Deciding on the right time to start a family?

[GoldenGirl85]

Hello,

I’m currently about 6 weeks pregnant. As a newlywed, I was planning on waiting at least a year before starting a family, but my workplace has become such a mess under a horrible new director that I thought now might be the perfect time for an extended career break. My husband has always been ready to start a family and was just waiting on my timing, so this felt like the right moment for us.

It would be great to know I’m not alone in my decision-making. For those who had the privilege of being able to plan, what prompted your decision to start a family?

Congratulations! For us it was just that we had always had a set of things we wanted ticked off first (married, buy a house, stable jobs & savings behind us), once we had achieved those things we stopped contraception and started trying, now have a beautiful baby girl!

You’re adding to your family - not starting - you’re already a family!! We started as it just felt right, it’s taken longer than expected due to a miscarriage, luckily now 35 weeks. I’m glad we wait til we had steady jobs, and our own house.

I needed stability to start TTC. I have a lifelong mental health condition so I needed that to be stable first. Home life had to be stable too, I spent a year spending half a week at my parents and half a week at the house I shared with my partner as I got a job in the area we wanted to move too a year before my partners contract started. The nature of his work means there can be 2 years between applying for a role and starting the role.
Stability of finances in mat leave I wanted to make sure me and my partner had been in our roles long enough for enhanced maternity/pat leave options. OH threw a spanner in the works with that one by getting a new job when we were trying so he only got statutory leave in the end.
To ttc number 2 weeks and to feel emotionally and physically able to go through newborn life again with a preschooler that was still very demanding of energy and resources! It also took some counselling to process our first year as me and my daughter had periods of ill health that took its toll on all of us

@Mrsttcno1 lovely! Congratulations on your baby girl!

@Peonies12 so true! Need to change my mindset, we are already a family. Although, I barely remember that I'm married. Takes some time getting used to.

Congratulations! Hope everything goes well with the final leg.

@Superscientist Glad you managed to make it work for you. I think counselling is something that should be offered to all pregnant women and mums.

I'm currently looking into Better Help as it would be good to speak to a professional about some of my feelings. My husband has his limits when it comes to these things.

Security - this translated to a big enough house (as mortgage affordability goes down the drain with a dependant), marriage, career and a blow out holiday.

So we:
Married
Moved to a bigger house with better layout (living room was small before)
Moved my job so I could qualify for better maternity pay
Finished my exams and qualified
Went to Canada and did snowboarding, dogsledding etc

I worked out the exact 'safe date' when I would qualify for my firms enhanced mat pay and went off contraception a week after. Ended up getting pregnant the month after which was a bit of a surprise, as I was definitely anticipating it taking a lot longer so would have more time to save a cushion (but not really needed due to better mat pay)

Realising that waiting for the 'right time' would mean never!

For our 1st it was a case of, we were married, bought a house had some savings behind us so there was nothing left to wait for.

With the 2nd, it was a ah fuck it we'll deal with the consequences afterwards type decision. Still married, still have the house. Few savings and get made redundant halfway through maternity leave!

Currently pregnant with that 2nd, it timed out perfectly really. I get my 3 months enhanced pay before being made redundant in December (decent redundancy package) and then will start looking for jobs again in Spring and not really stressing about it. Have a job interview next week actually for a role starting next year which is unexpected!

It all works out in the end.

Sometimes the right time never comes or comes too late..... one of my best friends put it off for years to build her career then when she started trying in her late 30's it just didn't happen.
She's 41 now and going through a second cycle of IVF and will be the first to say that she regrets putting it off for so many years and waiting for the 'right time'.

For me, there was no luxury of planning. I got pregnant totally unexpectedly at the beginning of a new relationship. I was in the middle of a nasty divorce and a court case for domestic assault. I was back living with my dad, skint, and my new partner was in a different country!
We decided to keep the baby and she's now 4, we got married 2 years ago and I'm now pregnant with our 2nd child.

I'm not sure I'd recommend doing it my way (at all) but, if I was waiting till I was ready, I'm not sure it would have ever happened!