The right time to have a baby

skintchick

moneysaver12 wrote: »

Im starting at 30 as i have had ill health for years and over the past couple of years have been getting much better. It is hard as i do want a career and i do want a baby, i can't imagine not having a baby. Thankyou for your help.

CAn you imagine not having a career?

If you can, then maybe rethink your plans and go for the family, but if you can;t then I'm afraid I think you face a very tough choice.

It's hard - I don't envy you and I'm sorry that life has led you to this - but I don;t really see how you can do both when you haven;t even finished studying yet and time is marching on in terms of fertility.

EVen if you finish your studies and then have a child, you won;t get the career as it takes a good few years to establish yourself professionally.

moneysaver12

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

I think that deliberately planning to have a baby in the middle of your degree course is pretty daft. People do cope if accidents happen but to put your whole future career (you won't get on a post grad course without a decent degree) at risk for the sake of an extra year or so seems utter madness!

I see what you mean, its hard. Thankyou for your help.

moneysaver12

MrsTine wrote: »

It's a tough choice... but imagine if you had the baby whilst doing your degree... and then got poorly again... how would you cope? if all went well and you had baby, could someone look after it for you free like parents? if not have you checked you can afford daycare whilst studying? if you had to give up uni half way through would you end up resenting the baby for being the cause?

We would have to put the baby in daycare. I don't think i would end up resenting the baby.

skintchick wrote: »

CAn you imagine not having a career?

If you can, then maybe rethink your plans and go for the family, but if you can;t then I'm afraid I think you face a very tough choice.

It's hard - I don't envy you and I'm sorry that life has led you to this - but I don;t really see how you can do both when you haven;t even finished studying yet and time is marching on in terms of fertility.

EVen if you finish your studies and then have a child, you won;t get the career as it takes a good few years to establish yourself professionally.

I can't imagine not having a career. Its hard as i want both.

becs

32 isn't old to start trying and I can't see the point in planning to have a baby whilst trying to do a degree course just seems total madness.How many degree students do you see either pregnant or with babies? I would say the two are not compatible, of course there are those for whom it is not planned and they do get through it but I'm sure if you ask them if they could do it again would they have waited, that the answer would be yes.

teacherandmum

i did my degree and my masters before i was 25 and wasn't in a serious relationship. now i've got a career and a husband and a 2 year old and plans for another, i still work full time but am doing a basic class teacher job and not looking to gain promotion and further my career. if you have a baby during your degree/phd etc you may just want to spend time with your baby and your studies may be the last thing on your mind. and finances will be very tight if you are studying and paying chilfdare. you really need to decide baby or career now and keep evaluating as time goes on. there never is a right or wrong time in a good relationship . just imagine next month you found yourself pregnany by accident next month - what would your reaction be?

Poppy9

While delaying for you studies is a good idea are you positive you can actually get pregnant. You usually have to be trying for over 12 months before you can be referred for fertility treatment. If children are that important to you it's something you need to consider.

skintchick

moneysaver12 wrote: »

We would have to put the baby in daycare. I don't think i would end up resenting the baby.




I can't imagine not having a career. Its hard as i want both.

I know you WANT both, but is it right and fair on you, your OH and your potential baby to HAVE both? Personally, I think not.

In your oP you said you are 30 now, and that you start uni this year on a three-year course, and that you then want to do a post-grad course which will be a further two to five years of study.

You will then, worst-case scenario, be 38, and best-case 35.

You then want to get a job and work on your career.

Say you have a baby now. Aside from the considerable difficulties of having a baby while studying at degree level, you will then have a four or seven-year-old when you start your career.

This will raise issues of being there for the child before and after school at a time when you will need to be throwing yourself into your work to prove yourself.

Do not underestimate the abilities of employers to be completely unhelpful on these things.

You say you will put the child in daycare, but then I feel, and this is very much my personal opinion, that there is little point in having a child at all as for its formative years you will be either studying or working while it languishes in childcare.

You don;t say whether your OH is prepared to go part-time or be stay-at-home in order to look after the child, and that might be an option.

Another thing to consider is his age. Sperm deteriorate after 40 so the longer you leave it the worse it will be, in the same way that our eggs deteriorate after 35. It doesn;t mean you won;t get pregnant, it just increases the risks of various things being 'wrong' with the baby. It's something to bear in mind.

And if you wait till you finish your study to have a baby, you will be maybe 38, your OH 48, very late to begin trying, and then will have a small baby to contend with while you attempt to work full-time.

I really do think that it you are determined about the study and career, the kindest thing is not to have a baby, and if you are determined about the baby then you will have to give up the big study and career plan.

I know people do it, but putting a child in daycare from very little is not ideal. Babies are not accessories to our lives, they are important little people who deserve the best we can give them.

feelinggood_2

A quote that sums up my thoughts: "What many people try to do is they try to fit the baby into their lives rather than wrapping their lives around the baby".

oystercatcher

I too think it would be extremely foolish to plan a baby in the middle of a degree.

Just being pregnant will seriously impact on your ability to study, never mind coping after the baby is born. You say you have had health problems, I don't know what these are but being pregnant could cause these problems to reoccur. Some women spend months of their pregnancy sitting in hospital, have a premature baby which spends weeks in SCBU.

This is worst case scenario of course but just pointing out that these things can't be planned to just fit in with a degree and exams. Never mind being able to time a pregnancy to fit in with the start of an academic year !! Read any trying to concieve thread and you will see that it's not always that simple to concieve.

That being said I do understand, totally, how it is being broody and the feeling can't just be swept away.
Various options occur to me, delay baby until after course. Delay course until after baby. Plan to have a year out of course to have baby and readjust to life as a parent.
It might be worth chatting to your GP to see if your previous health problems are likely to have any impact on a pregnancy.

Remember to start taking folic acid well before trying to concieve !!

Pee

I think it's a very good point raised about how you would cope with studying whilst pregnant. I have been a student but not yet a mother and I have to say the third year is the hardest but you are 30 with a partner and you probably aren't going to be living the social life of the younger students. I knew several women on my degrees who had families and despite the time constraints of that were older, more capable and more organised to deal with the studying.
Research into the childcare facilities, I think they were pretty good and very cheap back then.
I don't suppose you'll know - until you have your baby - whether a career or a child will be more important to you. In the same way working mums may have strong ideas about going back to work but then choose to stay at home with the children, you may then decide studying isn't for you. Is it an option for you to do the second and/ or third years part-time if need be? Will you have available childcare, particularly in the form of your OH but also sister if you have one, friends, who would be able to take care of a baby whilst you were studying and sitting the exams?

If you really want to do it, it is possible.

Do you think the chosen career path will be to something well paid and where work will be available in a few years time? I think being out of the job market in the next few years will be no bad thing.