How do you know your ready to have kids?

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Xeney : One Thread

I think I'm ready to have kids, but how do I really know that I know? I'm fairly young and have been happily married about 2 years. I have this feeling that the timing is right to start trying to get pregnant. My husband and I have started talking seriously about the possibility, but it's hard to even figure out how to have such a conversation. I'm really one of the first of my friends to be married, much less consider having kids in the near future. I don't know who to ask. So...help me out--especially those of you w/kids. What are the biggest factors I should be thinking about in making this decision? What do you wish you would have known or thought about?

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000

Answers

We waited three years before we even tried to have kids. It was a very wise decision. We have to know each other first before we're ready to have kids. Because once you have kids, the days of dropping everything on a whim and going somewhere flies out the window. For the first few months, you and he might be too exhausted from staying up all night to think about anything sexual. Ilove my kids, and we planned them, and I miss the one I lost more than I can say...but there's no denying it's a major life change.

Al of NOVA NOTES.

-- Anonymous, March 09, 2000


Have them before you grow older and get scared. I'm serious. If I knew then what I know now, I still would have done it but man would I have saved myself some headaches from all the worrying i do now. You are NEVER ready to have children. You can prepare but don't think you'll ever be ready for the actuality. (i have 3 children ages: 11, 7, and 15 mon

-- Anonymous, March 09, 2000

I thought I NEVER wanted to have kids...until I got involved with someone who had two...and I realized that while exhausting at times, being a parent wasn't as difficult as I'd made it out to be (no offense to the parents out there). That relationship ended, but I still see the kids. In fact, I miss them far more than their dad...so much so that I'm now committed to having my own in the next 1-2 years. They change your life in a way that is utterly ineffable. Have you thought about work/career? Can you put it on hold or do you want to? Who will stay home when the kids get sick? Think about your own answers as well as talking with your partner for his. Above all, good luck! The fact that you're thinking about it this way at all is a good sign.

-- Anonymous, March 09, 2000

I think Renee said it well -- you can be prepared, but you can never really be "ready," mostly because each child is so unique, you're unique at that time -- your financial status, your relationship, etc.

Do take some time for you as a couple (we didn't have that choice, but it's worked out -- 18 years and still best friends and happy)... but in the early years of having children, it's physically and emotionally exhausting, so having a great relationship helps tremendously.

Do ask yourself a lot of questions -- from the things like someone suggested about work (staying home, when to go back or not, etc.) but also the philosophical ones (religion or not, what type, attitudes about discipline, attitudes about schooling, things that bothered you that your parents did, his parents did to him, things you liked that you'd like to do yourself. Ironically, that one can be a proble because something you think is TERRIFIC might just strike him as too lenient or too strict.)

I recently told Kate in e-mail that I have never known such depths of despair as having children, because you want so very deeply for them... you FEEL so very much of their pain, their disappointments, their frustrations and fears and failures. But I have never had anything which made me feel such profound joy as having them around -- their company, their love, their humor, their unique personalities, their triumphs.

I wouldn't trade this experience for anything in the world.

I had never been the kind of person who thought I'd have children. I had planned on being childless and staying career focused. I didn't feel like I had any real maternal instinct and never even babysat. Just was not interested in a kid. I didn't feel like I was missing anything when I saw friends with kids. And life had something else planned for me... two of the best accidents (grin) in the whole world. Thank god I didn't have the life I chose originally. I would have missed out on the best thing (having kids) to have happened to me, besides meeting my husband.

-- Anonymous, March 09, 2000


Moderation questions? read the FAQ