To ask if you had it all "sorted" when you decided it was time for a baby?

[Marghe87]

My husband and I are on our 30s, with stable and decently paid jobs (although we are well far from 6 figures salaries) but don't own a house yet. We live and work in London (well, we live in the outskirts of London but property prices in the SE are ridiculous all around the city) and are nowhere near being able to put down a deposit for a house. We do have a bit of savings though and just don't want to continue wait for "the perfect time" as it might take us years before we have it all sorted and by then I will be on my late 30s and my husband well on his 40s.

Do you think we are silly to think we should just go for it and have a family right now?

Neither of us have a career, we don't own our house. Should we not have had a child?

It seems a terribly middle class quandary.

Fuck everybody else and what they think of mortgages, big cars, massive savings. If you want a child, have a child.

There is no perfect time to start a family.
I found out I was pregnant two years ago, everything seemed perfect timing! Me and my partner had been together for 6 years at the time, we had just moved into our first home the day I found out! Everything felt perfect although we had not planned it and we were both excited but still a little nervous, sadly we lost the baby but the timing was great.
Now we're 21 weeks with our first 😊
Honestly I'd say go ahead! Sometimes you wait for things in life to fall into place but I think it's never a wrong time for a baby if you're both happy and wanting a little one x

You would say that we have it sorted and are expecting our first. We own property, have good jobs, have an income in place for our pensions, I can afford to take a year of unpaid maternity leave, etc. BUT, we moved overseas to achieve all that. Moreover, we didn't decide this was the right time to have a baby because of all that. It was just the right time for us emotionally and as a couple. We've been together for 11+ years, married for almost 9 when baby arrives. I had a health scare around 7 years ago and a tremendous professional disappointment last year. They both made me and my DH stop and think about life, what was important to us, what we wanted from it. I truly believe we would have been happy with or without our baby but obviously we are super excited about our next adventure as a family. We just felt we wanted to take that next step at this point in time. I don't know if there is ever a right time in terms of the logistics of life (although I suspect it might be easier to identify "wrong times") but for me at least there has definitely been a right time in terms of emotional commitment.

@elQuintoConyo "It seems a terribly middle class quandary." this seems harsh. Some people do need to have a sense of security before they feel confident and comfortable taking on a task as great as this. I don't see that as a class issue. I see it as personal choice. I wish the English wouldn't keep making people's opinions and decisions all about class - sometimes it's just about personality and personal preference.

Husband and I opted to wait for 3 things to happen. Getting married, both having a job and owning a home. Managed to get the third at 30, but then the fertility issues cropped up. Luckily for me, clomid has done the trick and I'm 14 weeks with our first.

But. If I had the opportunity to do it all again, I would never have waited. I've been ready to have a baby for the best part of a decade now, and I think we would have made it work even if things hadn't been perfect.

Me and my partner decided to go for it when we both felt ready. We are far from ready in reality but we both wanted it and when I've asked people the same thing the response I normally get is 'if you wait until everything is perfect you'll never have a baby as there's never a perfect time' something always comes up x

No perfect time, sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith before it’s too late.

I did everything backwards so had my first three DC young, then went to uni and sorted my career before having DC4 and buying a house during the pregnancy. Not textbook but I just got on with it.

In my opinion there is no perfect time to have a baby, something will always come up that could be used as an excuse. My child is 5 now, in his first year of primary school and only now do we have the deposit ready for a mortgage. Has our child stopped us from having a house sooner? Definitely. Do we regret having him? No way.
Number 2 is also on the way now and to be honest we also tried to wait for the right time before having a second, but as the years go on you realise there is no right time and I wish we'd had a second sooner.

There's no perfect time. But in our case the conditions weren't so right for it when we lived in London. It seemed all our money was going into the endless rent and everyone we knew who got to a certain age and had kids moved away from London. We were haemorrhaging friends! The problem of money was also affecting the course of my artistic and design practice. So we too reached the point where our own move seemed logical. We packed up overseas and within a year we're both in very decent jobs with good medical insurance and I've bought a very affordable flat in a central location of the city. Shortly after the completion of the house purchase I found out I was pregnant. Although not explicitly planned I definitely felt like I kinda let it happen because it was a good place to be in. Decent maternity leave, family friendly working environment, and access to heavily subsidized childcare. I'm 34 this year so I also feel like I just scraped through before i get labelled a geriatric mother.

Sadly... I guess London was just somehow unsettling for us although we lived there for the majority of our adult lives and we've left so many friends (and family) behind.... although we obviously will return to visit UK and show baby around London....

PBobs - how could it not be a class issue when the issue is that some people will never have those markers of "security"?

I love the stories on here which show how different people had different ideas and how life dealt them different hands.

Personally Op, I think you’re on a strong position. You have a strong relationship and whilst I know lots of people become parents alone, having a happy relationship is a great starting point for you and your child. You also have work and financial stability helps, although again we know people manage without it. We also know people can lose their relationship or job or house, so best not to wait for perfection or guarantees of permanent security because no one can give cast iron certainty.

A couple of people here warn about waiting and the potential perils. You’re a decent age in a decent position. You can get on and do it. It might mean you never buy.....it’s hard to save with a baby and if you’re not v close to the deposit now, a baby won’t aid that situation..... but you say you don’t want to be significantly older parents if possible so make your choices. You may not be able to have everything and a baby is important to you so go for it. You have far more than many have in terms of relationship and job. Others may seem to have more in terms of wealth or a house or other security things. But remember that these things don’t really bring happiness in a lasting sense but relationships are what make people happy. If you can have a spouse and a child, and have happy relationships you are rich indeed.

Honestly none of my three DC were planned so I was never really prepared. Although I have to say being in a better financial position made it easier, I had barely anything with DC1, slightly more with DC2 and I was comfortable by the time I had DC3.

Theoretically I have it all "sorted" now (I'm 12 weeks along)

We started ivf before we were married or bought our own house, done both as we were going through our fertility challenges.

I wouldn't of wanted to wait any longer, I was 25 when we we started, 26 now. I felt that was the right time, we didn't know if our house sale would fall through and we planned a wedding in 7 weeks but not because we were planning a baby.. I'd of carried on trying for a baby regardless of where I was at because it's not impossible to get things sorted whenever.. might take a little longer but at least you'd have a beautiful baby to make it all worth while

Totally agree with PPs that there is never a perfect time. My DH and I chose to start TTC during one of the most difficult financial periods of our lives! We had recently blown every penny of our savings plus gotten ourselves into debt in order to emigrate to another country where we didn't know anyone and I wouldn't be able to continue my career. We don't regret our decision at all. We're very happy. I would love to have more money and some maternity pay to put towards our expenses, but when we got here we both just really wanted a baby, and we had a spare room in our rental and made friends with other people with cute babies... something just clicked and we decided to go for it. When it feels right, it just feels right. You can always work out the details but you aren't fertile forever. You have to take the plunge at some point or you miss the boat.

We had it all planned out - house, 2 babies ideally about 2 years apart.

We bought a new build house and started trying 6 months before it was ready. I was 4 months pregnant when we got the keys and then DD arrived. All good. Then I lost my job on mat leave (awful situation so I took voluntary redundancy) and it took 2 years to find another permanent position. So baby 2 was on hold until things were settled.

Even if you are "sorted", you can't always control how things happen. I really wish we had just gone for it a few years earlier

You don’t need everything sorted. Babies take up very little space and don’t care where they live. We coslept with DD so she didn’t need her own room till we moved house when she was 18months. We had very little space until that point and it really didn’t matter to her at all.

BUT some things are very hard after you have a child, so you might want to get some of them in order first. Otherwise you can do them later, but the gap might be larger than you’d think!

1. Your income will in all likelihood be lower, especially if you choose to return part time (as I did). This will seriously dent your ability to get/transfer a mortgage. When you apply for a mortgage, you are supposed to declare anything that you know will affect your income over the next year (such as maternity leave.... even though it’s a protected characteristic under law). Even if you return to work full time you will have childcare costs and they will take this into account when they calculate what they think you can afford. This can really restrict what you are able to buy if you do want more space once kids are larger, and this impact lasts until the last DC you have starts school, so potentially 7 or 8 years after you conceive your first if you want to have 2. Maybe even longer.

1. Most people slow down career progression when DC are small. There are only so many hours in the day! So if there is something that would make a BIG difference to your pay, e.g. a big promotion that you could go for, it might be worth delaying ttc until you get it. But I wouldn’t put it off for ages in case you don’t get it or the delay means you are less likely to conceive.

1. Small children interfere with your social life! When you are trying to establish a routine, that can prevent you doing lots of evening things you would normally do. It’s nice if you’re having children at a similar stage to your friends so that you naturally switch to doing more child friendly activities at the same time. A mis match can mean you see people a lot less and don’t have as much in common to talk about. DH and I weren’t massive partiers, but we definitely see friends much less. DH works a lot during the week, so wants to see his DD at weekends for some proper quality time, which means having less time to see friends. It’s a balancing act.

1. Even if you have everything sorted beforehand, they change it all and mess it all up anyway! You don’t know what your DC will be like until they turn up. You could have triplets. You could have a DC with very specific needs.

Just some thoughts. DD has turned our lives upside down more than I realised. I love her to bits but you have to think about how much your daily life will change and then try and make the best judgement you can. Either way there are things you could end up regretting, or you could be surprised by how well things work out.

Whatever you decide, all the best!

@WombatChocolate

@crazychemist the thing is that we wouldn't be applying for a mortgage whilst paying for full them childcare anyway as we could only start saving again when DC1 is finally at school so we are mentally prepared for that.

My employer seems to be fairly flexible when it comes to working patterns for mums so I hope I will get a certain level of flexibility (as some of my colleagues have it) but I couldn't/wouldn't want to be part time.

We don't drink and or go out much, the only thing we splurge in is holidays and I know I might have to put that aside for a while, although my family and friends and home are not in the UK so still an excuse to travel oversees :)

If you have an affordable place to live and a good relationship I wouldn't wait until age 35 to try for a baby.

Owning a property isn't an essential and you don't need a big car either. There will always be people with better and worse circumstances, try to focus on your own happiness - a much wanted baby is such a blessing in life.