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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Can you say more about being "emotionally ready" to have kids?

I have always thought having a healthy marriage, a home to call our own, and being financially sound to have children is the responsible thing to do.

This is the PP who thanked the male PP for sharing this experience.

To the male PP, the decision of getting your starter home was it simply to own a home and not pay rent, or did you ever believe that the home might be enough for your family's future needs (before #2 came along)?

I want to be a SAHM while the baby is young (and to save on child care costs) while my SO makes just over 100. We are looking further outside of the immediate metro area to buy a home but very much torn between staying within commuting distance for his work and having a townhome or going for remote working and having a single fam home.

Decisions, decisions. Not an easy time! [/quote]

If you are over 30, happily married and know you want to have kids, start now.  Fertility issues are no joke.  Spend some time on the infertility boards if you want to know the cons of waiting or believing it's easy to get pregnant in your late thirties or later.  Yes, infertility can happen at any age, but bigger issue after 35.  If you want more than one kid, you don't have much of a window.  You can always rent a house or have kids share a room. Once your fertility is gone,,it isn't' coming back.[/quote]

I am on the path of engagement, wedding, and home buying. We know what we want but we have a budget to work with and everything here costs a lot. Renting longer instead of buying now is something we have been actively considering. But if we move out of state, while keeping the same jobs with the same DC pay in a lower cost of living area would allow us to buy a forever home that would meet all our family needs. Being on the spectrum where both extremes are so large and open ended makes decision making very difficult to nail down what is the best option for us. We intend to be married by next winter, but that is still my bio clock ticking away. As a guy, I don't think he understands the pressing need of fertility and age being a huge disadvantage because he had shown me recent studies that claimed women in their 40s having healthy bouncing bundle of joys. :-/ [/quote]

My advice, having BTDT (started TTC at 30) is to rent the cheapest place you can and really sock away your money until you get pregnant. THEN start looking to buy. DH and I did this and it actually took a year to find a house in our price range, so DC1 was 4 months old when we bought it, and we live, all three of us, in a tiny 500-sq-ft 1-BD apartment, but it was SO worth it. Babies don't need space, they just need their parents. Parents need money (ha!). You don't need the extra room until your kids are older, so I agree with PP who recommended waiting until you buy a forever home.

That said, you need to be really realistic about getting a cheap place. Aim for a safe location, but be willing to forgo amenities. We lived in N Arlington, close to metro, in a craptacular but safe apartment with zero amenities (it even had window units for A/C, ha!), but the money we saved helped immensely when we eventually got pregnant and then bought our house.

Another thing I'll recommend is not to spend too much on your wedding and not to waste too much time on the engagement/wedding planning. You will not care much about your wedding in 10 years. You WILL care about having money for a downpayment, time to TTC, etc. Weddings are parties and people focus way too much effort on them when they are insignificant blips on the road to true happiness.

Good luck![/quote]

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