Humor me, before H schedules his V. I'm pretty darn confident I don't want them but then H was all 'if you want to discuss it again now is the time" and my uterus is all "but waiiiiitttt...." and my head is all "run awayyyyy." How's that for deep Monday morning thoughts? lol
I know more than one person who reversed a Vasectomy because they changed their minds. I can think of 3 right off the bat. For me, I always wanted kids. I planned to adopt and saved the money to do it, long before I got married, in case I didn't have kids of my own. For DH, he was not so into it. He was 40 before we had our first child. I have friends who are sure they don't want kids, and have not had them (we are at the age, where accidents/unassisted kids are very unlikely). They are happy with that decision. Only you can decide how you feel, but if you are on the fence at all, I would consider other forms of birth control for a time.
Before kids we would go on multiple international trips per year. It was our thing, and we loved it. On one trip I just remember feeling that I had fulfilled that desire and was ready for a new phase in my life. We still like to travel internationally but just return to our favorite places for the most part.
Now I can't imagine my life without kids. (I know that's likely gag-inducing.) I can totally see how others do not want them, though.
FWIW, I don't feel as though I'm on the fence. I think I romanticize the idea of kids, but have no real interest in having my own. Mostly just making conversation.
For me/us it felt like there was something that we would be missing if we didn't try to have a child. It was and continues to be a pretty damn scary decision. But when I thought of us in the future, it was never just the two of us. I always saw it with at least a child.
For what it's worth though, even though we don't have a child yet, we are firmly in the one and done camp.
I've never wanted kids. DH was fine with never having kids when we got married. We just aren't kid people. He had his V about 3 years ago, and it's been great to not have to worry about birth control since then.
For us it wasn't really a choice. It just seemed like a given. Like "of course we want kids." There was no question in either of our minds. Then we dealt with IF and the given seemed less so...but we got through it and now have DD.
And she's pretty awesome, and we are pretty damn happy, except when she's fighting naps or waking up (STILL) at 4 AM. However, I can imagine life without her b/c we did have life without her for over 4 years of married life. And it was pretty great, albeit wildly different.
If we had never had her, I don't know how I'd feel. I think DH would feel more "incomplete" than I would, honestly. There was a lot to love in my "former" life.
We married older and H was gone all the time when we were first married. That set us on the path and we didn't do anything to change that. I had a hysterectomy last year, but even before that we knew it would just be us. We are now 45/44 and are thinking more about retirement, than having kids. We have some terrific kids in our lives (nieces are like our own) so we've just never felt the need. We are very happy and content with our cats, each other and our extended family and friends.
When we got married, we weren't sure we wanted kids. Then neither of us could imagine our future without them. Now after 2 failed attempts, we want them but may not be able to (although H turned to me when there was a group of misbehaving kids at the Grand Canyon and said, "Are we really sure??").
When I was teaching and working 70 hours a week and making $30k, it was very easy to say NO without even thinking about it. Plus I was just so over-stimulated at work, my quiet home was my refuge. Now that I've had desk jobs for the past two years, I can see how a child/children could fit into our lives. However, the desire is still just not there.
I'm 31, and DH will be 33 in a few weeks, and I'm kinda sorta feeling the "tick tock" for the first time, but neither of us feels any real desire to have children either. We like our lives how they are, we like our routines, and we like having disposable money for the first time ever.
I do feel a lot of external pressure to have children, and wonder why I feel so little internal pressure. I'm very apathetic and disinterested as far as children go; I don't "ooh and ahhh" over babies and have NO interest in going to kids' sporting events or doing family friendly activities. I don't dislike children; I just feel no real motivation to have one or be around them.
DH and I have both said that if one of us really wanted to have kids we could convince the other, but neither of us have the desire on our own. I always thought I would change my mind one day, but so far, I haven't. If I had to guess, I'd say there's no chance we'll ever decide to have a biological child. We have talked a bit about maybe pursuing international adoption in five years or so, but we haven't committed to doing that either .
Post by fortnightlily on Oct 5, 2015 9:14:48 GMT -5
It was sort of a default, we just assumed we'd have kids. DH had a desire. I could've gone either way, was waiting for a biological urge that never came. We were in a good place financially, weren't getting any younger, so we decided to just go for it (even though I was mostly terrified). First attempt resulted in a chemical pregnancy, which of course queues the what-ifs, and I was surprised at how upset I became at the notion of 'well, what if we don't end up having a choice *not* to have kids', so I took that to mean, ok, I guess I want them.
Second attempt resulted in DS. And now I'm just as torn, if not more, about whether to have more kids. The urge still isn't there. I'm 98% sure I'm done, but I know DH wants more and I feel guilty.
I don't regret having DS (eta - but life as an introvert with a full-time job and a toddler is hard and I'm missing 'me' time a LOT these days). I'm sure if I'd never had kids that when I got older I might be wistful, but I don't think I'd have really regretted not having them either.
We lived together and dated for awhile before marriage. At that time we were in college and never really thought about it. Once engaged it was something we started thinking about and a few months before our wedding we just decided that yes we did. Not really sure our thought process other than woke up one day and were like "yes, ready for kids". So 3 months after our wedding there I was knocked up.
Post by steamboat185 on Oct 5, 2015 9:16:43 GMT -5
We talked about it for years and were firmly on the fence when we I got pregnant. We now have DD and she is awesome, but I definitely miss my old unfettered exhistance from time to time. Editing to add- we haven't really changed what we do we still hike, ski, and travel (DD had been to 5 countries prior to age 2) it just takes a lot more effort.
We always wanted kids. We decided to have our 2 after lots of drinks. Literally we had a drunk conversation for the first and said we are going to go to Oktoberfest and then have a kid. The second we were away and said Ok in X month lets try to have a kid. I have no idea why but drinking brings out our true feelings on the subject. If you have been drinking and still dont want kids they probably arent for you.
Pom am I correct that your nieces are not local to you? SIL just had a baby, but they live in CO and we are in OR. Easy enough to get to, but I definitely won't be seeing my nephew on the regular.
@ffbride0813 babies are definitely less scary and intimidating when drinking!
We always planned to have kids together. I always assumed I would eventually have kids. I can't imagine my life without them now that I have them. They're exhausting and crazy, but they're amazing and awesome. The general intensity of my life just got turned up an order of magnitude, both highs and lows.
I do feel a lot of external pressure to have children, and wonder why I feel so little internal pressure. I'm very apathetic and disinterested as far as children go; I don't "ooh and ahhh" over babies and have NO interest in going to kids' sporting events or doing family friendly activities. I don't dislike children; I just feel no real motivation to have one or be around them.
DH and I have both said that if one of us really wanted to have kids we could convince the other, but neither of us have the desire on our own.
The quote above is pretty much me/us. DH is 44 and I am 35 and I've never wanted them. I occasionally have the thought of growing old alone, especially since DH is older than me, but I don't want to make such a big decision as having a child based on my desire to have someone to keep me company at 85. That's not fair to the child, or to me.
Now, we travel and make our own schedules and have an early retirement plan that most of my parent friends are jealous of. I have a good friend who always says that parenthood isn't better or worse than no kids, it's just different.
Pom am I correct that your nieces are not local to you? SIL just had a baby, but they live in CO and we are in OR. Easy enough to get to, but I definitely won't be seeing my nephew on the regular.
It's totally been long distance at times, now doesn't seem so bad, LOL. We actually live 3.5 hours from Niece 2 and my sister. Niece 1 and great niece are in the Dallas 'burbs, so 5+ hours. They all love San Antonio, so they come here every chance they get. We see each other probably 8 times/year. It works, but true there are no "drop by" kinda visits.
Post by irene adler on Oct 5, 2015 10:04:40 GMT -5
I don't feel like we ever really had a choice to not have kids. We tried for about two years without any luck. Near the end of that time was when dh lost his father, job and got a cancer diagnosis in the span of 6 months, which derailed everything. He is still struggling with coping after 2 years.
We're still not actively preventing, but I've been struggling to make peace with the fact that we probably won't have kids.
Post by jerseyjaybird on Oct 5, 2015 10:11:04 GMT -5
Some kind of switch flipped in me at 27, and I knew knew KNEW I wanted kids. It just fit, somehow. I couldn't imagine a future without them. When I was 30, we TTC'd with my now ex-wife carrying. She had an early miscarriage, after which we decided to put TTC on hold to follow an amazing job opportunity across the country. Once we were settled there together (a 13-month process, it turned out), she realized that she not only didn't want kids, she didn't want to be married.
I'm 38 now, and DW and I married a bit more than a year ago, assuming that we'd start TTC very soon after. Instead, she faced a mental health crisis last fall that took some time to recover from.
We're finally in a good place again, and I'm torn. On the one hand, I've never stopped imagining my life with kids. On the other, I'm scared to upset the delicate balance that our life is. And, I don't quite have the energy I had eight years ago, when my ex and I were trying. Also, the TTC process for us just sucks and I'm not eager to deal with all of it.
So, I find myself on the fence. Most days, I think I'll regret not having kids out of fear, essentially, but some days that fear feels all too real.
On one trip I just remember feeling that I had fulfilled that desire and was ready for a new phase in my life.
I had this exact moment, in Prague, thinking "I am really over seeing old church after old church." But in my case, I was already pregnant.
We always wanted kids in THEORY. When it got to the point of actually making the decision to try, I had major cold feet. But I was already 35, and if we wanted more than one (which we did IN THEORY), we didn't want to wait too long. Plus, DH had zero cold feet. He would've had babies like, immediately.
Anyway, I basically hated pregnancy but was over the moon the minute she arrived, and I've never ever regretted it for a minute. Though we do talk about how amazing those long lazy days used to be...
I've always wanted children. Sadly, it wasn't super easy for us to do. I wanted the experience of watching a tiny human grow and learn and laugh. I wanted snuggles. Idk... It's hard to quantify the exact reasons, but parenthood is an experience I imagined for myself and wanted. We both did, from the beginning.
I always wanted children with the right guy. When 35 came and went, I thought I would not be having kids and made peace with it. I finally met that right guy when I was 39. He was 33 at the time. At first, I thought that I had left it too late. He talked me into pursuing medical options. DD was born with medical help last year and is the joy of our lives. If the medical help was not so expensive, we would be having a second child to give her a sibling.
Because I've never seriously thought about having kids. I've never had a vision of it. That's a pretty good indicator that I don't want them.
This is true for me as well. I've always seen kids as a foreign concept to me, like something that other people do, but I've never really felt that it was for me. I've never seen myself as a mom and I don't think that I will.
I have no idea. I always thought I wanted at least one kid, DH was indifferent in general to the idea of children. We focused on other things for a while, then I decided the time was "right" and we had kid one. Kid two was a purely emotional decision that contradicted all rational thought about how being OAD made sense for our lives/patience levels/desired life style (urban living, frequent travel, time-intensive jobs and hobbies). I obviously love my second kid, but even fourteen months in, I'm not like, "oh, yeah, it made total sense for us to have a second kid." All objective indications still say that it made more sense to stop at one, but the heart wants what the heart wants...
I am pretty sure I don't want any more kids, however, and the thought of an accidental pregnancy is on my top 10 list of current fears (I have an IUD). I should probably push DH to get a V, but I'm not great at processing things in definitive terms. I still entertain thoughts of changing careers and moving, for example, even though I am pretty happy where I am career-wise and living-wise.
The decision was made for me. I got married at 37 and we started TTC right away. Despite major medical intervention, including two tries with donor eggs, we never managed to have a baby. After so much heartache, we decided we were done with treatment. We just wanted to feel like we could move on and live our lives. Since I am now 44, it doesn't look like we will be one of those miracle couples who get pregnant out of the blue. I have accepted that we aren't having kids and I am ok with it (most of the time).