I keep flip flopping on babies: to have or not to have? Do other women my age find themselves thinking the same thing? I mean, it’s natural to think about starting a family after marriage. Right? I can’t help but have babies on the brain and I blame it on social networking: babies everywhere! And they are all so darn adorable (chubby, toothless and wide-eyed…sigh). Wouldn’t it be so cute to have a little one walking around talking in a pseudo British accent?! Well, one thing is for sure: we are waiting out the having kids thing for a bit. I’ll just have to satisfy myself by reading about other people’s live with their babies…for now.
I’ll leave you with this:
Sifting Through...Expat Edition 
To answer your question. Yes, yes and yes.
Our in theory plan was maybe having kids 3-4 years after we got married. Then we moved 6 months after we got married. Now were at 3 years going on 4 and having the conversation of well WTH do we do?
Neither of us are OMG don’t want kids, but I never got the OMG baby want one feeling from holding babies. I had a friend tell me she felt the exact same way with others. It was a relief to hear.
So where are we? Well we haven’t pulled my IUD yet. And yet if it we end up prego (it happens) we are very cool with it. So yeah. Does that help?
Yes, it does help. Thank you. I think I panicked when I saw my 30th “Welcome Baby…” posting on Facebook. I started to wonder if we should be planning or if we should decide a timeline to have a baby.
I have calmed down and realized that I am not behind and we can plan later because now is it’s all about us. We’re being selfish and loving it.
When I was younger, I didn’t want kids. Then, I felt/feel like I could be equally happy with or without kids and was willing to just see what happens (with the right person). Of course, we know what happened. =) I love being a Mommy. I never once thought nor do I think now that having a baby will interfere with any of my personal goals, dreams, etc. Just might delay it a bit.
One thing I worried about was how it would change my relationship with Matt. Everyone said that the change to the relationship was unavoidable after having kids. That terrified me, until I finally got clarification from a friend. She has two kids with one on the way. She and her husband have a strong relationship. She finally explained that for her, the change was in seeing each other as parents. For them, having kids was introducing to each other another aspect of themselves. They didn’t see it as a detriment to what they had, but a growth from what they were before. So, yea, that really resonated with me and now, I’m finding out what she meant.
My two cents is that I think you and G would be wonderful parents and partners. At the same time, there is no rule that you must have kids. =) It does seem to be raining babies and if I hadn’t just had one, I think I would be pondering the same questions. Babies everywhere!
Berta, you hit the nail on the head. My reservation with having children is that I’m really, really afraid our relationship will change for the worse. We are *so* good together a baby might change us. But you opened my eyes. We know that once we do have children we have to make us a priority which I believe will help us be amazing parents.
I like your view on putting goals on hold once baby comes. I never saw it that way. Goals don’t have to disappear, just put on the back burner for a little while. I can handle that.
A little British baby? Made with your two precious mugs? Um, adorable!!
I think it’s best to wait at least a year after you get married to plan to have kids. Enjoy some just-the-two-of-us time. Just my opinion, though. For us it’ll be much longer than that since we’re too young/broke right now.
I think I freaked out when I saw my 20th newborn pic on Facebook.
Greg and I agreed before getting married that we have to be married a year or two at least before we even thought about the babies. And I am so okay with that. We like being selfish.
i completely agree. we still have 3 months until we are even married, but yeah, cute little newborns everywhere are not good for your ovaries. i LOVE kids, but i know deep down in my logic place that they have no place in my life for a few years. plus as vic mentioned, we want some “us” time first. at this point, we are planning on waiting 4 years – in the meantime, i get my kid fix by cuddling/playing with friends’ babies when we get together. plus i know i’m not ready even with my kid love because the idea of pregnancy/labor TERRIFIES me. i’m a big ol’ wimp. haha
That commercial is terrifying! As far as the baby thing goes, my mom has always said, “You’ll know when you’re ready.” We know we want kids and have tentatively set “in 5 years” as our time frame. We’ll see, I guess we’ll know when we’re ready!
Ooooooh the kids debacle. Yeah, I’ll be 32 and Joe will be 34 when we marry so we both def feel father time poking at us to be fertile too. I plan to ignore him for as long as Joe will let me. 🙂