s/o Baby Bucket List

[glitzy07]

Were there any specific things that you and your husband really wanted to do/see/etc before you started trying to have kids?

We got married last September, and I just recently went off the pill (two weeks ago). We are continuing to "prevent" until July because of some work timing things. If it were up to H, we'd be trying right now, but I'm not loving the idea of 14 hours days on my feet at 6 months pregnant. So alas, we're waiting a bit.

I just find myself trying to schedule in a ton more happy hours with my girlfriends, and dreaming about "one last" beach vacation where I'm sipping daquiris in a lounge chair. We're even talking about waiting until the end of July so that I don't have to awkwardly and very obviously be not drinking at two big events. (I'm sensing a theme here, and I don't even drink very often. lol Apparently I might miss it more than I anticipate when I can't anymore!)

So, did/do you have an (official or unofficial) "baby bucket list" too?

[chessie]

I know myself we are going through this right now- we want to do at least 3-4 vacations a year, hanging with friends, while we can, enjoy horse shows, riding my horse, DH enjoying his motorcycle runs, huge one is to have a certain % of money in the accounts before we start anything. I want to def hit up parts of Asia, Africa, Alaska and more islands. Once we have a kid, probably a lot will change, won't have time to see the friends as much and vacations will be very slim, so we figure live it up now. If anything really like to have our house repairs be done, not in our current home since its really too small to raise a child, its way too small for our needs already.

[Willis Jackson]

I didn't.

I will say that I'm glad I did some, ahem, "irresponsible" things before I had kids because I'm more risk-averse now. I'm not willing to do something that could result in broken legs or jail time now, because I have to take care of my kids and set a good example for them.

It's not that I want to do anything stupid now, but I'm glad I have those memories. Does that make sense?

[Deleted]

I really regret not traveling more, especially internationally. For some reason, I believed my mother when she said she and my dad would watch our kids so we could take a vacation now and then. Turns out, a few hours babysitting is more than enough for them. Oh well, maybe we'll do it when they're older.

So I would say travel as much as you can, go everywhere you *really* want to go, and get that bug out of your system as much as possible.

[Deleted]

We went to Montreal, drank a lot, and rode roller coasters. Not at the same time. It wasn't really a "bucket list", but a pre-baby vacation that was totally baby unfriendly.

I still see my friends quite a bit - it helps that my BFF is childless and will come to me to hang out in the evenings.

[h]

We wanted to finish grad school (JD for me, MBA for him), be married five years, have our finances in order and a decent cushion saved, be somewhat established in our jobs, and have plenty of time to hang out with each other and our friends and travel before kids. We did all that, except the established job thing--DH quit his job and took a new one the week DS1 was born. We got married fairly young (24/25). We would not have waited as long to have children had we been significantly older.

We also planned a big trip right before we started TTC the first time (cruise around Greece, Croatia & Italy). We did a somewhat shorter kid-free getaway to Costa Rica before TTC our second. I am really glad we did those trips.

[Brie]

Ours was pretty boring: job and financial stability. Once we got that, it was game time.

We are generally not super exciting people. We're homebodies anyway, so the idea of staying home with a baby doesn't really bother us.

[smiley]

I want to travel more before we decide to have a child. We also want to buy a bigger house and I am looking at going back to school and changing career paths.

[yellowbrkrd]

We didn't really have a bucket list before we started trying. We did take a few large vacations and held off from planning another one because we thought we'd be pregnant/have a child by now. I have learned to just live life normally and when it happens it will happen, I am done planning around a possible pregnancy.

[ssmjlm]

We're going to Alaska in August on a cruise. It's on after that.

[Susie]

The big one for us is financial: We need to pay off some SLs to free up space in the budget for daycare.

The others are optional. We've done a fair amount of traveling in the last 2 years or so, I'm doing triathlons that I know won't be consistent with being a new mom. I'd also really like to make partner, but we're not going to hold out indefinitely for this one.

[drloretta]

Nope. And it took us 3 years of TTC and a year of paperwork, etc to adopt DD. So we had time to squeeze things in anyway.

[Deleted]

Married, finished with school, own a house...I had traveled a lot prior to marriage & was definitely "over it" by then. Oh & I wanted to able able to be a SAHM financially. We were ready at the wedding day & tried for kid's right away. Wanted my first kid before I turned 30 & made it by 11mo.

[slug*bug]

Nope.

We'd traveled a ton early in our marriage, so when the 'we're ready' light switch went on, I think we both felt like we'd really been pretty fortunate and checked off a lot of the things that we wanted to do.

[laurao11]

We had a few things on our "list", including some travel, getting married, buying a house, and having a financial plan. I'm glad we waited, as we got our bfp my first month off the pill, and while it was a bit of a shock, we had definitely accomplished all we had set out to do before TTC.

[justjen]

Before we started TTC, we did one last "drinking" vacation (Dublin) and we ran a half marathon (this was a Big Deal for me). We also road tripped from NJ to TN last summer for Bonnarroo.

After I was pregnant, we took our last big "just us" trip (Paris and Prague). I have no regrets.

[badtzmaru22]

I wanted to be drunk and skinny at my BFF's wedding and take my DH to see where I grew up in Scotland. I accomplished both of those, and then it was another year before I was able to go off the pill, (we moved for DH's job, and I wanted to be at a FT job at least three months before ttc, just in case it happened right away) and another year after that by the time I got pregnant with my take home baby.

[jackpackage]

The big one was that we wanted to wait until h bought his practice. We feared that if we had a baby before then, we would have been more risk-averse.

I do wish we would have traveled while TTC or during my pregnancy. By the time could take time off, I was unable to travel.

[Deleted]

I demanded a trip to Europe, which not course necessitated saving money for the trip. We were married, house, dog, stable jobs, decent savings. I did drink a LOT over the last year, and I'll be honest, I miss my 1-2 beers/ glasses of wine a night. Especially as my husband cracks a home brew...

[jinnifah]

We both really wanted to go on a real vacation together. We'd never been anywhere outside the province since we were together. So last summer we went on a really fun trip to NYC.

[glitzy07]

Glad to hear that I'm not alone in this! Especially the drinking part!

It's so funny because I find myself wanting to do more of things I don't usually do, just because I won't be able to.

As I mentioned in the OP, I've never been much of a drinker. Maybe once a month or so. But lately, a combination of BFF's wedding and a friend moving away have created many more drinking occasions. Plus, I've been drinking more Dr. Pepper lately, and find myself wanting Subway a lot ever since my doc told me I can't have deli meat once I'm pregnant.

Our "list" is basically that I want all but one of my student loans paid off (on track to do so by end of summer), no CC debt, and one last vacation. Depending on how things go once we actually stop preventing, that last vacation might be a pregnant one. But at least it's already planned!