OK, now that this thread is back on topic, I’ll overshare.
I’m married, we are both 29, and we are both SO on the fence about having a kid. Some days I feel completely overwhelmed by wrestling with the decision. I’m comfortable putting off the decision until I’m 32, but no later. No judgment at ALL to those who wait longer, I know fertility is almost always solid past 32, but I just personally do not want a pregnancy at an advanced age. So we have 3 years to decide, which sounds like a lot but doesn’t really feel like a lot. Financially we will be able to swing it in a couple of years.
I don’t care for babies, I’m overwhelmed by toddlers. I didn’t really connect with my niece and nephew until they were in mid-to-late elementary school, and even then, when I thought they were awesome, I found them exhausting and somewhat tedious. I have 3 other nephews on the other side under 4, and I have basically no feelings towards them or interaction with them.
I like a clean, quiet, peaceful and orderly home. I’m an HSP for sure, and I worry about the environmental stress of a child. I go to the houses of people with young children and I’m mostly horrified.
I have a history of depression and actively guard my healthy habits of lots of sleep, regular exercise, thought-out meals and a mix of downtime (introvert) and socialization (preventing loneliness). I’m afraid I’d lose all that if I had a child, and I’m afraid of postpartum depression, as I have a higher risk of it.
I’m a recreational cyclist and am so into getting stronger and fitter on the bike. I don’t want to give all that up for a year of pregnancy+newborn at home, and then how do you even fit in cycling when you have a child you have to watch. My husband and I love having dates of long rides on the bike and the logistics would be so much harder. I also ride horses and do not want to give that up, but financially I expect I would have to, at least for a while.
I’m afraid of the stress a child would put on our marriage. We have a strong marriage, but we both handle stress poorly.
I’m scared of having a child with special needs and not being able to rise to the challenge.
I often get anxious about my husband’s safety when he is out biking or driving home late and I’m worried about that fear multiplying if I had a child to worry about as well.
All that said……I think kids can be pretty cool when they’re a little older and independent. I think watching your child learn to be a human is probably one of the most amazing experiences there is. When I think about the future I tend to picture it involving a child, somehow. I am not sure what we would do with our lives to “make up” for not having kids – cycling doesn’t seem like enough.
I think my husband’s hesitation is solely about losing free time to bike, general evening freedom, the likelihood certainty of us fighting more due to stress. Until recently, when it became a real possibility, he always wanted children, whereas I was always, always on the fence. If I decided I wanted them for sure, I expect he would be on board. We are both afraid we will become people we don’t really like if we had a child.
We are under a lot of pressure from both sets of parents to have children. I know my dad would be a fantastic grandparent, and he is getting up there in age, and it hurts my heart when I think about denying him the chance to have a grandchild nearby, or us putting off kids so long he doesn’t really get to know them. But of course we can’t have kids for other people.
So….I spend a lot of time struggling with this. If we had an oops we would keep it, but I’m not comfortable with putting us in a position where an oops is likely to happen. I suspect we would be good parents, but maybe not happy parents. I don’t know how to make this decision.
