If you met your DP mid-30s and wanted children, how quickly did you have them?

[FreckledLeopard]

Prompted slightly by another active thread and something I've been thinking about.

If you met your DP in your mid-thirties and knew you wanted children, did you marry and/or get pregnant more quickly than you otherwise would have done if you'd been younger? Did you feel like you really 'knew' your partner or were you taking a slight chance and hoping for the best?

I met DP nearly a year ago. We both want children. Time is ticking. It would have been wonderful if we'd met a few more years ago, but as it is, we're talking about TTC at the end of next year.

Has anyone done anything similar? Any regrets?

Met DH at 32. He was 38. We talked about what we wanted early in the relationship and so after 6 months we moved in together and got pregnant more or less at the same time. A year later we were married. I think it was a bit risky but its worked out well and I knew I'd have family support if it didnt work out between us. Its nice now our boy is getting older that we're having a bit more 'us' time and are pretty silly about each other again. Its nice to know we are romantically in love still. We think another child would finish us off though! We personally feel too old now at 38 and 43 :-)

hereandtherex Yes I know what you mean. There was a time when the mere sound of someone being sick would get me retching, but for some reason I don't hesitate to put my hands out to catch it when my own child is being sick.

I met my Dh aged 34 and had dd1 aged 36. We would have waited had we been younger, we weren't married either. I have no regrets -it felt right. Dd2 was conceived on our honeymoon and born when I was 38.

Thank you so much for these positive stories. I am very loved up, have been married before and know what I want. Things are going really well. I already have DD (now 13) from previous relationship so I know that having a baby can put so much strain on a couple and I worry if we haven't been together for a long time, quite what the effect will be. But at the same time, I'm very confident that DP is the person I want to have children with (DD not planned!)

Whether or not fertility drops off after 35, it's not helpful to hear this over and over again. If it happens, it happens. Every woman is different.

I'm 32, single and want children. ExDP left recently, always think men will assume I am going to jump on them to have babies because of my age.

I think if you're going to look at stats, you need to look more closely at full term pregnancies, not just conceiving past a certain age. It's a fact we drop the healthiest eggs at a certain age.

That said, met DH at 37, engaged 2 years later and began TTC, thinking it might never happen and we'd give it a year before giving up. Got pregnant second month trying, and married while 30 weeks pregnant. Not the beach wedding abroad we had in mind :-)

These are lovely stories. I'm 35 and broke up with a long term partner in March. I have recently started dating again and know I want a family but am trying to put that to one side. I have a two year old niece which helps.

Met my husband when we were 36. Engaged by 37. Married at 38. Started ttc when we got engaged. 13 months later got pregnant. Yes ideally we'd have been married for several years before baby creation.

Got the together with dp 4 months ago. Have known him to chat to for years. I'm 33 and he's 41. I move in officially next month and we both know we want to get married and have kids.

This one just feels different

Met DH at 34, married on our 2 year anniversary, DS1 born the day before our 1st wedding anniversary.

We've had a few problems and I do wonder sometimes if I married him because I felt time was running out & because I knew he'd make a good father, rather than because I wanted to be with him. I still don't know to be honest, but hoping once I've got my head in a better place that things will be better between us.

The advice about not leaving it too late to conceive is only really helpful to people in a relationship.

It doesn't seem at all helpful to a single woman in her 30s.

Met DP three weeks before my 36th birthday, am now 38 (& a bit!) with 4 month old DD and we get married in April.
We started ttc earlier that I would have liked due to my age and the fact that it took me 2 yrs to get pg with DD1 when I was 30 but DD2 only took three months to conceive! I had 40 as a 'cut-off' point for ttc which means DP thinks there's now time for another one!

No NorthLDNgal. Its not a case of 'whether' it does!

Just because you might find the topic upsetting and unhelpful, I think it worth repeating. There are too many women who think they are somehow special and the laws of nature do not apply to them. Or maybe, xxxx from the telly knocked one out when she was 44.

These are exceptional cases. You are risking you own and the babaies health if you leave it too long.

I know too many 45+ women who face a lonely lifetime of regret because they were too focused/ignoring biology during their 20s + 30s.

Its sad. Its unfair. Its not 'right'. But, unfortunately, that's life.

I think it's two separate issues - firstly, how long do you wait until you have the discussion of "shall we start ttc?" without your partner wondering if you see them as a walking sperm bank, and secondly when you actually manage to get pregnant.

I've known people get pregnant in days. Literally days, from having the conversation, and they've been pretty surprised it all happened so fast. Then again, I've had friends have the discussion, assume (as everyone does) that it would take a few months, and they are still waiting three years later.

In all honesty I think it's a really really tricky thing in life to navigate, and that's not trying to be a wet blanket. There are so many different things to balance out, including (obviously!!) whether it's something only one person really wants, or if it's something both people are equally ready for, not to mention whether you'll be lucky or not with fertility.

For me personally the time when it was just OH and I was a very important time in cementing our relationship and actually getting to the point when we were ready to have children.

We were younger though - late 20's when we met and first baby early 30's.

I think the fertility and age stuff is really overemphasised. I know anecdotes do not equal data but where I live I was the youngest first time mum in my baby groups and I was 37 and conceived within two months. The people I knew who were struggling to conceive were all in their late twenties which did at least give them a chance to try IVF.

DH and I were married 2 years when we had DD and together 5 years. It has undoubtedly put a strain on our marriage but I know a lot of that is down to tiredness as friends are in a similar boat. We all just hope it gets better again once kids sleep through without fail!

I see the 36/37/38 progression is quite popular (me too)

We definitely went for it earlier than we might have done normally, and then on top of that I got pregnant literally immediately, so it was all a bit soonish. But no regrets and we are all very happy (have now been together 7 years, DS is 4.5)

I do think it's really important to have a bank of happy, giddy early times to draw upon if things get tough after DC, but you'll have 2 years and that's a good chunk of time

here I agree your comments are not really appropriate here, we're not talking about women faffing about but those of us who didn't even meet our DH until late, so your comments are just upsetting for no good reason

Keep the stories coming! Good and bad!

All very well saying don't leave it too late but some of us don't meet suitable partners until later in life and are not willing to get pregnant with any old Tom, dick or Harry.

I married at 35 having met partner two ears earlier, had first child 37 and second 39 years old. No problem with ttc. Am I one of the lucky ones - who knows but life doesn't always follow the plan.

We went really fast, though we were at the younger end of your age group - I was 30 and DH 32 when we met. I think we had both just reached the 'right' moment though: both just landed a permanent job (in the same place as it turned out, and in a career where it is rare to have a permanent job until your early/mid 30s), both spent quite a lot of time working out what we were really looking for etc, both knew that we wanted children and I remember we talked about that straightforwardly very early on, before we actually started seeing each other.

Anyway, I was pregnant within about 9 months of us getting together, we got married on DS's three month 'birthday' in Feb 2013. We've now been together for about three and a half years, and married for a year and three quarters, and I'm expecting DS2 (definitely the last one) just after Christmas. So it has been pretty nippy. It's so hard to plan though - I have lots of friends who have taken 1-2 years to get pregnant, even with no real problems, but we have conceived the first month of trying four times in a row (2 pgs, 2 early losses). You just can't really plan for that sort of thing. If I'd known how quick it would be - and how ill I would be - we would have waited a bit I think.

Unfortunately I have really terrible pregnancies - I mean in hospital/bedbound for the entire nine months. That has been a huge strain and in retrospect it was a BIG gamble and a massive shock the first time round - I know lots of women whose much longer-standing marriages/relationships have broken down under the stress of a pregnancy like that. It also meant that the entire pregnancy period has basically not 'counted' towards building up happy/romantic memories before becoming parents, within a couple of weeks we went from 'giddy new couple who have just moved in together' to me being gravely ill in hospital having to discuss in what circs we would terminate for my sake. It was pretty intense. So really we had just a few months of being 'just us' before it all got tough.

On the other hand, I feel really proud that we are still doing so well as a couple despite everything. And I hope that things will get easier for us over the next few years.

One thing that I did find hard is that I really really missed having much time alone with DH when DS was a little baby. We started leaving him with family/a babysitter in the evening much earlier than most people we knew (from about 3 months) because it was really important to us to have that time alone. I can imagine that if we'd been together longer before the baby I might have found that stage a bit easier.

Met DH when I was 34, got married at 36, had DS at 37

I think that we were both just ready (although he's 5 years younger than me) but I was particularly keen to start trying once we got married. It took a whole 8 weeks to get pregnant!

Yes, baby at 40, 18 months after meeting DH.

I was 33 when we met, we got married when I was 35 and started ttc on honeymoon. Got pregnant first month trying!

I'm now 37 and pregnant with dc2.

I didn't feel we rushed due to our ages, but it felt right and we were grown up enough to know we were ready. We definitely started ttc as soon as we were married because we were conscious of my age though.

Actually my Mum is more relevant for you OP. She was widowed in her late 20s (2 young DCs) and met my Dad when she was 35, I think, and he was 39. They married v. quickly (within a few months) and she managed to fit in three babies, as well as having a few miscarriages, by the time she was 40 - my youngest sibling was born just before her 40th birthday. So they didn't hang about either!

Hereandtherex - ignoring having children in my 20s and 30s is not the case for me. It's not a case of 'ignoring' it's about being very much aware of it and making decisions on partners and their suitability. I haven't met the man I would feel comfortable having children with yet. Being 32 I think I have a better idea now. I'd feel more irresponsible having babies with any old bloke because I was fearful of time running out. If I still don't meet the right man before I'm 40 I still won't have children.

I accept the 35 cliff edge is a fact of life but not for everyone as itwillgetbettersoon stated. I'm not going to pop some babies out with the next available man 'who'll do' because I'm 3 years away from dropping off the cliff edge of fertility and then regret it when I'm 45 because I knew I never really loved/fancied him. That's just wrong. And unfair on everyone, on husband and kids and the one who feels pressured by society to pop babies out.

Children are wonderful and I would love to have them, but I really do get narked by the social pressures on women to feel that they are a failure by the time they're 35 and without children. I think having children is the ultimate milestone by which women rate the success of their lives. Then there are some women who understand this feeling and look beyond it and find value in the non-child part of their lives, by doing whatever it is they love/are good at.

My main point is I don't think having children with someone you're not completely sure about is a good idea just because time 'is running out'.