I feel like we will never be in a position to have a baby

[Thejewellershands]

I wasn't too sure where the most appropriate place to post this was. Hope it's ok here.

Me and my partner have been together for 6 years. We have lived together for 4 years and just bought a house in the summer. We really want to be parents but it has never been the right time, however now that I have just turned 31 and the "right time" is still nowhere in sight I'm starting to worry a little bit.

The main issue is money and career. I never spent my 20s establishing my career, I never knew what I wanted to do and spent time going from one job to another trying to find somewhere I was happy. I have now started a career that I love, however I have had to start from the very bottom and plan to work my way up. Because of this, money isn't great.

We have 5k of debt on a credit card which is currently our number 1 priority to pay off. It's interest free for 2 years so we are putting as much money onto this as we can per month, however with our salaries we can only put £100-£200 a month on.

It's going to take us a while to pay this off, plus the house completely needs renovating and we are slowly doing this currently, however not getting very far as we don't have much money left over for it after bills and debt are paid. So it's also going to take us a long time for the house to be sorted and not the disgusting mess that it is.

On top of this, I am now really starting to enjoy working. I have always hated every job I've ever had but finally found something that I enjoy and want to do well at. I feel like I wouldn't now want to put this on hold to start a family as I am SO early in my career but already 31.

I know that the house doesn't need to be done before TTC, however we already have limited funds to do it up as it is, adding in the cost of a baby and childcare etc it would take years for us to do it up and it just isn't nice to live in as it is.

I feel like at this rate we will not be in a good position to start a family until I am in at least my mid 30s which I understand is not old, and people do it. But I worry about the decline in fertility and the added risks that come with age. Plus I have endometriosis that I've already had a few surgeries for so I have no idea how long it would take us.

I feel like I have entered my 30s how I should've entered my 20s. I feel behind at life and now I'm at the stage to start a family but only just have a house and career and income isn't going to improve any time soon until I start to move up. What can I do? Am I worrying for nothing? Sone advice for people who have experience would be great.

There is only the two of you. Have you been overspending to manage to get into £5k worth of debt. I think get the debt paid of asap. And then think about conceiving. Why wait 6 years. Also seemed a mistake to buy a house which needs complete renovating if you don't have the funds.

It's so difficult because you can never know what will happen in the future and how long/whether you'll be able to conceive. It is a hard thing to live with uncertainty for everyone who is waiting.
I had my baby at 35 and it was all straightforward and I wasn't in a position where I was comfortable TTC before 34.
What would you definitely want doing before you had a baby? Debt paid off/house insulated, etc/in job for x years? Make a plan with your partner about what is most important for you both to feel comfortable TTC. Then you'll have a clearer idea if you'd be ready to try in one year or three or five.

@Viviennemary we have a cat who broke his leg. He is insured but was only covered for 2k and it went over that so we had to pay the rest so we took out a credit card. The cat now has higher insurance in case anything happens again.

We got the house because it was so cheap and we decided that it is liveable and we can just do it up slowly. But then then cat broke his leg and then I got this new job

If your house is liveable, then just pay off the credit card as soon as you can and then get on with TTC. Sort the house later. There is never a perfect time to TTC, but the longer you leave it the harder it might be to conceive. Having a baby when you already own a house and have no debt isn't a bad place to be.

There's never a right time. You could do up the house, pay your debt off and one of you could die or something. Then there's the ticking clock to consider also. If you want a baby best to do it now than wait and have fertility problems resulting in more debt from ivf. Life's short live in the moment. Waiting for the "right time" will never come

You don't sound too badly off at base, so it should be doable. If you are enjoying work, I'd say give it another year or two and then TTC. You'll have established yourself at work by the time you take leave, but you'll still have plenty of time to start a family. I know plenty of women who have started families post 35, and you'd only be 33.

I had/ have endometriosis.. PCOS and adhesions.. l was 36 when l had my second child.. after 5 surgeries.. it took me nine years to conceive after my first daughter ( didn't have problems then).. but we can't decide for you.. but conceiving with Endometriosis is very very hard ( l had a miscarriage and ectopic before l did).
Money wouldn't and never did bother me.. babies don't need to cost a fortune. What with Market place and vinted.. everything doesn't have to be expensive. ( Milk is free).

What are the priorities on the house? Is it ‘new boiler to keep everyone warm’ type issues or ‘change the avocado bathroom
suite because you don’t like the colour’ type issue?

I would pay the debt off asap.

What would your plan be after having a baby? Would you go back to work full time (to the job you like) after 6 months and the baby go into nursery? Have you done the sums on that-what would that look like? Your career doesn’t have to stop because you have a baby.

however not getting very far as we don't have much money left over for it after bills and debt are paid.

Could you afford childcare?

You are doing all the right things - sorting out career, debt, home. You have a partner you love and can see a future with, possibly a family in future.

Make a two year plan together with your partner and be absolutely strict with cutting spends — there’ll be loads of advice on MN to help.

Also get yourself super healthy ready for trying to conceive! Getting myself really fit was the best thing I did before my second child (conceived when i was 41)

Then Look at all this again when you’re 33 - a few years will show you how far you’ve come. Having a satisfying career is a good distraction if you’re struggling to conceive.

Meantime don’t overthink it, if possible - there’s no point getting pregnant if your finances are all over the place, it will put you under so much stress i personally think not worth it. A few years won’t radically alter your fertility.

honestly I think you are overthinking it. You have a house, assuming by work you mean cosmetic rather than essential. Prioritise paying debt. And remember you cannot plan anything when it comes to TTC / pregnancy. There’s no perfect time.

And you can have a career the rest of your life whereas fertility won’t improve

Thanks for the responses everyone. The house is okay.... We only have one room kind of finished atm which is the living room. The dining room has been half finished for like 3 months now because we have been putting allll of our spare money onto the credit card. It's all just decorative things that need changing so it is liveable but an elderly lady lived in it and it's very very old fashioned and has old smelly carpets. We had to rip the carpet up in the bedroom as it smelt like urine so we have bare floorboards in there now but we are getting splinters in our feet when we walk on it.

Really it's not an absolute priority in the grand scheme of things because we have a house. It's liveable. It's just the money that I'm thinking of, can we afford to continue with the house PLUS the expenses that come with children?

My plan would be that I'd go back to work full time. The job that I have now is very good with flexitime, I can drop days through the week and work weekends if I want or drop day shifts and do night shifts to work around childcare. DP also has retired parents who always say they'd be happy to help out when the time comes. Plus my parents as well so we do have support with that, but also I can't always rely on other people because you never know what will happen

I agree with others that fertility is a priority as this is something that won’t get better over time, but finances are important as well.

When you say you only have £1-200 eft each month after paying bills/debt, I think it’s important to envisage what having a baby would look like to you. Childcare costs hundreds if not thousands each month. If you can’t afford this with both of you working full time, what would you do? If you have family members willing to do free childcare for ten hours every day, then that’s brilliant, what’s your plan if not though. If you don’t have 1/200 spare a month, what would you realistically do? If one of you gave up work to be at home with a baby, could you pay the bills and mortgage on one wage?

Consider fertility, yes, but I think you need a realistic plan for money as well.

There’s never a right time. No matter how good a position you think you’re in, it can be snatched away. I got sacked the second I announced my pregnancy at work. Which meant I got no maternity pay and couldn’t even claim statutory maternity pay. Solicitors couldn’t help because I had no proof that was why I was terminated (they invented some bollocks excuse). Then there was a terrible leak and we had to renovate the kitchen, rushing to get it done before DC started eating solid food. But we survived and DC is at school now.

Bear in mind that childbirth and early years are fucking brutal. You’re unlikely to want to have another baby straight away. I thought I’d have kids with maybe a 1-2 year gap, but it was so brutal that I needed to recover and get my firstborn to school age before I could consider trying for a second (by which time I was too old).

Sometimes you just have to go for it. Time waits for no man, it will pass you by.

It took me 11 years to qualify including 9 years at university. This brought me to 30. Then we bought a house and needed my mental health to stabilise.
Before trying to conceive I had to get my meds assessed. I was nearly 34 when I had my daughter. The age range in my NCT class was 29 to 39 so I was bang in the middle.
We are thinking about number 2 but my health was very poor after having my daughter and my meds are not compatible with pregnancy. I was tying myself up in knots about whether it was the right time and when. In the end we decided we would start exploring the logistics and I'm on a 6month plan to revamp my meds to ones that I can be pregnant on.
If you are unsure and you have health conditions to factor start the process speak to your doctors what are the you specific things to consider.
Push the clearing of the debt once it's down to a 6-12 months to go investigation trying to conceive. You can do the first year cheaply. We have a spreadsheet which I recommend it keeps you focused and the first year cost £1k total that is car seat, pram, 2 slings, all the clothes, cloth nappies, a travel cot, a real cot, books and Christmas presents. Everything. A lot of it was second hand and we got some bargains.
Child care is expensive but it's very likely that the 9month provision will be in place (9m at sept 2025) which makes a difference. My daughter has just started her 30 free hours and I think we save about 40% of the child care.
Work with your employer to about being proactive with any extra training or promotions as you start your career.

If you wait for the 'perfect' time, it will never come.

@Shinyandnew1 this is what I mean about why I am worried. Because of the finances. I need to earn more money but to do that I need to climb the ladder at work which will take time. But how much time do I have? This is the reason for my post 😔

People who are asking me whether I can afford it... This is what I'm asking. We can't afford a baby right now and we won't be able to afford one any time soon because we have debt, have house work to do, and I've only just started a new career. However I am already 31 and have endometriosis so I am having a bit of a dilemma here and don't know what to do

Nobody knows how much time you have-thats al guess work unfortunately.

Some things aren’t too much of an issue. The career isn’t a problem if you are going to go back full time. Take 6 months and it won’t affect things at all-you can still build your career up.

The house doesn’t have to be done yet or quickly-do that slowly.

I would get the debt paid off as quickly as you can-try paying £200 extra a month. When would it be paid off then?

The childcare is the bit that would worry me though as that sounds a bit wooly. Great that you have parents around but I would want to double check with them what they are actually able to offer. Can they genuinely offer full time childcare between them? Are they of an age where this might become unrealistic or just too much for them? Relying completely on free full time childcare from other people is always risky. What if they change their mind? Your whole set up would be completely dependent on the goodwill, health and free time of others.

@Shinyandnew1 yes I agree, I wouldn't rely on parents tbh. If they can help then great but I wouldn't go in expecting it. Work are really good because you can do compressed hours and basically choose your own hours. One of my colleagues recently came back from maternity and she compresses her hours Monday to wednesday. She has Thursday off and then works Friday and Saturday night to get the 40 hours in. There is another lady who is a carer on my team who also works a different pattern to the rest of us. However I do still worry about the childcare cost yes, because it is expensive!

Only about 1 in 4 women go back to work full time after children and those women going back f/t, 79% eventually end up leaving or going p/t. So maybe you'd be f/t but all those women go p/t for a reason. https://wearethecity.com/careers-after-babies-report-highlights-alarming-statistics-for-women-returning-to-work-after-having-children/

Having kids is scary, if you're asking how you have kids and ensure absolutely everything will be fine and stable and secure - sorry but that's not how it works.

Re your house - it doesn't have to be perfect, just safe. If floors have splinters you could get cheap vinyl flooring or carpet down for a couple of hundred. Or sand it. If the whole house is unsuitable you could sell it and buy a 2 bed for whatever you can afford. You have to make it work. Don't spend all your money on fancy fittings. Get secondhand stuff.

I know a couple who were in a doer-upper and had twins. It's still a state but it's safe and liveable, 7 years on. Exposed brick and dodgy plasterwork etc - who cares? Kids end up trashing everything anyway :)

Childcare is expensive but an awful lot of other costs go down when you have kids - alcohol, going out, clothes and holidays etc. It's still a stretch but it can be done.

If I were you, with endometriosis, I'd start TTC now and work out whatever problems come along as and when. Debts - work your arses off, basically. An evening shift in a pub a week would boost the amount you can pay off.

Be really honest with yourself. Do you want a baby or do you want a house that's beautifully done up?

Because I think, from your OP, that if you carry on thinking as you do at present, then you'll never feel ready to have a baby. There'll always be something.

I'm assuming that the house is safe etc and the work is to make it nicer.

We have a roof that needs doing, a kitchen that needs doing, and a bathroom that needs doing. None urgently, but they do. We also have two children. I'm glad we didn't sort the house out first.

The debt would worry me though, and I'd be going through finances very closely to try and pay it down asap.

Childcare is expensive but an awful lot of other costs go down when you have kids - alcohol, going out, clothes and holidays etc. It's still a stretch but it can be done.

Hmmm, I would say those costs aren’t really comparable-we never spent much on alcohol/going out/clothes or holidays pre children so stopping those things wouldn’t go any way to balance massive childcare costs! If the OP has expensive tastes for these things then fair enough though.

I have seen too many posts on here by women who have a baby and then they (as a household) can’t afford the childcare to go back to work but equally can’t afford not to have two wages to pay their mortgage. With the current stupidly high mortgage and energy prices that is even more worrying at the moment.

I think I would try to spend the next 2/3 years with both of you working as much as you can-overtime, evening or weekend jobs, selling stuff etc and try to pay off that debt. Then see where you stand re ttc.

Others may disagree but I know a huge number of couples who kept waiting and now are doing ivf... I would say just start now... Your house doesn't need to be perfect