) over recent years and I genuinely don’t know how he feels about it at this point. We have a great relationship and communicate well, but I’m terrified that if I open up the topic for discussion then either he will be dead against (and I don’t know how I’d feel about that) or all for (which would make it all terrifyingly real). I need to put my big girl pants on and bring it up but how?

Did any of you go from NOPE to maybe? How did it come up? I feel like just dropping ‘hey my biological clock seems to have a battery in it now, fancy ditching the condoms and your sleeping pattern?’ Into conversation just incredibly awkward.

You’ve been together for ten years: just talk to him.

If it were me I wouldn’t ask anything of him, I’d literally just tell him how I was feeling and ask him to think about how he’s feeling. Don’t be surprised if he doesn’t know how to respond straight away: if the status quo has always been the expectation of no children then to suggest you now feel otherwise might rock the boat a bit.

DH and I didn't want kids. We hit our 30s and both decided we'd changed our minds. We sat down and had a conversation about if we wanted to try for a baby, when we wanted to try and what would happen if we couldn't get pregnant eg if we'd try IVF or pursue adoption. We have DD now and are TTC again

@RedRed9 oh I plan to, I was just curious to hear about other people’s experiences of changing their minds on kids and how they brought it up. You make a good point that he may not respond straight away. He’s definitely a processor and likely will stew on in before weighing in.

@BabyMoonPie glad to hear I’m not alone in the change of heart and I’m pleased you were both in line Good luck ttc!

I forgot to take my pill and joked about it being deliberate. He was so chilled about it and it got into a discussion. I then asked how he'd feel if I came off my pill since it can take up to a year to get pregnant and that then sparked the conversation

We were the same-in fact both said no kids the first time we met! But as time went on I too started to feel the urge, and I felt that I might regret it if we didn't give it a shot. I can't remember how we first bought it up but eventually we settled on the idea of just seeing what happened-ie not trying but not act

Sorry posted too soon...

Not actively trying not to...6 months later we had our first positive. Sadly that ended in a missed miscarriage, but that positive made both of us realise how much we wanted a baby together.

It was a hard road for us-we had a second mmc then struggled to conceive and we were just about to start ivf when I got pregnant a third time...and now we have a 4 month old son. And guess what, I'm desperate to do it again already! But I'll be 41 in July and my fella has found it really hard with a newborn so I'm not sure it'll happen. So grateful for my little rainbow miracle

If after 10 years you don't know
a. What his thoughts are
b. How to talk to him

Should you really be considering having a baby with him?

I was 19 when I met my now husband and we had the conversation about children about 1 month into our relationship and we whilst we didn't have sex for about 6 months, we definitely knew our thoughts about babies and contraception early on

DH and I met at uni - after a couple of years we realised it was getting a little serious and had a 'light hearted' discussion re kids and marriage. He didn't want to get married but perhaps wanted children one day. Then we both seemed to change our minds to no kids - he started his own business, I was pursuing a legal career.... we went on lovely holidays and out for dinner three times a week. We were very happy with our life as just two.

A few years later a well loved customer passed away on my husbands work premises at the age of 56....leaving two adult children. My husband and I spoke after then funeral and after a few drinks he said that he did eventually want to have a family. I said we'd talk about it again in the summer - I was going for a promotion at work - but my period never came. I was already pregnant! I was so nervous to tell him but he had the biggest grin on his face and I knew it was going to be ok.

We had our daughter and then got married! We are expecting our second daughter in September.

@fairydust3 haha! I’m glad it worked out and you were both on the same page.

@Laney79 sorry to hear about your MMC but glad it worked out for you both. Thank you for sharing. It’s interesting to hear how many people have gone from Nope to Yes.

@orangesandlemo perhaps I wasn’t sufficiently clear, we have talked about this frequently in the 12+ years we’ve been together (10years married). Our communication is great. My post was asking about other people’s experiences of changing their minds and how their conversations about it with their partners went. I’m not and was not daft enough to marry someone without checking that we were on the same page about such an important issue.

@niki26 congratulations! And thank you for sharing. I have to admit I felt a little silly for saying all these years that I never wanted kids and then suddenly switching but I’m really glad to hear that other people go on the same journey.

@CraftyGardener - thanks