How much planning went into you having children?

marisco_2

Years of thought and planning before I had children. Things still didn't work out as expected or hoped though!

KateBob

My exact words (at our wedding rehearsal no less) were "I'm supposed to restart my pill tomorrow, should I bother?" His reply was "no".

I was 24, OH was 27 and we'd brought our first house together 4 months prior to the wedding.
I knew he wanted kids before 30 but we'd never discussed a time scale.

Our DD was born 10 months later.

Slightly more thought went into our second child, when DD was 2 I started to feel broody and we talked about trying again.
DS was born 12 months later.

All this took place 15/12 years ago and I'm still occasionally surprised to be a parent!

Andrew_Ryan_89

melanzana wrote: »

No kids here. That was the plan. Love children but not my own lol!

Anyway OP Andrew, are you really sure you want to get married? Lots of threads opened by you AFAIS about related subjects.

Am I reading your hesitancy correctly or am I just a nosey old bat? Probably the latter.

AFAIS? Don't know what that means but can say I love my to-be wife more than anything.

Pollycat

Andrew_Ryan_89 wrote: »

AFAIS? Don't know what that means but can say I love my to-be wife more than anything.

AFAIS = 'as far as I see'.

Are you still depressed or are you feeling better?

phill99

I live in South Essex. It would appear very little planning goes into having children. 'Safe Sex' is defined locally as not giving her your phone number.

catkins

Peter333 wrote: »

As I said, it's just my opinion, and based on my experience. I get that not everyone will agree though...

I get that a few people may regret having children, but in my honest opinion, people will be more likely to regret not having them.

As I said just my opinion.........

I know quite a few couples without children and none regret it or are unhappy. Quite a few of the couples with children say if they could go back in time they would not have any.

I would hope that a decision as major as bringing a child into the world would involve a lot of discussion and thought but it seems not. Me and OH took a lot of time talking about it before deciding to remain child free

Pollycat

catkins wrote: »

I know quite a few couples without children and none regret it or are unhappy. Quite a few of the couples with children say if they could go back in time they would not have any.

I would hope that a decision as major as bringing a child into the world would involve a lot of discussion and thought but it seems not. Me and OH took a lot of time talking about it before deciding to remain child free

Exactly the same as me, catkins.

Child-free by choice and without a single regret.

newcook

I only know one woman who was adamant that she didnt want children until she started to go through early menopause and realised that now the decision was being made for her she wished she had had one.

me and OH met last june, moved in together earlier this year and had already decided together that I would stop taking the pill a couple of weeks before I moved in - 6 weeks later the test showed we were going to have a baby!

some may think its all a bit quick but the way we see it is we are both 36 this year and time is ticking on - somehow you always manage to afford a child (or another child) but the one thing you can't buy is time.

sulphate

Got married at 25, bought a house at 25, starting trying for a baby at 26, fell pregnant at 26, baby boy was born when I was 27, 19 months ago now

In reality he was planned much earlier - I knew for years I wanted to go part time after having children before we got married and we also knew we wouldn't be high earners so we saved very wisely for a deposit and bought a small house so we knew we could survive the drop in income.

The only thing I didn't "plan" as such was for my career to suffer as it has, which I think often goes hand in hand with having children "young" but I would much rather my career suffers over my fertility or spending quality time with my son. I firmly believe you can't "have it all".

Prothet_of_Doom

How much planning? You know the MSE budgetting spreadsheet? Well, before the internet existed I had a spreadsheet on a computer and we knew exactly how much I needed to earn, if my wife was going to be able to give up work and become a full-time mum.
We then proceeded to live our lives with just one salary, and save the rest.
And sex was carefully planned around my wife's cycle, for 2 years. That right every sexual act we did together was planned.
When it didn't happen after 2 years, my wife went part time agency (she was a nurse) and after 3 months she was pregnant.
With the second child it was much simpler. I refused to have sex until she could find a way of child one sleeping all night. She however had a plan, and left our first child with her sister, and took me for a weekend to Blackpool. Where our second was conceived.
So in conclusion. 1st Child : Joint Planning to in great detail.
2nd Child : Surreptitious Planning by my wife against my better judgement*

* not complaining but child one did not sleep all night until he was 10 years old, so I'm glad I was hoodwinked into helping out with making the second, otherwise we wouldn't have her (the kindest cleverest 20 year old I've met)