How do you decide when to have children?

Em88

Hello,

This is my first time posting in this part of the site but am after some peoples opinions/advise on when to have children.

Myself and my husband have been together 12 years, married nearly 3 years. We both have relatively good jobs currently and earn nearly the same amount each, just a couple of hundred in it.

We are thinking of having children but it is hard to know when the best time is. There are various considerations to add in, in respect of timings.

My husband is 27 years old and I am 26 years old, so relatively young still. I have PCOS which can make it harder to conceive and my parents too a year with both myself and my brother despite there being no medical problems.

We brought a flat last year which used up most of our savings but we are back saving now and save £700 a month so it should build up relatively quickly. We were planning on trying this September as even if we conceived straight away we would have a decent amount of savings by the time the baby was born, although I doubt we will conceive quickly.

However the opportunity at work has now come up that I could buy the business in 2 and a half years. This would make me partner at 29 which would be an amazing achievement. It would also pretty much quadruple my salary. This does however mean we would have to put of trying for children for around 4 years. Does this sound too late?

We could afford a child now but no where near as comfortably as we could if we did it in a few years. If we waited it would also mean my husband would be able to be a stay at home dad as finances would allow that. If we tried now I would be back at work within around 6 months or so.

What would people do? How do you decide?

lrb_2

Everybody has their priorities.

You have to decide what is more important to you at the moment.
Besides delaying motherhood till you are 30 is not that late.

DKLS

We weighed up all the pros and cons and decided we would focus on careers and foreign travel instead. A quick visit to Marie Stopes fixed my fertility so we would have no accidents and not an gramme of regret since.

OP, Do whatever works for you and your family.

PurplePow

30 is not late! It's up to you to decide what is more important for you, having a child or moving forwards in your career first.

Em88

I know that 30 isn't late generally I guess I am just concerned about having PCOS and knowing my parents didn't conceive easily. Plus I learnt yesterday that my nan started going through the menopause at 39.

The sensible part of my knows that we should wait. We have a good lifestyle at the moment which includes going out a lot in the evening - we live in London and make the most of what it has to offer. Having children will completely change that.

However I have always wanted children and would say if I had to choose I would pick children over a career.

I went to see my friends baby yesterday and he was so lovely! I think that is what is making me waiver.

wendz86

30 is not old at all even with Pcos (my sil has it and is now pregnant with her 4th).

If your career is more important now to you then stick with that for now.

I had my first at 24 and i would say it has probably held me back a bit in my career although it is still important to me.

166million

In your situation I would definitely wait. Why not make the most of opportunities while you can, you can provide for any children better then.

Princess_kate

You have to decide whats best for you now & if you could live with your decision if you had in fact left it too late by waiting. I also have POCS and am 35 weeks pregnant, I'm 33. We paid for private treatment to aid me get pregnant but even with other tests I needed to have before that the process probably took nearly a year before we started actually trying. We were successful after 4 cycles but obviously this could have taken much longer and if 1st stage treatments don't work everything then becomes a lot more involved.

Worry_Wart

Is it an all or nothing situation? Could you not have a baby and still buy part of the company in a couple of years time?

Em88

It is really. We would need to use our savings to buy the business. Plus it feels like a really rubbish thing to say yes I will buy the company but oh by the way I'm off on maternity. It's only a small firm so it will make quite an impact if I go off on maternity leave.

SingleSue

We didn't decide, we were told I was infertile, a million to one chance of falling pregnant, so we got on with our lives, got a cat and settled down to a childless life.

Then the million to one thing happened......

One hell of a shock and it took some convincing and lots of tests for the doctor to believe it too!