Today's guest post is from Amy, who I've gotten to know through Twitter over the last couple months. She's so sweet and helpful, and I absolutely love her blog! This is a subject I haven't blogged much about, so I'm excited to see the responses to this post!
Hi, Lucky in Love readers! My name is Amy and I blog over at Little Miss Wedding Planner. I am so happy for Laura & David and so honored to be guest blogging here! I have been following Laura’s blog and wedding plans for quite some time, so it is so exciting to see the wedding finally here!
Today I want to talk about something that doesn’t actually have a whole lot to do with wedding planning. Today, I want to talk about something I call The Baby Boom—not the one in the 50s, but the one that seems to be taking place in my own life right now!
I don’t know about you guys, but I am at the age where all of my friends are starting to get engaged and married. This summer alone, we are invited to 5 weddings, aside from our own! And of course, you know the old line: “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage!”
My first friend to get married was my best friend from high school. She actually married almost 5 years ago now, and got pregnant a year or so later. My cousin also had my lovely goddaughter (our flower girl!) around the same time. Two other friends of mine got married in late 2009 (twin sisters, coincidentally), and both got pregnant with honeymoon babies. One of my very best friends is getting married next year, and she too is planning on a honeymoon baby. And just last night, a dear friend who was married in December announced that she is also pregnant…thus, I was suddenly struck by the inevitable Baby Boom that occurs when you’re in your mid to late twenties. While I am no doubt happy for all of my friends and family, I still sometimes find myself asking this question: “Don’t they just want to be married for awhile?”
(Source – I love their expressions in this picture…the kid on the left and the kid second from the right are definitely making the face I make when thinking about this subject…sort of a “Huh? What the ?!”)
Many of you may know that I used to teach ballet to three-year-olds (I just “retired” from doing that last month), and as evidenced above, I am surrounded by pregnancy and babies…heck, I even confessed to reading a ton of baby & pregnancy blogs lately! I definitely love kids and both my fiancé & I are excited to have some of our own…but we are not planning on having children right away. I never thought I’d say this, but it feels like we’re sort of in the minority on this on…everybody else in our lives seem to be getting pregnant—and getting pregnant quick!
So what’s behind our decision? Well, our reasoning is simple. Although we’ve been together almost 7 years and have lived together for about 5, we really just want to be married for awhile. If it happens by accident, of course we’ll be excited and thrilled. But in an ideal world (and as long as I take my BC correctly!), we are definitely not planning on getting pregnant until about 2 years after our wedding. It might sound selfish, but we’d like to take some really fun trips…buy a house…and have the freedom to do whatever we want whenever we want, without worrying about kids yet.
As I said above, lately, I’ve felt as though I am in the minority on this topic…so, I’m curious. Where do you and your fiancé stand on this issue? Of course I want to know if you agree with me, but I am really interested in hearing from those of you who want to have children right away. What are your motivations? Is it just that you’re ready? Is it an age thing? If you feel comfortable, please share your thoughts (and if you plan to write a baby blog, please share that, too—because you know I love me some of those!)
My husband and I also have been together for 7 years and lived together for 5 and have been married for almost 2 months now. We have a house but are also waiting a while before we have a baby. We want to start trying probably close to our 1 yr wedding anniversary. Even though I want a baby so bad and my hormones have been kicking in a lot lately it is nice to have some down time after planning for a year for a wedding and just being together before worrying about a baby.
ReplyDeleteSo youre not alone! And great post by the way!
I've been married less than a month and we've been together for 2 years. We plan to wait at least a year I think before trying just so we can enjoy being newlyweds and get our finances in better shape. All of my friends are having babies right now too so it's tempting to join the "club" but it's best for us to wait a bit.
ReplyDeleteI'm in my mid-twenties too (turning 26 next month) but I'm only just starting to have baby fever. (I started reading a few mom blogs recently too!) My fiance and I have decided we want to try to have a child by the time we're 30 (we're both the same age now) so we'll probably enjoy a few blissful years of marriage before having kids. We want to travel, get more settled in our careers and buy a home before starting a family. Plus, none of our close friends have kids yet; I don't know if it's a northeast thing, but people take their time getting married and having babies in NYC!
ReplyDeleteOh girl, kudos to you! As much as I respect the decision of those people to have a baby right after their wedding, I am totally against it! My sister got pregnant on her honeymoon as well and she and her husband were barely together a total of 2 years by the time they had been dating, engaged, moved in, married and then back from the honeymoon. They had no time at all to just enjoy married life and it has been a bumpy road for sure. Granted they are older (35+) so they didn't want to wait too long to have babies. But if you are young (in your 20's), seriously enjoy being married for at least a year or two before you get into the pregnancy thing. As a single mom (now married 2 months), I can honestly say that I totally understand the value of married life sans children for a while. Even if you've been together for many years or living together, it's just a different thing...and kids bring your relationship to an entirely different level - good and bad with many new joys and stresses.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I agree...I think it seems like everyone is in a race to have a baby right after they get married!
ReplyDeleteMy Fiance and I are both young so we feel no pressure and we both want children very badly, but we want to enjoy each other first. We have been in a long distance relationship and have never lived in the same town, let alone, same house. So we are so excited to just be together, just us two, for awhile!
Right now we are thinking about two years before we try to get pregnant.
My husband and I got married just a couple of weeks ago, and though we have lived together for 3 years and been dating for 8, we're a very young couple (22) not quite ready for babies. My husband will be starting his 5 year PhD program in August, and in the meantime we live in a city neither of us plans to settle down in, in an apartment, and I'm the breadwinner.
ReplyDeleteWhen we do have kids (which is really going to be later than I want, but good things come to those who wait, right?) we want to adopt one or two, and if we have any biological children, we'll only have one. I want to wait until my husband has his career in place, because I want to be a SAHM until our kids are school aged.
Long story short, because we've been together for so long, it's not so much that I just want to be married for awhile as I want to make sure we have the best scenario possible for our lives before we bring kids into the picture.
We are getting married in 11 days and have been together almost 2 years. We will probably start trying for a baby about 5 or 6 months after we get married. The reason for us is mainly my age. I am 30 and we want to have 3 kids and space them out. I also don't want to be in my 40's having kids for safety reasons. There is also the fact that we don't know for sure if I can actually get pregnant(I've never tried).
ReplyDeleteSometimes I wish I was a few years younger so that we could take a couple years to travel and do whatever we want as a married couple, but I am happy knowing that I spent my 20's doing many fun and exciting things and have been lucky enough to have spent the last 2 years with my fiance traveling and having fun.
I think it's up to each individual person and no one person is right or wrong, but my opinion is that if you have the time, wait. If you are getting a little older and having a family is important to you, don't wait. Most of the time, it only gets harder the older you get.
You're definitely not the only one! We're planning on waiting awhile, too. Since we're rather young (20 and 21 when we get married in January) and we both want to open up small businesses (a restaurant for him and a bakery for me), so we want to get our businesses up and running first. Although, I think we're planning on having at least one child within 5 years, so that we'll have time for more if we choose to have them.
ReplyDeleteHi Amy! We're waiting too, even though we're older (30+). I'm just not very into babies/children. To each his own!
ReplyDeleteUgh babies. I'm w/ you Amy. I love kids, I really do. But right now, and probably for the next 5 or so years, we're just not ready. I think we'll start trying when I'm 29 or so. Things could definitely change, but for right now that's where I'm at. I just can't give up the freedom right now. Plus I'm young! I want to have a life for a few more years til babies suck it all out of me (joking...sort of).
ReplyDelete