How did you know?

[OHeery]

Hi all!

I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself. I'm excited to have found a board for others who are in the same place in life as me. So many message board communities focus so much on the process of TTC. This is the only one that I have found about those of us who are eager to try but are still waiting!

My husband and I were recently married. We have been together for 3 years, but we have only been married for 2 months. We know that we would like to wait at least a year before we start TTC. However, right now we are in "negotiations" about our future timeline. We are increasingly finding that there is never going to be a perfect time to have a baby!

So I wanted to ask: how did you and your partner know when was the right time to start trying? What factors did you have to take into consideration?

Thank you all for your wisdom and support!

 

[Kitteh_Kat]

Congrats on your marriage!

Honestly, there was nothing special or different that made us decide. One day I just decided I was done waiting and I wanted a baby NOW, so I told him I wanted to start trying. We discussed pros and cons (there weren't many for us - most of them were related to him joining the military and being gone), and he agreed that we were as ready as we were really ever going to be. We weren't even married at that point, although we had been discussing kids since we got together.

You guys have to decide what is best for you two and your relationship/situation. Everyone is different!

 

[jaspie]

We moved to a quieter area, OH has had a number of promotions and I have a stable job that I enjoy, so financially we're in a great place. We've been together nearly 6 years and have enjoyed each other, our friends, festivals and holidays. It's time now for the next chapter :-D

 

[pootle33]

Not sure if we ever 'knew' however we both had good stable jobs and had recently moved into a new house. We had done a fair bit of travelling since we had been married 2-3 years earlier so felt quite settled and ready I suppose!

 

[Kiwiberry]

For us, it was right away. You are right in that there is no perfect time to have a baby. So we just went for it. It can take a long time for some people to conceive, and I did not want to be a 35-40 year old first time mom. So we got right down to it!

 

[OHeery]

Thank you for sharing your stories and wisdom! I deeply appreciate it.

The problem my husband and I are facing is that we may be relocating in the next 2-3 years for my husband's career. Right now we are near both of our families, and we have a strong support system around us. But we will have little control over where we will move to, and we could end up far away from our families. This is our dilemma. We seem to have 2 options:

1) Start trying next year. If we were blessed enough to get pregnant right away, this would allow us to be around our support system during the pregnancy and the first few months of our baby's life. However, it may mean that we would have to move with a young baby, and we would not have as much time together just for us as a newly married couple.

2) Wait until after the move to start trying. This would allow us to get settled and established before adding a baby to the mix. However, it might also mean being far away, depending on where we end up, from our families and anyone we know during pregnancy and the arrival of our baby.

I feel a bit torn. Both have pros. Both have cons. Neither is perfect. Any thoughts, wisdom, advice?!

 

[Kiwiberry]

If it was me, I would go with the first option. I think having a support group and people there to help you out is more important than worrying about moving with a baby. I mean think about it, pregnancy is an amazing thing. You will want to share it with everyone, and everyone will want to see your cute prego belly.

 

[Kitteh_Kat]

We started trying even though we knew as a military family we'd be moving around a lot (hubby ended up being gone for almost the full first year of her life unfortunately). We were already far from family, but both mothers flew up - mine the week before I was due, and his the day she was born. They stayed and helped for the first few weeks until we got a handle on it.

I found it easier to move when they're still small. We had to move again right around her first birthday, and it was much more difficult, especially trying to work around her naptimes and becoming mobile. As a baby she'd just spend the time napping in her car seat or on my chest in a carrier.

I also got pregnant on our honeymoon, so we didn't even have a year before she arrived. Didn't bother us since getting married didn't change our relationship beyond making things legal, but if that is important to you guys then you might want to delay until later on.

 

[prettybirdy27]

If I were in your shoes, I would try for the first option.

My husband and I sort of realized we were ready one weekend a few weeks ago. We had been talking about it a little bit for the last year, but that weekend we were camping and ended up taking care of our three young cousins. On the car ride home, all we could talk about was how excited we were to have kids and we hashed out tons of things, like how we would discipline them, teach them religion, etc. We kept talking about it all the following week, and the weekend after, we sat down and picked a date to start trying.

I guess for us, actually taking care of kids for a weekend and not killing each other was the sign we needed.

 

[wonders10]

My fiance and I don't have kids yet, still WTT #1, but I think we realized we really wanted the whole marriage and kids things when I fell pregnant unexpectedly in January. Sadly I lost it the following month at 8 weeks. But that whole experience made us realize we want a child and our own family. So he proposed in April, we are getting married in March and will be trying right away. We live our life now as if we are married so nothing much will change except for my last name and an extra piece of jewelry lol. I'm also 34 and will be the dreaded 35 in May so I want to make sure I give myself as many chances as possible to get a bfp.

As far as your two options, I would go with option 1. Your family will want to experience your pregnancy and I'd imagine you'd want their support after he/she is born. There will always be a "but this...". For example, you will wait until you move in 3 years, but then you may need to wait for a house to be finished. Then, you need to wait because so and so is getting married on some beautiful island and you want to go but can't if you're pregnant or have a little one. Just my two cents. As long as you are stable with the biggies (job, home, etc), there will never be a perfect time to have a child. And also not to be a downer, but it may not happen as quick as you think. What if you waited 3 years to try and it took you a year to get pregnant?

 

[OHeery]

I appreciate your support and all of your advice! I spoke to my mother this weekend about our dilemma as well, and she, like you, also recommended trying earlier. She made some similar points along with many others that my hubby and I hadn't even considered. So now, thanks to your help and the help of my mother, I think that my DH and I are strongly leaning towards TTC in just 1 year! There are a few other things that we will need to work out before we know an exact date - timing on a job promotion that I hope to receive, when we want to take our big "babymoon" trip to Greece and Italy, etc. But we are now thinking of starting sometime between August - October 2015. Sooooo excited!