How did you know that you were ready for a baby?

[BubbleBathLover]

So a little bit of back story: DH and I got married at the beginning of Spring and have been together for over 9 years. We are both 25 and will be moving into our dream forever home in a couple of weeks. Also, both of us have very stable and decent income jobs.

I am so ready to stop taking my pill and start TTC but my DH just avoids talking about the subject as much as he can. The problem is I don’t really know how he feels. Over the last few months when he has been talking to me or in company (and has had a drink or 2) and the subject has been brought up he has said that he would be over the moon if we had a baby any time soon, but when I bring it up he is very hesitant. He thinks we should go on one more holiday, or buy a better car or some other reason but never goes into it.

He is so sweet and lovely but has never been great on talking about things. Also, as much as I would love to wait until our friends are at a similar stage, none are even engaged and have made it clear they won’t start trying for likely another 5 years.

My main question of all this is: how did you and your partner know you were ready to have a baby?

Thanks

I think it's an emotional state rather than a list of practical things. My fiancé (will be husband by the ) and I intend to start trying next year, we don't feel we'll be missing out anymore; there isn't things that we want to do first. When I was 25, I was sure I was nearly ready, but there was quite a lot of places and things I wanted to do before I had kids.

It doesn't sound like your husband is there yet. You've got time and he seems to be working towards it, so I'd go with the flow for now. Tick off some of the things he wants to do and achieve first. I'm really glad we did. We may well revisit the same places with kids; we certainly intend to keep as much of our lifestyle as possible, but life does change a lot!

The one thing I didn't consider was leaving it later means you have less time with them when they are older, as do grandparents. And then you seeing their children grow up. It breaks my heart to think of the time we wasted.
Saying that we did travel first, live abroad for 2 years and then got pregnant by accident while planning our next adventure. We were happy we'd traveled but it felt much more right to have a baby.

I thought I was ready at 24 but dh wasn’t. I became very broody but knew that financially it didn’t make sense at that point and I knew I wanted to do some travelling first. Fast forward 6 years and we got married, had some amazing holidays and both changed career so the conversation just came naturally. We have been married over 3 years so had a lot of pressure from other people making comments but now is just the perfect time for us. It doesn’t feel like I’m going to miss out on anything now as we have done so much in the last few years.

You have only recently got married so it might all feel a bit rushed to your dh to start trying straight away. If there are places he wants to travel and you want to maybe tick some of them off the list whilst you work towards becoming ready. It never hurts to save whilst waiting to!

I don’t think you are ever truly ready, especially men at times. My fiancé wanted kids but was nervous about it and that’s what delayed it for us. He hasn’t been around babies an awful lot and doesn’t really have friends with children so had no idea what to expect or how it would change his life. He assumed I had it figured out and knew what to do with them etc and has he didn’t he wasn’t ready in his eyes. When we sat down and talked and he realised that actually there was an awful lot I don’t know about raising children but that it was OKAY as most people don’t. And that yes our lives will change and he’ll get less ‘him time’ but he’ll gain a whole different love for him to revolve around and again, we will make it up as we go. At that point he said yes to TTC.

So maybe you both need to sit down and really work out what is putting doubt in his mind as the one more car one more holiday may be a cover for something else? As there will always be one more of something to want.

Even though objectively we were ready and had been for a while, we had that "one more x" plan for a while. Suddenly everything just changed and I felt the strongest need from deep within me that I had to have children. I can't describe it, it was all encompassing. I don't know whether that happens to everybody or whether some people come to a conscious, rationalised decision...but when I knew, I knew.

I don't think anyone is ever ready - especially men! You don't know how easy it will be to get pregnant and stay pregnant - it could take 1 month or 5 years

If you want more than 1 child definitely better to start early if you are stable financially - I had first DC at 31 and always wanted more - 5 mc 2 ectopics later am permanently infertile - if I had known at 25 what I know now I would have started earlier

In all honesty as other posters have said I don’t think men are ever ready. It’s really not the same for them. My husband just went along with me and wasn’t overly vocal or fussed about having children. It wasn’t until our twins arrived that he now thinks it’s the best thing in the world. He has told me if I hadn’t have been so maternal and didn’t have that constant urge we he would never have suggested it and would have remained childless. He would have been happy with that back then but now cant believe he even thought like that. It’s the unknown I think. We are now having number 3 and although we hadn’t planned anymore he is much more excited and involved this time round.

And as @DerbyshireGirly said you’ll know when you want a baby it really does becoming everything. Your body is literally gnawing at you and it’s a consuming feeling. It’s quite animalistic actually your need to breed and mate goes through the roof!

Eh, I never got that crazy biological 'urge' as such. For us it was more of a practical thing - we got the big house, had done all the holidaying we wanted to, were solid financially and in a good position job wise, etc. and I was getting on a bit so we had to kind of do it sooner rather than later I'm not a very maternal person in general so I'm not sure I would ever have got that biological urge so strongly that I had to obey it, but DD is here now and I love the bones of her and she's the best thing I've ever done.

DP finds it hard to imagine things or get excited about things before they happen, so he was quite ambivalent about the whole thing, but he's a fantastic dad now she's here, as I knew he would be. The whole pregnancy thing is a kind of weird situation anyway I think - it's weird enough when you're the one carrying the baby; for dads I think it's a difficult thing to wrap your head round as you're not really connected in the same way till they are here.

As a previous poster, I have essentially zero maternal instinct so the decision to have a child was more of a "well, why not?" sentiment. We had our forever home, I had fully qualified in my field and we had been married a few years. My OH has been ready for a few years, but he is older than I am.

I am not ready per se, more that I don't have any reasons left not to.

I fell pregnant - unexpectedly - literally 3 weeks after DH and I got married. I honestly don’t think either of us were really “ready” until she was born! DH especially.
We are now 4 years down the line and expecting DC3, and the way DH describes it is that a lot of men are very visual creatures - so the whole “we are having a baby” thing doesn’t really hit them properly until there’s an actual baby there that he can see and touch.

Honestly-when he was a couple months old and we had managed to survive and we’re getting on okay, I’d kept a tiny human alive for weeks and not lost my sanity.
DS was somewhat of a surprise-we knew we wanted kids one day, just had a few plans first. The plans didn’t happen, and now DS2 is soon approaching.
A part of me sometimes longs for a little more time for us before our boys, but I love the bones of my son and he makes me so happy every day-now he’s here I cannot imagine life without him