Deciding to have a baby

[Bellis101]

Hi there

I hope this is ok to post, but if not, please feel free to delete it.

I'm doing some research for a book I'm writing, and I'm interested in people's motivations for becoming a parent. In particular, I'm interested in why women choose this life path. I'm child-free myself, so need some input from others regarding the thought processes that take place when a women decides to get pregnant and/or decides not to have an abortion if the pregnancy is unplanned. Why did you choose to become a mother?

Thanks in advance for any replies, and apologies to anyone who is offended by my question.

I guess it's something I ve always wanted to do, we re in our mid 20s and didn't want to leave it till we were older and we re married, have jobs that were stable and own our house so seemed like great timing.

I was fairly neutral about whether I wanted children. I was never drawn to babies or children except my niece so much so that when my niece was born my family was concerned about how I would be around her.
My partner was keen to have children when it was first raised we weren't in a position to start a family but we knew that in a year or so things would be better so we worked on getting ready. Improving my health and starting more stable jobs. 18 months later we started trying and a year later we have a baby.

Because one night we went away and stayed at a lovely hotel and too many espresso martinis lead to a baby. Once I figured out why I was SO tired I took a test and stood with Mr Tangleteaser who without hesitation said “right, let’s have a baby then”.

Neither of us were sure if we really wanted children and certainly could never imagine having planned a baby but he’s the coolest kid ever and I couldn’t imagine life any differently now.

I'm currently trying but if i'm honest I'm still not entirely sure why I want to start a family. I'm not that keen on babies or small children, but i love the curiosity and adventure of older children. I think I would hugely regret not having a family, and as i'm in my mid-30's, have a house, a good job, and a supportive partner I suppose if I don't do it now then I never will!

Interesting one op! Am currently childless but would like one and am trying. I'd like to build my own family, to grow a person I then look forward to having a relationship with. I'd like to experience the joy of watching my very own child grow up (experienced watching other people's kids grow up and it's great).

But I know all the evidence suggests it will make me poorer, more tired and probably unhappier at times. All the evidence says it puts a strain on your relationship with a partner too.

Logically having kids doesn't really make sense....

My DD is six months old, and while I could truthfully say I wasn't bothered either way with kids, it's sort of the 'done' thing and it seemed a logical step after house/marriage so I guess... Why not?

My DH definitely wanted kids though. As I was ambivalent (wouldn't be depressed if it never happened) we went for it.

Only thing I said was that I would not try for a baby until I had my qualifications, we had a house and were married. Ironically, a few months after I qualified I fell pregnant.

To flesh out the above statement, I fell pregnant at 21 with the same DH (then 3 year BF). I terminated then without hesitation as I knew I was not mentally or economically capable of raising a child. Apologies if this upsets anyone, but truthfully I have had zero regrets about it and if I went back I would not choose differently.

I'm in my late 20s and my life felt like it had become a bit meaningless. I'd completed my education, established my career, got married and spent a decade living a relatively hedonistic lifestyle of eating out, drinking, travelling and basically just enjoying myself in a very carefree way. I realised one day that I was sort of done with all of that, and it didn't make me happy any more like it used to. I was ready for the next challenge and to think about someone other than myself and devote myself to something a bit more meaningful. I'm due to give birth in 3 weeks and I'll be the first of my friends to have a baby (I'm also the only one of my friends who's married) - I have no idea what made me feel done with all of those things earlier than other people I know!

I had, at times, a difficult childhood so I have always wanted a family of my own to feel like I belonged somewhere and to 'right the wrongs' I felt my parents inflicted on me.

I also thought I would be good at it, I am quite maternal, very practical, caring, good with kids. I have one and pregnant with second. Far from perfect but feel I am doing a good job and I enjoy it.

My now-spouse and I discussed it a lot early on once we decided to make our relationship more serious (we were friends with on-off long distance thing for a while), in a 'can we see our lives going the same way' alongside what we wanted in careers and life in general. My spouse pretty much had his ideas of life with the idea of being a very hands-on parent, family-centred in mind.

While I generally advise 'if it's not a hell yes, it's a no', that wasn't my starting place. I grew up being told girls like me didn't grow up to have kids, wasn't even supposed to get married, I'd been warned against it and told I would be unsuitable for relationships and parenting so many times. In our talks, he never pushed that I needed to agree, as I said, we started discussing it pretty early on when walking away was still an easy option, it was more his enthusiasm was contagious. Something about the way he talked about it made it seem like it would be a worthwhile risk. He still does that now - I couldn't care less about buying a house, but he's made buying a fixer-upper sound potentially interesting enough for me to research and make plans.

I honestly think I would be equally, but differently happy if we'd chosen otherwise as long as it was our choice. Once I decided I was never going to be pregnant again, I've never had the flicker of maybes that I hear from others and neither has my spouse, at least to my knowledge, he openly discusses getting the snip with other people in an encouraging way.

I never had that ‘longing’ to have a baby that others do, in fact, for a long time DH and I wondered if we even wanted children. But when we really thought about it, we realised we wanted that family unit, especially when we’re older - we want the grown up kids and our grandkids round for Sunday dinners and Christmases etc, that family hub. Plus I love the idea of little people that are part him and part me - it’s building our own little family and starting a whole new blood line, it’s exciting. So while we probably could have decided that right now wasn’t the time for us, we knew we wanted that eventually and with me being mid-thirties, we felt there’s no time like the present.

I’m now almost 14 weeks pregnant after a loss at 12 weeks earlier this year and that really reinforced just how much we want this. I can’t wait to see the miniature us and to feel the overwhelming love for the child but also to see how much more I fall in love with DH when he becomes ‘dad’. We’ve been together since we were 20 and it’s exciting growing together.

I’m 5 months pregnant with my first baby. My husband and I have been married for 3 years. We always knew we wanted children and preferably before we were 30. (We’re both 27 now). We have the money, a gorgeous country home, he has a great job and I can afford to be a SAHM.

We take a big family holiday every summer to the states so had actually planned to try around now as we were due back a few weeks ago. When Coronavirus kicked off we moved our plans forward a few months as we figured no foreign holidays would be had by anyone this summer and it seemed like a good time to settle down and start our family! 🥰

Because it is something I always wanted from childhood and that never went away. Only difference being that my childhood self (from around age 7/8 ish) used to play single mummy imagining I had 4 children and we all lived happily in a cave and they were called Morgan, Lucy, Francine and Boy (cannot for the life of me recall where I got the names from or why those names 🤔).
As I got a little older I dreamt of meeting partner at 20, engaged at 22 and then first child at 24. Well that never happened quite like that but I did meet my DP at 22, we got engaged at 31, married at 33 and first baby due any day soon, aged 36. On reflection no way would I have been ready emotionally, mentally, financially or otherwise to have a baby in my early 20s and whilst I did get a bit anxious around early 30s, partner wasn't ready. It's not just mothers, as much as my childhood self would have liked to think, it's fathers too. We decided together we both wanted to be parents together and were ready.

(those names are not on our shortlist for this baby, FYI 😂)

The hope that it brings. I was on the fence for a while. Understood we're over populated but only in certain parts of the world. Understood the environmental impacts. But I feel its the best offering I can give to hopefully make the world a better place. Wouldn't it be amazing if your child discovered a cure for all cancers, a solution to climate change, or even just to be a friend of someone with loneliness. The world's problems are not going to be solved by everyone already alive... New people just like new technology are always going to be needed.

I wanted to create a big family. I like to be surrounded by loved ones. I’m from a big family so want to follow that through to the next generation.

Hope that makes sense!

I was never fussed about having children but once I met my now DH, I knew that I wanted to have children with him. It was a bit like when you meet 'The One'.

We have such a good marraige; he's kind, supportive and just a genuinely 100% perfect guy! We're now expecting our first child and I know he'll be an awesome Daddy!

I've always just kind of assumed that I would have them, that procreation is somehow the 'goal' of life - which I know it totally isn't, but I suppose we're programmed biologically and socially to think that way.

Even though I work with children and have lots of nieces and nephews, I can't say I am a particularly broody person. I think spending so much time with children means that my eyes are fully open to how challenging it can be and I don't have much of the rose-tinted glasses "ahh aren't they cute" thing going on.

I struggled to conceive for a few years and found it was almost the pregnancy more than the child that I was pining for. I've always been fascinated by pregnancy and birth and really wanted to experience it for myself.

When I was facing the prospect of childlessness, I also mourned the feeling that my life would not change that much over the next few of decades. It would just be more work / sleep / eat repeat until retirement, with the occasional holiday. With children your life is continually changing and moving on to the next stage. Which I guess is exhausting, but adds variety of a sense of progress and also gives you different priorities to focus on other than work.