Help...when to have children?

[WinnieP]

I don't know if anyone out there can help...I could really use some advice as I'm really really confused about what to do.
My husband and I have recently been discussing having children. The problem is that neither of us are particularly broody and always said we wouldn't have kids full stop. Lately, we've started to think that maybe we'd like to start a family, but neither of us are completely sure. However, time's ticking on, I'm in my mid-thirties and we're very aware that we shouldn't leave it too late if we do go ahead. What if we never get broody but regret it later?
I'm not really sure what I'm asking, but can anyone tell me if they felt like this before they had children, and how they feel now they've got their kids! Plus, I also worry a lot, and I am concerned about whether or not I'd worry too much about a child.
When do you know the time is right, or is it something you're never entirely ready for, you just have to go ahead and do? Also, how to anxious mothers cope??
Any help and advice appreciated...

After coming to MN and reading threads like this I feel so much better about being scared and going for it anyway.

Yay everybody here, old and new, frightened and seasoned.

and bladdered.

That too!

I am uber-anxious about everything too and also wittered about getting pregnant for quite a while. I am now nearly 19 weeks pregnant with my first, and am AMAZED at how calm I am. Seriously. All my previous worries (about everything: work, health, money, life, people, blah) have faded into insignificance, and it's not like I am now overtaken with pregnancy worries - obviously it is worrying, and I do get concerned about things 'will we cope?', 'will the baby be ok?' etc, but I know that we WILL cope, and that it will be the best thing we have ever done. In fact, I can't wait to meet him/her in November. I really don't think you should um and ah too much over this: everyone feels worries and concerns about such a life-changing prospect, but you won't regret it. I"m sure. Good luck.

I had never wanted children and warmed up to the idea late in life. Do you have friends who have children? I think that it's easier to contemplate if you can see friends becoming parents and still being the same people - just with a different lifestyle. We have several "model families" that we secretly admire and are trying to copy. Unfortunately before I became pregnant we also encountered friends who seemed to completely lose themselves in parenthood. The "if you're not sacrificing everything then you're not doing it right" school of martyr-parenthood. It did put us off for a while.

I word of warning - it's not that unusual in the first year to have times when it all seems so hard and you're so tired, and you end up arguing with your OH and you wonder what on Earth you're doing. It does get easier. Until you have a second (third/fourth) child and you start all over again.

Hi all,

Hope you don't mind me butting into this thread. I was on another (To TTC or not to TTC) and RunLyraRun posted there, and alerted me to this one (she was talking to someone else, so hope you don't mind me hopping over, RLR!). This is a brilliant thread. I feel very similarly to WinnieP and RLR and many of you. Mine is what is known as a cautionary tale to some extent, however: I'm 37, and have been TTC for four years, with increasing assiduousness. I'm still simultaneously dithering, though (if that's possible?!) as I still don't know if it's what I want. We're now in the position of being offered IVF, as what the fertility doc and nurse call "the best option" for us now (we have what they call inexplicable fertility, though I suspect DH's drinking, which will not desperate is fairly heavy and sustained, isn't helping). So in one sense, I'm an argument for getting on with it as we haven't got anywhere in years.

On the other hand... I'm still unsure about whether I want kids at all, even after all this. Obviously IVF often doesn't work, but it feels like a way more deliberate step than just stopping using contraception, or even than peeing on sticks or any of that malarkey (which I was doing for quite a while, but have now given up, to be honest, and back to just hit and miss bonking!). Sort of wish we'd started earlier in a way, but then wouldn't have wanted to get pregnant at 33 (and I was 33 when we started trying anyway) as I was only 31 when we got married and we wanted some time for us. And still do, in some ways.

I'm so torn - DH is not really keen on kids, which is a big disincentive. But I had the happiest childhood, and still have a great relationship with my family, and always assumed I'd have one of my own. And want that, at least in theory. And adore my nephew, who is 4 months old (though I definitely get the best of him - I can see it's insanely hard work). I'm frightened of regretting it later, whether I do or don't. Feel so similar to many of you on here. My top three worries:

1. It ruining my relationship with DH, on whom I would be foisting kids to some extent. (He's brilliant with kids, and I think would actually get on board in a big way, but his position is that he doens't really want them, and is only co-operating so that I don't get miserable and he doesn't ruin my life...).

1. That I will worry even more than I do already - the things that some of you have said much more eloquently than I can.

1. Am also petrified of the birth, and lasting trauma after it - am an utter wimp over pain, and have stupidly read some of the horror-story threads about childbirth on here...

OK, enough - sorry to ramble on and on - but so nice to read like-minded posts. (And very nice to hear about relatively late motherhood - which gives me hope, though four years TTC is obviously not the most positive of situations.)

Hey Levi! This is a pretty old thread, but happy to resurrect it with an update

So, 3 months on from this discussion, I'm pretty surprised at myself for sticking with the "dare" idea and actually starting TTC.

I'm still terrified, terrified, terrified - of everything. But then I tell myself:

a) "everyone" does it, or none of us would be here, so can it really be such a big deal? The only reason we're worrying about it is because we are lucky enough to live in a society where we have the luxury of choice.

b) I don't relish the prospect of being pregnant. Or giving birth. Or dealing a with a tiny baby. But I DO want a person in my family who belongs to both me and my DH, and who will be around (hopefully) forever. So it's 2 years I'm not looking forward to, followed by 40-50 years that I am. Not a bad trade off.

My DH has warmed up to the idea at around the same rate I have, give or take the odd blazing row at times when one of us goes either on or off the idea out of sync with the other!

I think it would make a massive difference to me if I felt that my DH was doing it "for me" - it would make me feel that I had to be much more sure than I currently am. Sure enough for both of us, in fact. I would worry that if it "went wrong" in some way, or was just difficult at times (which is surely inevitable), then my DH would blame me, either openly or subconsiously, for foisting the situation upon him. Sorry if I'm projecting onto you here, but I wonder if any of that plays into your uncertainly?

uncertainty, not uncertainly. typos are worse when they are real words, don't you think?

Levi I'm butting in here - feel free to tell me to fuck off - to wonder whether it's hit a point when counselling might help? It's bloody hard this TTC lark, especially when you feel like you're the person pushing for it to happen. And you may well need help making up your mind about IVF.

I'm also with Lyra in wondering whether you're uncertain because you're the one asking for babies and your partner isn't totally supporting you. Do you think it's having an impact? I know that my husband and I aren't in quite the same place about TTC - he's way more laissez-faire, while I'm obsessing - but I do know that he definitely wants a baby. I think I'd find this pretty annoying & depressing journey a lot more annoying & depressing if I was the one doing all the work. As it were.

PS Fab name. I loves me some Billy Bragg.

Thanks, folks. Wisdom from both of you. That's exactly it, RunLyraRun - I do feel as though I have to be sure enough for the both of us (and I'm not sure I'm that sure...). It's exactly that fear that if it goes 'wrong' in some way or I just found I wasn't 100% happy (it's a huge rarity but I know at least one friend who doesn't really enjoy being a mother, though she loves her kids of course) it would be that much harder, and DH certainly would blame me to some degree - though would probably be nice enough not to voice it (or only when things got really bad...). But what to do about it, that's the trouble! I feel the same as you re. the long-term thing - I do want this to happen in my life, and also to have DH's kid in particular.

It's a very interesting idea re. counselling, idealcamel. It's not one I'd thought of. I don't think DH would be keen but it might be good to air our views calmly in front of an objective listener. I'll perhaps sound him out - if nothing else, I want him to realize this is a real problem and one that is affecting me a lot, and I think he might be (usefully) surprised and startled if I suggest counselling. So it would be useful to discuss it, even if we don't go for it in the end. Yes, the whole issue of his indifference/disinclination is making the journey much harder. And of course it affects things like sex - not catastrophically, but when he suspects an agenda it makes it harder to initiate, and we're probably having less, ironically, to stop it becoming an issue, which is obviously not exactly ideal in the TTC context. Sorry if this is TMI! Sigh.

Anyway thanks v. much to you both - will keep you posted!