Anyone never have baby fever?

[Anonymous]

my baby fever hit AFTER i had my baby. I ADORE her now and just think she is the greatest thing ever. There is no one I would rather spend my time with than my 5 month old daughter. BUt i definitely DID NOT have baby fever before the baby came.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:my baby fever hit AFTER i had my baby. I ADORE her now and just think she is the greatest thing ever. There is no one I would rather spend my time with than my 5 month old daughter. BUt i definitely DID NOT have baby fever before the baby came.

Me too. Exactly.
My DH doesn't know if he wants a second, however.

[Anonymous]

You know, you don't have to have kids. And if you do, you don't *have* to have more than one. Pregnancy is not the biggest deal - you can do anything for 9 months - but frankly, I'd make sure you actually want a child before you go down that road. Pregnancy is nothing compared to the changes you will have to make once the kid is actually out of you. My daughter is wonderful and I wouldn't trade her for any other kid, but my life has changed 100% since I had her, and I am a kid person. So don't wait too long, but do remember you don't HAVE to have a baby. Plenty of people have perfectly great lives without them. Just a thought.

[Anonymous]

Never had baby fever. But, DH wanted kids. At 35, got pregnant first try. Lost baby boy in third trimester. Then I realized I really wanted kids. I have 2 daughters now. I learned that at least for me, my anxiety of having kids was inhibiting my ability to want kids. I'm so happy to have my kids and can't imagine my life without them, nor do I want to. One kids is pretty easy; two is what changed everything. So, you can always just have one. Also, what people don't realize is that risk of miscarriage/stillbirth increases quite a bit after age 35. My guess is you'll never have baby fever, so you just need to take the leap of faith or decide against it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

My experience...we have NO us time. We now pay $100 per date and we're lucky if we have 1 date per 2-3 months. Our relationship was great pre-baby and now we're in marital counseling. It's been very rough for us.

OP here. This kind of thing is one of my biggest concerns. Can you explain a little more about why you're in counseling? Does it have to do with the lack of time together? Or just general stress of a baby on a marriage. What have you learned in therapy that you're applying now to your marriage to make things better?

[Anonymous]

21:37- I'm so sorry you lost your baby boy in the third trimester. I also lost a baby in the third trimester and it was such a shock and heartache. It's a very rare thing but it gave me the perspective that you don't have as much control over certain things in your life as you think you do. Best of luck with your decision, OP.

[Anonymous]

my heart goes out to you all who lost a baby. I am so sorry.

[Anonymous]

In terms of concerns about stress on your marriage, you may want to think about the stress if you don't have a child. I knew I wanted kids and if my DH refused or kept delaying too long, we would have had problems. While we have had some stress related to kids (mostly me resentign all of the extra work I took on as a mom compared w/limited changes for him as a Dad) there would have been a lot more stress if he had refused to have kids.

Now, in terms of baby fever - I never felt that way - I'm not a baby person but my kids are now 3 and 5 and I love being a parent. The baby stage - while it seems like a long time while you are going through the sleepless nights - really does passquickly. So, consider if you are a kids person - not necessarily a baby person.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I think I'm definitely a baby person, not a kids person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

My experience...we have NO us time. We now pay $100 per date and we're lucky if we have 1 date per 2-3 months. Our relationship was great pre-baby and now we're in marital counseling. It's been very rough for us.

OP here. This kind of thing is one of my biggest concerns. Can you explain a little more about why you're in counseling? Does it have to do with the lack of time together? Or just general stress of a baby on a marriage. What have you learned in therapy that you're applying now to your marriage to make things better?

We are in counseling because we can't handle both our jobs, taking care of him, and housework. A lot of it, though has o do with taking care of him. There is no us, me or him time. No sleeping in on weekends and rarely sleeping through the night. We started counseling about 3 months ago when he was 18 months and it's not really helping. I'm still stressed to the max and my DH still feels like he does too much. We're desperately trying to make it work. We've gone on 3 date nights in the past 9 months and don't anymore since we pay someone to watch him while we're in therapy. It's hard to describe, but having a child there is no break ever. You work, clean, play or babysit everyday, all waking hours. Its not easy to juggle all that on little sleep.

[Anonymous]

Never had it before my first but felt if we were ever going to do it, time was of the essence. Started trying at 34 thinking it would take a while but got pregnant right away and had baby at 35. Also dreaded pregnancy (and childbirth). Was immediately in love with my son. Immediately. When he turned one, baby fever set in and we soon got pregnant with #2 who will be born when I am 37. We seriously considered not having kids and I can't even imagine now. Love, love, love being a mom. I'm still not totally gaga over OTHER people's kids but, boy, do I love my own son to bits!

[Anonymous]

OP, I was never a huge baby person. We had a great life and weren't sure we wanted kids. Then at 36 I had some issues with ovarian cysts and pregnancy seemed uncertain. We decided it was now or never, so we decided to try, and if it didn't work we wouldn't do anything out of the ordinary. It wasn't meant to be.

Well, I got pregnant right away. We made a commitment that no matter what we would still have couple time and me time. Yes, it costs money, but it's a priority to you and you can swing it financially, then there's no reason you can't do a weekly date night. There's no reason you can't take turns sleeping in on the weekends and trading nights to have time with friends.

When it came to #2 we had the same dilemma. My periods started to get irregular and I had that "now or never" fear again, so we tried it. Now we have a 3 year old and a 6 month old. Yes, it's different again, but we still get a babysitter and will go back to taking turns sleeping in once the baby is a little bigger.

My point is-- I was never sure and I've been happy with our decision. We haven't had to totally give up our lives, either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

My experience...we have NO us time. We now pay $100 per date and we're lucky if we have 1 date per 2-3 months. Our relationship was great pre-baby and now we're in marital counseling. It's been very rough for us.

OP here. This kind of thing is one of my biggest concerns. Can you explain a little more about why you're in counseling? Does it have to do with the lack of time together? Or just general stress of a baby on a marriage. What have you learned in therapy that you're applying now to your marriage to make things better?

We are in counseling because we can't handle both our jobs, taking care of him, and housework. A lot of it, though has o do with taking care of him. There is no us, me or him time. No sleeping in on weekends and rarely sleeping through the night. We started counseling about 3 months ago when he was 18 months and it's not really helping. I'm still stressed to the max and my DH still feels like he does too much. We're desperately trying to make it work. We've gone on 3 date nights in the past 9 months and don't anymore since we pay someone to watch him while we're in therapy. It's hard to describe, but having a child there is no break ever. You work, clean, play or babysit everyday, all waking hours. Its not easy to juggle all that on little sleep.

I'm sorry to hear what you're going through. If you could do things over again, is there anything you would do differently or any advice you have for someone who is considering having a child but worried about the affect on her marriage?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

My experience...we have NO us time. We now pay $100 per date and we're lucky if we have 1 date per 2-3 months. Our relationship was great pre-baby and now we're in marital counseling. It's been very rough for us.

OP here. This kind of thing is one of my biggest concerns. Can you explain a little more about why you're in counseling? Does it have to do with the lack of time together? Or just general stress of a baby on a marriage. What have you learned in therapy that you're applying now to your marriage to make things better?

We are in counseling because we can't handle both our jobs, taking care of him, and housework. A lot of it, though has o do with taking care of him. There is no us, me or him time. No sleeping in on weekends and rarely sleeping through the night. We started counseling about 3 months ago when he was 18 months and it's not really helping. I'm still stressed to the max and my DH still feels like he does too much. We're desperately trying to make it work. We've gone on 3 date nights in the past 9 months and don't anymore since we pay someone to watch him while we're in therapy. It's hard to describe, but having a child there is no break ever. You work, clean, play or babysit everyday, all waking hours. Its not easy to juggle all that on little sleep.

I'm sorry to hear what you're going through. If you could do things over again, is there anything you would do differently or any advice you have for someone who is considering having a child but worried about the affect on her marriage?

If I could do it over, I would have waited to have kids with my parents around or at least a better support system than we have now (basically none, child-free friends have mostly disappeared) or planned on quitting my job / taking part-time work. I also would have seen if he could manage his company & job better. He has a full time job and a company on the side - but doesn't want to give up either one, so he ends up working most nights well into the early AM. If I could have foreseen this, I also would have seen about going to counseling to talk about having kids, but on the other hand its hard to know what you are getting into without going there, so maybe just go to counseling early, before it gets really bad (then again, like someone said when do you have time until its critical). I do wish you the best, just make sure you want this because if you give up everything you enjoy and he doesn't pitch in enough there may be a lot of resentment down the road.

[Anonymous]

OP, I'm one of the PPs that thinks your life doesn't have to change that much. Based on my experience and what I hear on DCUM, here are critical questions:

1) Do you have flexible jobs?
2) Are you willing to spend money on babysitting/housekeeping/etc. so that you can have free time?
3) Do you have family/friends around who can provide help?
4) Do you think your husband will be share with you equally the responsibilities of the house, child, etc.?

The answer for all of these for me is yes. I have 2 kids and I enjoy my life immensely. My husband is a great partner with the kids and we have regular date nights and me time. We take at least one vacation on our own each year and we do girls weekends/boys weekends as well.

You need to be realistic on how your lives will change, but I am here to say that you can still have a life with kids. It's not one or the other.