Reply to Deciding to have kids later- do you regret/ are you happy?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm a new poster.  I was married at 26 and we waited 10 years.  We waited because I was ambivalent about having kids and also very anxious about it.  I was also terrified of pregnancy, I had an actual pregnancy phobia.  I truly believed I would not be able to make it through pregnancy.  My husband was ready around age 30, but I kept postponing.  I had so many reasons why I was ambivalent, in addition to my fear of pregnancy--I wasn't emotionally ready to be a mother; my husband worked 80 hour weeks and I felt like we had such little time together; I wanted to have some time as a married couple to build our relationship before having kids; I was so anxious about motherhood because I had no experience with kids (none of our friends had kids and we don't have any nieces or nephews), so I was overwhelmed by the idea of motherhood; we had no family support/local family.  Basically we had been married 10 years, financially we were good, we owned a home, but I still wasn't emotionally ready.  I really wanted to wait a few more years, until my late 30s, to start TTC (but now I'm really glad I didn't).

Finally when I turned 35 my husband insisted that we start TTC, or said he would leave me.  I put it off another year and finally agreed to it right before I turned 36.  I figured it would take awhile and I'd have time to get used to the idea of pregnancy, but we got pregnant after two months of trying.  I had an easy pregnancy and delivery and we have a beautiful toddler.

I am so glad my husband convinced me to have a child.  While motherhood has been harder than I anticipated (and I had very realistic expectations), I am very happy that  I am a mother and would have really been sad if I hadn't had the chance to experience motherhood.  The hardest part for me so far has been having a spouse who works a ton of hours, having little emotional/social support, and having no local family.  In other words, we have no village whatsoever, which has been challenging.

Now my husband wants baby #2.  We have been TTC for 8 months and we can't get pregnant, I am 38.  Fertility really declines after 36/37.  I never believed that, but now I'm in the midst of secondary infertility due to decreased ovarian reserve.  I did not think this would happen to me, especially since most of my female relatives had babies with their own eggs well into their 40s.  I don't know if we will be able to have a second child, and I do regret not TTC earlier with our first child so that we could have a second.  I don't know if I'm willing to do infertility treatments or not, I'm leaning towards not being willing to do them.  I'm content with having an only, but my husband is not.  This is something we'll need to work out if we don't get pregnant naturally (we're going to try naturally for another few months).  I've already had my workup with an RE at a fertility clinic, with the diagnosis of decreased ovarian reserve.

Overall, I am very happy.  My only regret is not starting to TTC earlier so we could have a second.

[/quote]

Thank you for sharing your experience. I'm the OP from the triple threat response (engage, wed, buy house). In looking back, at what age would you have wanted to TTC?

I'm 32 now. We intend to be married before I am 34, realistically it takes me that long to plan a wedding and sort out everything with 2 huge families to coordinate and accommodate, plus a 6 month pre-marital counseling requirement from our church so I couldn't push up the timeline if I tried. That means I would be having the first child somewhere in my mid to late 35th year. Does that leave me enough time to space out 2 years before TTC for baby #2 at age 37? Or should I aim to have the babies back to back with about 12-16 months apart? That would kill my body, and I struggled as a teen with body image issues, but much better now. I know that's a selfish statement to make but it's something that is important to me and I hope that between having the first child, breastfeeding (ideally) will help take off the baby preg weight. [/quote]

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