Anonymous
Post 12/01/2015 16:56     Subject: Re:Deciding to have kids later- do you regret/ are you happy?
OP, I'm going to tell you what a close friend told me when I said I was scared and didn't feel ready to TTC.

She said "You NEVER feel ready. You just dive in!"

Do it. My kids are the joy of my life, they are my heart. I'm so glad I didn't wait for a feeling of readiness. You BECOME ready as you grow into being a mom, you really do.

Good luck to you!
Anonymous
Post 12/01/2015 16:54     Subject: Deciding to have kids later- do you regret/ are you happy?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote: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!


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.


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. :-/


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!
Anonymous
Post 12/01/2015 16:16     Subject: Deciding to have kids later- do you regret/ are you happy?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I would be ashamed of having parents who are +40 years older. No need to start family when you are 20 but 40 it's way too late


OP here. You're an idiot. These are your parents, not your friends. And FWIW, I have friends (dear friends who I rely on) who are 30 years older than I am


High five, OP. I really value my older friends.

My own parents were older, too. I lost my mom early (not age related) but my dad swears that having kids later has kept him feeling, acting, and thinking younger than his peers.

The idea of being ashamed of older parents simply due to age is...bizarre.
Anonymous
Post 12/01/2015 15:54     Subject: Deciding to have kids later- do you regret/ are you happy?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
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!


This is the male PP. We were in a 2 BR condo with a 1-year-old, and were eager to have more space and a real neighborhood for our kid to grow up in. So we went for a house that ticked most of the boxes -- good schools, decent commute, seemed family-friendly. The only thing we didn't get was the fourth bedroom, since 4 BR houses in our Bethesda neighborhood seemed to command prices at least $200k higher than 3 BR. And if we had only 1 kid, the "starter" house would have worked as a forever house, too, I suppose.

But now, with 2 kids, it's become evident that eventually we'll need more space -- a 4 BR for guests or a home office, since the demands of family have led to each of us working from home more often (when kids are home sick from school, for instance); a usable basement so our increasingly rambunctious and energetic children have a good space in which to hang out, especially when they become tweens and teens (instead of our tiny, finished-but-not-nice basement, good mostly for doing laundry and storing things); space big enough for entertaining family and friends, etc.

I can understand the desire to have your own place. Just consider how long you'll be in it, and whether it's worth losing the transaction costs of buying and selling a starter home and buying a forever home later. And remember that whatever you choose, things will work out! Good luck!



To the posters of 13:19 and 13:49. You 2 are the nicest people I have come across on DCUM. Thank you for your insight, experience, and details. I wish it were possible to know you in real life off the internet, especially given that we're all on DCUM meaning we're relatively "neighbors".

13:19: Your last line was so uplifting and helpful. I never gave transaction costs of buying and selling a starter home much thought til this point. I also didn't think at 32 that the conversation to have children and deal with TCC would be so vital to the entire future of becoming parents.

All in all, the only thing I wished I had done differently would be to have met my future hubby sooner then having to wait for engagement, wedding, and house buying in order to have the first child would be on a much more flexible timeline. Having 3 years to have 2 kids sounds really overwhelming to me right now. My feeling is that I'll probably not have #2 until I'm 36 or even 37 if fertility works in our favor. But at least now I know I need to have #1 by 34/35. Public media makes you think it's fine to have babies at 40, and based on what people have shared here, it's not that you can't have them at 40, it's just less ideal when you want more than 1, and you both want to be healthy.

If I could buy 13:19 and 13:49 a cup of Starbucks I totally would!
Anonymous
Post 12/01/2015 15:18     Subject: Deciding to have kids later- do you regret/ are you happy?
Anonymous wrote:OP go for it. Sounds like you'd really want and love a baby. And don't knock ART until you're there. I think most of us who struggle with infertility didn't think we'd do ART.


Yup, I said the same thing and then we went full monty, though it was fro number 2, because after one, I knew how great two would be.
Anonymous
Post 12/01/2015 15:10     Subject: Deciding to have kids later- do you regret/ are you happy?
Anonymous wrote:I would be ashamed of having parents who are +40 years older. No need to start family when you are 20 but 40 it's way too late


Awesome. Bear in mind that the alternative here is not being conceived. So which do you prefer:

(a) parents +40 years older; or
(b) not existing?

For myself, I vote (a). For you, I suggest sticking with (b).
Anonymous
Post 12/01/2015 15:00     Subject: Re:Deciding to have kids later- do you regret/ are you happy?
My regret is that I will only have one child. I'd love to have another child and give my DD a sibling.

That said if I had started earlier I wouldn't have my daughter, a different egg would have met a different sperm it would be a different kid.
Anonymous
Post 12/01/2015 14:59     Subject: Deciding to have kids later- do you regret/ are you happy?
Anonymous wrote:I would be ashamed of having parents who are +40 years older. No need to start family when you are 20 but 40 it's way too late


Yeah, you've got some other issues going on there then.
Anonymous
Post 12/01/2015 14:44     Subject: Deciding to have kids later- do you regret/ are you happy?
Anonymous wrote:I would be ashamed of having parents who are +40 years older. No need to start family when you are 20 but 40 it's way too late


OP here. You're an idiot. These are your parents, not your friends. And FWIW, I have friends (dear friends who I rely on) who are 30 years older than I am
Anonymous
Post 12/01/2015 14:34     Subject: Deciding to have kids later- do you regret/ are you happy?
I would be ashamed of having parents who are +40 years older. No need to start family when you are 20 but 40 it's way too late
Anonymous
Post 12/01/2015 14:32     Subject: Deciding to have kids later- do you regret/ are you happy?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Waiting gives you the maturity, patience, and, generally, a better economic situation, which makes the very difficult process of raising children less difficult.


IME, this is a myth.



right. How do you know anything outside of your own little data point. Why can't someone be patient at age 26? Are 28 year olds immature in general? I know plenty of 40 somethings that would fit that description.