How long after marraige did you have babies?

[Asscherhalo_lover]

Just curious for those who went this route if you don't mind sharing.

How long after marraige did you have a baby? DH and I started dating when we were teens and got married seven years after we started dating at 22 and 23. I thought that by now at 27 and 28 we would be ready but we're just not. We have set a deadline that by our seven year wedding anniversary we will start TTC no matter. I will be 29 and he'll be 30. So that'll be seven years after marraige to start TTC. We were the first of our friends to get married but now quite a few who married after us are already pregnant. We will most likely be first ones married last to have kids.

So, how long did you wait?

 

[fiona00004]

I started dating my then boyfriend at 18, and I got married at 25. It is still considered young these days to get married...I was the first in my group of friends...I had my first baby at 29... still a first in my group of friends...

I would recommend to not have children unless you both feel ready. We did not realise just how much sacrifice it was to have children until we were actually in that situation. People can tell you this and that, but raising kids is really hard. Being caring parents, you can't help but stress and worry and loose lots of sleep. And it also depends on how much support you have.

Anyhow, wait until you are ready. I find it is still early for you to already be at the deadline. Biologically speaking, you still have lots of time... enjoy that time!!!! Once children come along... just having a trip to the toilet without crying kids is actually a luxury! Seriously, it is!!

 

[amc80]

9 months. If we are getting technical, I ovulated 3 days before the wedding so we went for it....and it worked. We were both 30. My clock really started ticking when I was 25, so those five years seemed like an eternity.

 

[lliang_chi]

We waited a little over 1 year. I was 20+ wks pregnant by our 2nd anniversary. Our son was 8 months old by our 3rd.

 

[PilsnPinkysMom]

We got pregnant 1 year, 1.5 months after getting married. We started dating at 19 and 22. Got married at 23 and 26. Started TTC at 25 and 28, and Eloise was born later that year, shortly after DH's 29th birthday.

We were the first for everything, basically... But I have no regrets. I love being a younger mom, and I don't feel that we rushed into anything. Could we have waited? Sure. But Eloise brings us IMMENSE joy and having her has actually strengthened our marriage. It's perfect for us.

 

[tammy77]

First marriage: Married at 20 (dummy!) and pregnant by 25. I'd gotten cold feet on TTC but by then it was too late because I was already pregnant! My second DD was born 25 months later when I was 27.

Second marriage: 34 (much smarter this time!!!) and pregnant just before turning 36. We started TTC about 4 or so months after getting married because the clock was hammering away.

While I don't regret the timing of any of my pregnancies, I have to admit that being pregnant at 36 (at least for me) is a whole different ball game. It's tiring and I'm often having pains I never experienced with my other girls. Case in point, I managed to injure my tail bone last night. How? Getting up to go to the bathroom.

 

[Gem Queen]

Married 23 years, no babies. Technically, you don't have to do anything; Society puts that guilt on you. On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad do you want children? Remember, you are the one, besides your husband, that is 100-percent responsible for them. This is just my view.
I don't know if that helps, it might stir up a bunch of comments, negative and positive!

 

[Dandi]

I met my now husband when I was 17 and he was 24, and we were married 8 years later at 25 and 32. We had our first baby 4.5 months ago, I was 30 and DH was 37, so five years after we were married. We wouldn't have had kids any earlier, we didn't feel ready, and I wouldn't give up the experiences I had in my twenties for anything. You're ready when you're ready, and if you're never ready... so be it!

 

[geri]

10 months but I was 37 when I got married so we knew we didn't have time to waste. If I had been younger I would have preferred more time together before having a child though.

 

[Asscherhalo_lover]

Thank you all for sharing! I definitely do want children but it's more that we are waiting to be better off financially before having them. That's why for us two more years is the max wait, we may never be fully ready but we do want it and we will just have to start trying one day. We have been ignoring family bothering us about it since we got married

 

[StacylikesSparkles]

Thank you all for sharing! I definitely do want children but it's more that we are waiting to be better off financially before having them. That's why for us two more years is the max wait, we may never be fully ready but we do want it and we will just have to start trying one day. We have been ignoring family bothering us about it since we got married

It's funny that you mention finances, as this is always a huge worry for most people wanting to become parents. DH and I went to lunch with his parents a few weeks ago and MIL flat out said 'Don't wait until you're financially ready. If we would have done that, we never would have had kids. You just make it work.' Thankfully, we don't have any debt, own a house (well, we're paying for it) and the only real bills we have are monthly things like electric, gas, phones, etc. At this point DH and I are NTNP and I'm happy with that. If we're not pregnant by January, I think we're going to take it more seriously and move it to the drs office to help things along. We got married in September, so we're still newlyweds. I'm 30, so we don't want to wait forever. DH told me on Friday that he is more concerned about me not being able to get pregnant than getting pregnant, so we're not going to do any preventing and see if we catch ourselves a baby lol

 

[Logan Sapphire]

We got married when I was 28 and he was 30. I wasn't sure I wanted kids, but we adopted our first child 2 weeks after I turned 33 and he turned 35 (we have the same birthday- he's two years old though). Second kid came along 2 weeks after I turned 34 and he turned 36.

Two and through!!

 

[jazzoboe]

I'm in much the same place as you. DH and I started dating when we were 17/18 (I'm the older one ) and married at 22/23. We said originally we would probably wait about 5 years to start having kids. A few months ago he said something like "in two more years you'll be 27... we'll probably want to think about trying around then, right?" and I was like maybe?? I can't believe we've been married over 2 years already, and I have a hard time imagining I'll feel ready in two more years. I DEFINITELY don't feel ready right now, but I know I really do want kids. So... I'm thinking it might really be closer to 30. Plus our (optimistic) goal is to get all our student loans, plus both cars paid off in 5 years (I just finished grad school so my loans are just going into repayment this summer, and they are terrifying!). Once those payments are gone we will be so much more comfortable. Also we are thinking of moving to another part of the country, maybe next year. So I feel like we're going to push off the kids thing a bit longer.

Family can definitely get annoying about it, though. My family is fine, actually. My sister, who's turning 30 this year, already has 2 boys, so my parents have grandkids to play with and they're happy for me to wait until I'm ready. My MIL, however... when we got engaged she gave us a hard time because she thought we should have waited longer to get married just because we were young, and then she turns around and says "I give it 2 years before you have a baby." I rolled my eyes and told her it was not going to happen and she just laughed. Now that it's been 2 years, she's spent the last 6 months pestering me to give her a grandbaby I guess she won't be too happy when we tell her that not only are we absolutely not having a baby right now, we're also planning to move out of state, so there's a good chance that when we DO have babies, we won't even be living close by. Oh well, it's our lives and we have to do what's best for us!

ETA: We were also among the first of our friends to get married, and I've started seeing a lot of babies and pregnancy announcements lately. Our closest friends, who got married 5 months after us, are planning to start trying late this year or early next year, so... yeah, we'll probably be the last to have kids. On the other hand, we've started making some new friends through DH's work who are all married and about the same age as us, and I don't think any of them are thinking kids yet, so maybe not!

 

[vintagelover229]

My DH and I are an international couple. So we met Feb 2010 and began dating right away. I "moved" up here within a month (visiting 3 weeks of that month) after a 2 month visit-but we didn't get engaged until the July 2011 and married early that Dec. Because I had US health insurance they required you to have a yearly visit to continue the pill and had already extended it 6 months for me-so my last pill was the day before our wedding. My family is a fertile bunch and my DH 6 years older than myself (I'm now 25 and I have an almost 7 month old) and we thought it might take a few months but we willing to start right away.

Needless to say I got pregnant Jan. 15th-the same day our offer was accepted on a (thankfully ready to live) but needs a TON of work house. We would have waited a year if we'd known that we'd have a ton of projects to do on a house (new roof-whole place needs to be gutted at some point) but we were surprised but thrilled. My DH is going to be 31 in June and was ready to be a dad.

It was overwhelming at first-not the pregnancy but the thought of bringing life into this world-the responsibility, fiances, etc and while kids are expensive you can do things to reduce costs greatly. Buying second hand (most baby items are gently used-such as clothing-toys-crib sets-unless you co-sleep then you buy it and don't even use it like we did-strollers (many couples buy them and have 2 right close together and need a double stroller-we got the stroller we wanted for 1/2 the price and it was only 2 years old) breast feed-do child lead feeding or make your own baby food-there are tons of ways to save $-like cloth diapering which isn't gross IMO but to each their own).

I love my son dearly and wouldn't change a thing. As he gets older he interacts a lot more and he's SO funny and so much fun. I've attached a few pictures just so you can get an idea. I'm a SAHM and my husband is home every night so that helps a lot. It's just not worth the extra income to have someone else watch my child-to pay the child care costs and additional taxes on my income-for me to go to work. I don't think a lot of couples think about it but if you calculate what you ACTUALLY bring home and divide that by how many hours you work-is that $ worth being away from you kid all day? For some it is-but for me it's not.

Here's my little man in all his huge glory. Hope you don't mind the pictures

 

[luvsdmb]

Started dating June 1, 2010 (husband's birthday)
Engaged April, 2011
Married July 17, 2011
Found out I was pregnant October 16, 2011 (thank you ovulation kit)
Baby arrived June 1, 2012 (what a special day for this little guy to arrive, two years to the day when we first met and hubbys b-day)

It seems fast and it was, BUT we went to the same high school had the same friends so when we met for the first time we both knew it was meant to be. Plus I had a crush on him for about ten years. I love this man!!!!!

(finding him and having a wedding, baby etc...has been easier then finding a ring I want )

 

[Asscherhalo_lover]

I'm in much the same place as you. DH and I started dating when we were 17/18 (I'm the older one ) and married at 22/23. We said originally we would probably wait about 5 years to start having kids. A few months ago he said something like "in two more years you'll be 27... we'll probably want to think about trying around then, right?" and I was like maybe?? I can't believe we've been married over 2 years already, and I have a hard time imagining I'll feel ready in two more years. I DEFINITELY don't feel ready right now, but I know I really do want kids. So... I'm thinking it might really be closer to 30. Plus our (optimistic) goal is to get all our student loans, plus both cars paid off in 5 years (I just finished grad school so my loans are just going into repayment this summer, and they are terrifying!). Once those payments are gone we will be so much more comfortable. Also we are thinking of moving to another part of the country, maybe next year. So I feel like we're going to push off the kids thing a bit longer.

Family can definitely get annoying about it, though. My family is fine, actually. My sister, who's turning 30 this year, already has 2 boys, so my parents have grandkids to play with and they're happy for me to wait until I'm ready. My MIL, however... when we got engaged she gave us a hard time because she thought we should have waited longer to get married just because we were young, and then she turns around and says "I give it 2 years before you have a baby." I rolled my eyes and told her it was not going to happen and she just laughed. Now that it's been 2 years, she's spent the last 6 months pestering me to give her a grandbaby I guess she won't be too happy when we tell her that not only are we absolutely not having a baby right now, we're also planning to move out of state, so there's a good chance that when we DO have babies, we won't even be living close by. Oh well, it's our lives and we have to do what's best for us!

ETA: We were also among the first of our friends to get married, and I've started seeing a lot of babies and pregnancy announcements lately. Our closest friends, who got married 5 months after us, are planning to start trying late this year or early next year, so... yeah, we'll probably be the last to have kids. On the other hand, we've started making some new friends through DH's work who are all married and about the same age as us, and I don't think any of them are thinking kids yet, so maybe not!

The student loans are the killer! We spend more on those than our rent, it's the reason we haven't bought a house yet
It's also why we will wait two more years at the most, we know it will never be perfect but by then a lot of other bills we have will be paid off. I plan on doing as much for my baby as I can, bfing, cloth diapers (we'll try anyway), making baby food, buying clothes 2nd hand, the killer is the day care. Having one of us lose our income is not an option for here. Full time day care costs about 2k per month which is INSANE. That's the pickle. I am hoping that since my Mom works from home that she will be able to watch our LO at least 2-3 days per week and then I can find someone who only wants to Nanny part time and will do so in our home (which we will eventually own). My Mom knows about this and I'm pretty sure she'll come through for us when it gets to be time. Hoping anyway.

 

[ponder]

8 years. They say if you wait until you can afford them then you will never have them. That's not necessarily true. We waited till we could afford them and I could stay home. I do work part time, but its for sanity not money.

 

[monkeyprincess]

I was 26 when I met DH and 29 when I got married, and by that time, I was so ready for a baby. We started really trying about 6 months after getting married. It ended up taking awhile to conceive though, so our son was born a couple months after our second anniversary.

 

[NewEnglandLady]

Ages:
Dating--18
Married--26
First child--30

I know everybody says there is no good time to have kids, but I agree with other posters that it is good to have some pre-baby goals. Saving money is a good one. We had that one. Buying a house was another one for us. And traveling--we had a bucket list of trips we wanted to take before we had kids. I'm really glad we took our time and focused on that chapter of our lives.

 

[Harpertoo]

Married @ 24 / 26
Adopted our one & only @ 40 / 42 (we were in process/waiting for 3.5 years)

 

[Logan Sapphire]

Married @ 24 / 26
Adopted our one & only @ 40 / 42 (we were in process/waiting for 3.5 years)

Harpertoo- did you do a domestic adoption or an international one? My daughter and I were both adopted from Korea (and I have a twin who was adopted with me).

 

[Harpertoo]

Married @ 24 / 26
Adopted our one & only @ 40 / 42 (we were in process/waiting for 3.5 years)

Harpertoo- did you do a domestic adoption or an international one? My daughter and I were both adopted from Korea (and I have a twin who was adopted with me).

Hi Logan Sapphire,
We adopted internationally from China.
We have several friends who adopted from Korea. My state has a very high rate of international adoption.

 

[Octavia]

DH and I met when I was about 23, married a little over four years later. We're expecting our first baby a couple months after our fourth wedding anniversary -- I'll be 31 and DH 35 when the little one arrives. I'd love to be able to freeze time and have a couple more childfree years together without getting any older, but since that wasn't happening, we decided it was time to go for it!

 

[tara3056]

I got married very young - I was 19, and he was 23. Perhaps the decision to marry so young was looked down upon a bit by society in general at the time, but DH and I have been together for almost 13 years now, so it's worked out well for us. We were married for 10 years before having our first baby. In those 10 years, I completed my college degree (he'd just gotten his when we married), we bought a couple of houses, and enjoyed a lot of travelling. We spent a combined total of several months in Europe over a handful of trips, not to mention a lot of domestic travel. I have so many wonderful memories of those trips and experiences. The first 2-3 years of our marriage were about getting financially settled and buying our first house, etc. We were not at all interested in having kids - in fact, I wasn't sure if we would ever even want to have any. After we became more financially comfortable, we loved being able to 'selfishly' spend our money on ourselves and travelling.

Around the 10-year mark, though, we both felt that we were ready for the next step. We moved into a bigger house in a family-friendly neighborhood, and I got pregnant within a couple of months after that. Our son was born in Sept of 2010, just before our 10th anniversary. I had just turned 29. I'm now about to turn 32 and am pregnant with a baby girl who is due in August (and then we'll be done). In *most* respects, I don't regret waiting to start our family. (I'm also happy with our decision to go ahead and not wait any longer than we did. I didn't want to run the risks of diminishing fertility and greater incidences of genetic problems that happen as you age.) I cherish those years when it was just DH and I, and all the freedom we had. I wouldn't trade any of the travelling we did for the world. BUT, I think it would have been physically easier to be pregnant and to chase after a toddler if I'd done it a few years earlier. Not that I'm 'old' now, but there are still subtle differences in how I felt at, say, 25, vs now.

It was also a bit of a difficult adjustment, getting used to have all the "me" time in the world, being able to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted FOR YEARS, to becoming a Mom of a very active young boy. I am lucky if I get to watch a favorite TV show or 2 once a week now. I used to read a ton of books; not so much now. It's all worth it, of course. The happiness you get from watching your child learn something new, or develop their own sense of humor, or kiss you spontaneously, is ALL on a different level of joy from the things that made me happy before. It's just a different kind of happiness... but it comes with a lot of sacrifice and hard work, too. So my advice is pretty contradictory: be *certain* you're ready for the kind of upheaval a baby brings, but don't put it off too long if you're going to do it!

 

[junebug17]

I was married almost 5 years when I had my first...two months from my 29th birthday. One of the smartest things I ever did was to wait until I was completely ready to have a child...it's funny, for me it was like a switch was flipped - I went from a 20 something having a grand old time just doing things with dh and friends with no desire to have a baby to wanting a baby really badly lol! One of the few times in my life I felt completely ready and totally sure of what I wanted.

eta: waiting a while also gave us time to get on our feet financially, which really made things easier.

 

[pancake]

Re: How long after marriage did you have babies?

We married in May 2010. Got pregnant in May 2011. We probably would have started TTC before then (I got pregnant on my first cycle) except that we had spent all of 2010 travelling and had eloped overseas, so we wanted to wait until our home-leg reception (on May 1, 2011) was done first.

I think that there are different types of "readiness" for a baby and in many ways I don't know if anyone ever feels totally, 100%, no-doubts-whatsoever, "ready" - and that is probably just because you never really know what parenthood is or means until you become a parent. I turned 32 the day before I had my daughter, and I think it would have been nice to start younger BUT that said, I only met my husband when I was 28 and there were many things we did together in the few years before we had S that I would not trade for anything

 

[Enerchi]

Married at 26 & 1/2 and after 3 years and 1 month, our first DS was born!! I was 29 & 1/2. DS#2 was born another 25 months later when I was 31+ years old, and then DD when I was 1 month away from being 35. 3 kids within 8 years of marriage.

 

[Asscherhalo_lover]

Thanks for all of your sharing ladies! I am having my implanon replaced with the newer explanon in June, right around our 5 year anniversary. We are both on board with me keeping it for about a year and a half, then I will have it removed and we can begin TTC. I am quite a planner in general so I like having at least somewhat of a timeline. I would also like more time to physically prepare, I want to be as healthy as possible before becoming pregnant and I am working on weightloss now, have been for a while actually. I know it may seem like a long way out but I think the next 18months will fly! Let's hope I manage to stay on track and accomplish what I want before then! (at least most of it anyway)

 

[qtiekiki]

Started dating when we were 21 and 23. Got married at 25 and 27. Gave birth to our daughter at 28 and 30, and our son at 30 and 31. I wanted to TTC right after we got married, but DH was not ready. We started trying a little over 6 months later because DH was skittered with his nephew and wanted his own kid. It took us 1.5 years to get pregnant.

 

[Laila619]

Well, we started trying after being married for just 4 months. Actually having it work is another story.

But we had our first baby a month after our two year wedding anniversary. And then we had our second 3 days before our fourth anniversary. My second is now 6 months old, and I think we'll be trying for our third soon! If it works, we'll have three kids under 3.5! Crazy I know, but I'm not getting any younger.