what does it feel like to want to have kids?

[Anonymous]

I knew I wanted to have children since I first held a baby, when I was around 11 or 12 years old. It's a love-based feeling. Even though I knew I wanted kids that early, I didn't meet a man to have them with til I was 36. Had my first at 37.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you need to ask this question, you’re not meant to be a parent. You would have made sure there were kids in your life already.

This isn't true and unfair. I wasn't sure I wanted to be a mom, but I didn't want to wake up one day (like OP at 45) and wish I'd had kids. I think 45 is too late...especially if your partner doesn't want children. Even when I was pregnant I wasn't excited, I was full of nerve. But now that my daughter is a few years older, I am so happy I took the leap of faith and became a mom. She is my life. It's not the same until it's your own child.

This is OP again: to be clear, I still don't want kids. I want to understand and appreciate what the feeling of wanting kids is like. I do not have that feeling myself. Curious about your experience - not trying to decide anything for myself.

(I think it is possible I will one day wake up and want grandkids. But, as I said above, I don't think that it would have been right to have kids only in order to increase the odds of having grandkids later. What if I had kids like me, who didn't want kids?)

If you one day want grandkids, I encourage you to develop a grandparently relationship with a friends kids or grandkids. I so long for a bigger "family" community. I'm the only one of my siblings to have kids, and no one in my biological family really has developed a warm relationship with them and my husband's family is overseas (and also not warm.) I long for more loving adults in their lives, but we have moved to often to have developed those kinds of relationships as a family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've been at both ends of the spectrum about this. Got married young-ish at 25. DH really wanted kids and I was very ambivalent. I wanted to enjoy my 20s and did not feel ready for motherhood at all. He agreed to wait until we were 30 so that we could both finish grad school. At 30 he was really ready and I was still very ambivalent. I liked our lifestyle and couldn't imagine myself as a Mom. I also didn't have a strong desire towards motherhood. I didn't know anything about motherhood because I myself am an only child, never grew up with cousins, didn't have any friends with kids, etc. He, on the other hand, could not imagine his life without a child/children.

He insisted that we start trying and we had many tearful conversations about it because I was so ambivalent, but leaning toward being childfree. I still kept putting it off until I was 33. Then I finally agreed to start TTC. Low and behold we got pregnant on the first try and I was terrified. Scared out of my mind because I thought I'd have a few months to get used to the idea of being pregnant. My pregnancy was anxiety-filled because I was anxious about motherhood.

My pregnancy was super easy though and I had an easy, natural delivery and happy and healthy baby.

It turned out that I loved being a mom and this time we were both eager to have a second. This time I had an intense longing to have another child and expand our family because I knew how wonderful motherhood was. We started TTC #2 when I was 35 and my son was 1 year old. Sadly I was soon to learn that my fertility had gone out the window by that time and I had severe decreased ovarian reserve. I was in the infertility clinic at 35 and they gave me less than a 10% chance of ever being pregnant again. In fact a few REs said I probably had severe infertility problems all along but just got lucky by getting pregnant on the first try.

We have now been TTC #2 for 5 years and zero pregnancies. Now that I'm 40 I feel that it is really hopeless now. I feel so sad that I waited so long because maybe if I had started earlier I'd be able to have two kids by now.

This is OP here - and I'm so sorry that you are feeling sad. That sounds really hard. (I hope you know you didn't do anything wrong by not starting young, when you weren't ready. You made the best choices you could given the things you knew and felt.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you need to ask this question, you’re not meant to be a parent. You would have made sure there were kids in your life already.

This isn't true and unfair. I wasn't sure I wanted to be a mom, but I didn't want to wake up one day (like OP at 45) and wish I'd had kids. I think 45 is too late...especially if your partner doesn't want children. Even when I was pregnant I wasn't excited, I was full of nerve. But now that my daughter is a few years older, I am so happy I took the leap of faith and became a mom. She is my life. It's not the same until it's your own child.

This is OP again: to be clear, I still don't want kids. I want to understand and appreciate what the feeling of wanting kids is like. I do not have that feeling myself. Curious about your experience - not trying to decide anything for myself.

(I think it is possible I will one day wake up and want grandkids. But, as I said above, I don't think that it would have been right to have kids only in order to increase the odds of having grandkids later. What if I had kids like me, who didn't want kids?)

If you one day want grandkids, I encourage you to develop a grandparently relationship with a friends kids or grandkids. I so long for a bigger "family" community. I'm the only one of my siblings to have kids, and no one in my biological family really has developed a warm relationship with them and my husband's family is overseas (and also not warm.) I long for more loving adults in their lives, but we have moved to often to have developed those kinds of relationships as a family.

This is OP - and I'm sorry you don't have that bigger family network. <3

I do try to be a good aunt to my nieces and nephews - we don't live nearby to them so we don't have that "hey bring the kids over on Saturday and we'll hang out for the day" sort of relationship. But I do hope that they will think of me and my husband as people they can turn to for fun, love, and advice as they grow up. And who knows what people will come into our lives, as time goes on.

[Anonymous]

I don’t relate to the obsessive quest to have biological children. I wanted one but was fine leaving it up to nature. Plus, my DH left the timing decision to me. He would have been fine waiting longer than we did (ages 33/38) but I decided it made no sense to continue to put it off when risks only increase.

For me the “pull” feeling was the same as when I wanted a dog a few years prior. I just felt I had more love to give. I’m grateful for my child and feel very blessed, but it is not a “goal” to pursue in my mind. There are other ways to bring meaning to your life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you need to ask this question, you’re not meant to be a parent. You would have made sure there were kids in your life already.

This is OP - and don't worry, I am not struggling with this decision for myself. I am just curious what this feels like for other people. I know that wanting kids is a powerful urge - I've never experienced it WRT kids, so I just wanted to hear from others what it was like. (you know, to try to understand the human experience a little better!)

I think I would love having grandkids but I don't want kids enough to do it just for that sake.

OP, have you ever met a childfree person???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn't want kids, ever. I chose a very kid-unfriendly career and climbed the ladder quickly, and I was in a longterm relationship with a man who also did not want children. We'd created a good life together--house, car, travel, and careers. When friends started having kids, we were just happy to continue our lifestyle of nice restaurants, weekends away, etc.

Around age 34, I started getting physical symptoms when I would see a newborn--I am not exaggerating when I say my heart hurt. I spent over a year ignoring and pushing those feelings away. I had invested too much into my childless life and, really, could not imagine fitting a child in. It was just that horrible heartache that kept coming back.

Long story short, I got to the point where I couldn't ignore those feelings anymore. I had to change basically everything about my life, including letting go of the relationship. That was tough--it was perfect in every way except for our disagreement about kids. But eventually, I became a mother, and I knew immediately that I'd taken the right path for me.

This was my experience too. I married someone who really disliked kids. I ended up divorcing him. I remarried 3 years later and live a totally different life. I have two kids. For me, I completely love my life and family. It is really hard to make a 180 in life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you need to ask this question, you’re not meant to be a parent. You would have made sure there were kids in your life already.

This is OP - and don't worry, I am not struggling with this decision for myself. I am just curious what this feels like for other people. I know that wanting kids is a powerful urge - I've never experienced it WRT kids, so I just wanted to hear from others what it was like. (you know, to try to understand the human experience a little better!)

I think I would love having grandkids but I don't want kids enough to do it just for that sake.

OP, have you ever met a childfree person???

I'm not OP but I don't understand your question. OP isn't questioning anything about their life, they are curious about a topic and asking for experiences. They aren't asking us to solve any problem for them, they are just curious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you need to ask this question, you’re not meant to be a parent. You would have made sure there were kids in your life already.

This is OP - and don't worry, I am not struggling with this decision for myself. I am just curious what this feels like for other people. I know that wanting kids is a powerful urge - I've never experienced it WRT kids, so I just wanted to hear from others what it was like. (you know, to try to understand the human experience a little better!)

I think I would love having grandkids but I don't want kids enough to do it just for that sake.

OP, have you ever met a childfree person???

I'm not OP but I don't understand your question. OP isn't questioning anything about their life, they are curious about a topic and asking for experiences. They aren't asking us to solve any problem for them, they are just curious.

^ This is OP - and yes, correct. I am not struggling with this decision. I am just curious about other people's experiences. And I feel like I understand a little better now - I really do appreciate those who responded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So many selfish, pathetic women on this thread. As somebody's kid, it's nice to know that I'm only here to fill some void in my mother's life because she couldn't find anything meaningful to do. Maybe that's why the rest of life seems "trivial" to you... You never actually tried.

Calm your panties. Literally everyone has kids for selfish reasons, your parents included. No one is doing a kid a selfless favor by allowing them to be born, people have kids because they want the experience of being parents.

[Anonymous]

I think it's odd for OP to be asking this question at this stage (post fertile) of her life. That ship sailed a while ago.

Why don't you ask your parents why they wanted you?

[Anonymous]

I have the urge right now- I'm 28 married for 5 years but we aren't ready due to grad school- even the thought of putting TTC off until I'm 30 (which is a better time for us) hurts me PHYSICALLY. I went to my SIL baby shower and I had to hold back tears.. its like a deep dull longing/ pain for something-- almost irrational.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's odd for OP to be asking this question at this stage (post fertile) of her life. That ship sailed a while ago.

Why don't you ask your parents why they wanted you?

No it’s not. She seems curious. Until I wanted a kid (and it hit me late) I did not understand the deep desire to have kids either. OP actually seems more at peace with knowing her own self than a lot of people. And far healthier then people I see who have kids because they feel like they are suppose to but do not want to change thier lives at all for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I relate to how you feel about this - we were much more on the fence, and the only "feeling" we ever had that led us to have our child was a fairly logic-based feeling that 40 more years of the DINK thing we were doing might get boring and leave us out of some life experiences that would help us connect to other people.

Same here. I knew what I wanted to do after reading a bunch of books on the subject. In the book Waiting for Daisy the author's husband describes life like an amusement and he wants to go on all the rides. FOMO basically. I'm (mostly) glad I did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So many selfish, pathetic women on this thread. As somebody's kid, it's nice to know that I'm only here to fill some void in my mother's life because she couldn't find anything meaningful to do. Maybe that's why the rest of life seems "trivial" to you... You never actually tried.

What exactly bothers you about the idea that your mother found raising you to be more meaningful than anything else in her life? How is that selfish or pathetic?

You sound like a weird person and I'm glad you're not my kid.