Reply to Do you wish you'd had kids earlier?

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Reply to "Do you wish you'd had kids earlier?"

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[quote=Anonymous]Yes, but then again it took me 3 years to get and stay pregnant.  So obviously we wanted kids earlier than when we had them.  That said, we were both 32 when we started TTC, about 2 years after we got married.  In retrospect, I think we were, both, ready to get married and ready to have kids earlier than I thought (in both cases, it was me dragging my feet, DH was just waiting for me to make a decision).

I wanted to finish my PhD before getting married or even engaged, and I wanted to be more firmly established in my job before TTC.  As it turns out, I switched jobs right when we started TTC (then again less than a year in).  And I again ended up switching jobs in the second trimester of pregnancy.  All of these transitions were a jump forward for me career-wise, and I'm currently with an employer that is *very* supportive of my maternity leave etc.  So it turns out the career thing wasn't a big deal.  And, in retrospect, finishing school before thinking about marriage didn't make a lot of sense, since we were already planning our post-graduate lives together anyway.

All of that said, at the time I did not feel ready.  And I can't say that the feeling would have gone away if I had made different decisions...hindsight is 20/20, and maybe even 20/15.

My advice would be not to follow anyone's advice on the optimal time to have kids.  You really have no idea how long it'll take to actually have the kid, and at the end of the day it's a lifetime commitment.  Maybe you're waiting to be more financially secure now, but maybe 20 years from now your employer will go under just as you're sending your kid to college (extreme, I know, but just saying you can't prepare for everything).  Have kids when you really feel that you want them.  You're going to have to reorganize/reshape your life around them no matter what...so don't get too caught up in what's optimal.  Obviously, I'm assuming that this advice isn't going to a 15 y.o. who hasn't finished h/s yet...but if you're asking the quesiton it's probably not.[/quote]

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