I am 22 and married. My husband and I have only been married a little over 6 months (together 3 years.) He is 24 and works as a police officer. We do fine financially, we pay the bills and such, but have a very modest savings account, though we are reforming our spending ways for the better. We have a house we rent in a nice area with a ton of extra space (we use the second living area as an office and have two empty bedrooms that we basically just store junk in.) We're within ten minutes of both our parents (both our Mom's are retired and at home), who would all be pretty excited at the prospect of a little one and be happy to help with free babysitting.
Though there are hang-ups, which make me feel as if this baby fever is a battle between my head and my heart!
I am only halfway through nursing school, with two years left. Obviously time-wise and financially that can be a tough strain without a baby, let alone with one. We would still like to travel and buy new cars and a house and furniture. I know that a baby and those things are not mutually exclusive, but they certainly are harder to attain at the same time. But on the one hand they are just material things, and isn't family and love more important?
And on that other hand it's a baby! Material things are important! What if our car went out? We are responsible, but at the moment we don't have the cash to just go out and buy a new one just like that?
Anyone have any words of wisdom as to what to listen to? Heart or head? (P.S. as for my husband. He would like to wait until after I'm done with school, but I know that if I really wanted this and really talked to him about it he would be on board. I've been neglecting to mention it too much because I'm embarrassed by the suddenness and ferocity in which this fever has taken hold!)
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Comments (27)
You should finish school. You are only 22 years old...just enjoy your husband and being married!! I had my first baby at 28 and i love that i waited. I have my education and we are financially stable enough for me to stay at home. I also don't feel like i missed out on anything because i did what i wanted to do in my early 20's. A baby is wonderful thing, but why rush it.
You're still young. You really should finish school and enjoy your life as a married couple without children. Do all the things you want to do now, because it really isn't easy to do all those things once you have kids.
Travel.Buy things just because you can or you want to. Go out to dinner on a whim with friends. Enjoy sleeping in. Buy a house. See a midnight movie. Doing any of that after kids is nearly impossible. I had my first at 21, my next at 23...and it was far too young. I didn't get to experience my age or life or finish school then because I was having to take care of a baby and a house. I love my children dearly, but I really wish I would have waited until I was older to have them.
Diddo to what Kat and Kelly said. I had my babies young too. Enjoy being married without kids for awhile! ;)
I'm in College now, after having two kids and it is SO hard. I really wish I would've finished College before having kids. Writing a two page paper with a screaming two year old on your lap is not fun. Not fun at all. Obviously, I wouldn't change anything about my life, I love my girls, but... I wish I would've waited until I was at least 24 to have them. It would of been so much easier. ;)
Good luck to you and whatever you decide!
you are just 22.. you have only been married 6 months.. finish school, work for a bit, build a good strong marriage, and then have a baby.. that way you will at least have mat leave when you have a baby, not to mention benefits (hopefully) and you will have a job to go back to, should you chose to or need to, when your mat leave is up.
Ive been through the baby fever.... (its especially bad after HTC for 7 years, and now we are adopting) but it sounds like you might be feeling some pressure to have a baby now that you are married.
Finish school. It's going to become less of a priority once a baby is in the picture, and it's something you should just finish before getting pregnant and having a child. I think it is also important that you and your husband enjoy being married but childless for a couple years, since you won't get to experience it again until any kids are grown and moved out completely.
Also, think about what you can give to your child that is not material (sure, they do need a lot.) My parents were very young and unprepared when I was born. We lived in a poor country going through turmoil. My parents are great parents. They gave me almost more than I could want in regards to love, guidance, and friendship, safety all of such family kind of things and I would not change anything. However, now I am in my early 20s and there are many ways in which my parents are far more inexperienced than I am already. I have had to learn to be very independent in my adult life and naive and clueless about many things, I've made a lot of messes because I feel now I have no advice from my family because they lived a very different life. So, something else to think of is if you go out and experience many things, it will be easier for you to help your child have many experiences and a fulfilled life.
i'm in a very similar boat. my baby fever started around age 22 as well. it was totally sudden and unexpected. i never really had a strong opinion about having kids, i always thought it was something i'd start thinking about when i turned 30. but now i know there's no way i could wait that long. its been two years since the baby urges started, and they're still pretty strong (depending on the time of the month..lol) but i've come to realize that now is not the right time for me. a baby is a huge responsibility and i think i'd like to enjoy being young and free of responsibilities for a while. there are many more years to have babies.
as for you, i would definitely wait until you are out of school, or at least a year or so. maybe aim to have the baby right after you graduate so you can get through school but also have some time inbetween school and job hunting to settle in with your little one. i wouldn't worry too much about money. there is no perfect time to have a baby. plenty of poor people have kids everyday and they all survive. it sounds like you have a pretty good support system in place already. i think the important thing for you to do now is to enjoy being young. enjoy your husband. you've only had 3 short years together. enjoy traveling and being spontaneous with him. its still very early in your life together to add another person into the equation.
wait a year or so at least, think long and hard about what you really want and when you want it.
best of luck!
Set your alarm to go off at three-hour intervals during the night and stay awake for at least fifteen minutes each time. Do this for about two weeks and I think your baby fever might go away.
I only had several months with my husband before I found out I was pregnant and I really wish I would have had several years like our original plan was. Things change so much after having children and you miss out on some little things that you never realized helped to keep you sane.
The fact that you call your baby fever "fast and furious" makes me think that you should wait. Once you decided to have a baby, you will be affected by that decision forever. See if you still feel as strongly in 6 months or a year.... even a month from now, since this came on really suddenly.
@skinny_biitch_xo@xanga - sounds smart.
@skinny_biitch_xo@xanga - Sound advice. Reminds me of a quote from Eat Pray Love: “Having a baby is like getting a tattoo on your face. You really need to be certain it's what you want before you commit.”
give yourself some time with your husband, when you have a child it will never, ever just be the two of you again. Do things for yourself while you still can, you will be just as good or even better parents in a few yeaers when you can experience what the world has to offer. :) Don't rush it, that's my opinion :)
Always listen to your head if your head and heart aren't in alignment.
I would finish school and enjoy just being married for a while. There's absolutely no reason to rush.
If I read anything more similar to my thoughts at the moment I'd be surprised. I'm 23, I also have extreme baby fever, am not yet finished with school... yet my husband and I have the finances and maturity to have a child right now. We also have just been married for 6 months but have been together for 3 1/2 years. What is stopping me from getting pregnant is knowing that I am in school to be a surgical technologist, and getting a job in a hospital setting while pregnant is not very practical, or possible. And I know if I were to take a break between graduating and getting a job it would be even harder to get a job later. Also, like you said, my husband and I want to enjoy all the things life has to offer without a baby... travel, especially. I say listen to your head. We are young and should enjoy our "newlywed" years. Graduate first. It will be so much harder to finish school and get a job if you have a baby to take care of.
When your almost done with school start trying! In the last 6 months or so of school go ahead and see what happens it could take a lil while to get pregnant, and give you time to save up a little nest egg. Im 22 just had my little girl she is perfect took my husband and i 3 months of trying before i got pregnant. We just celbrated 3 years together and 2 years married he will be 25 next month. We were pretty boring people, always stayed in didnt really go anywhere unless it was a family thing. We figured we want one lets have one whats the point in waiting. Its much more fun to do things as a family, we have so many plans now! Our baby girl is our world and we wouldnt have it any other way. I wanted kids ever since i can remember it was always my dream to be a mommy now i am and its wonderful when your ready and plan for it.
I'm with everybody else. Finish school. Although the two are completely different, someone once told me about getting a tattoo-- wait a year, and if you still want it, then get it. Maybe just put the baby issue on the back burner because, well. It will fullfill you, right? But sometimes they lessen the marriage, in my opinion, with all the new obligations especially if you are young. One or both of you might wish you'd had more time later to do the things that young people do while you can afford the opportunities. Because all that goes out the window once you've had a kid, at least until they're out of the house!
I feel it is very vital to enjoy married life before they have kids. Explore this big wonderful world we live in together as a couple, travel together, travel apart, volunteer, there are a million things out there and while it is possible to do with kids in toe, it is DIFFERENT when it's just the two of you.
Enjoy this new marriage, enjoy the youth of your relationship (3 years isn't very long at all).
I get baby fever too. I think it's related to my hormones. Then my brain takes over and I wonder what I was thinking. Why would I want a crying brat? I like to actually enjoy my life.
My advice... look at the bigger picture. How many kids do you guys want? How far apart? How old do you want to be when you have your last kid? This is how me and my hubby are doing our "family planning". We want 2 kids and I want to be done having them by 30. We also wanted them at least 2-3 year apart... so I had my first at 26. It was HARD to wait (we were married at 22, too) but WORTH IT! We traveled, both have our B.S. and I have my M.S., a house, all the good stuff so we can enjoy our time with our little one.
I get the fever occasionally, but then I go to school.
<li class="itemsubmitter">Digital_Angel21@xanga said that school will be less of a priority after you have a baby and I couldn't agree more. I haven't even had my child yet and I have to struggle with myself mentally to encourage myself that I can do that last little stretch next year (12 weeks) of school and then study to write my RN exam. It is hard not to want to just "move on with life". If I would have been finished school, I could have gone on mat leave (working full-time nights at a nursing home as a PSW now), had the baby, had a full-year off, gone back to work at the same place as an RN - more than twice the pay - worked part time or full-time nights while the baby is sleeping just long enough to go on mat leave again. Then I could have had baby #2 and waited a while before going back to work, etc, and focused on my little family and buying a house.<li class="itemsubmitter"><li class="itemsubmitter">vain_apathy@xanga - "wait until the end of school - graduating". This advice is flawed for a couple reasons. #1 you might get pregnant right away, which could jeopardize finishing school (my case) or unforeseen school issues might come up that could cause all of your plans to go to heck (my case). We intentionally tried to get pregnant, the timing was PERFECT logistically speaking: I would just finish my final placement, have the baby, have a few months off to be with my baby, study for my RN exam, pass, and continue loving my baby until I felt ready to enter the workforce with a completed and valuable degree. I didn't account for the fact that the school wouldn't have their act together (I had heard of placements being a hassle before but just "hoped for the best"), postponing my starting until it was no longer possible for me to graduate. Now I have to go back to school with a wee baby (causing money and stress issues at best).skinny_biitch_xo@xanga - wait a month. GOOD advice. My baby fever took me fast and furious, too. I started feeling it a year ago at Christmas time, so went off my BC for 1 month of January to "see if it would happen" (the husband was not a fan, but I was in a frenzy). If we got pregnant, well, then we would have a baby. If we didn't I would go back on BC for 2 years, finish school, buy a house, and stick to the original plan. But that's not how it went. I still thought about having a baby on and off, wanted to "move on with my life", feeling like I had been in school, etc, forever and just wanting to reach that next stage. So in April we decided I would go off my BC again soon, and try over the summer. If it happened, then I would be finished school by the time the baby came, if not, we would keep trying, I would finish school, graduate, get a job and work there and hopefully then be pregnant by that time. So....the best laid plans....everything seemed very logical at the time, but iall teh reasoning was biased by the fact that I wanted a baby - we didn't have money, I wasn't done school, we didn't have a house, etc. So even though in theory all of those things would have "worked themselves out", life doesn't go the way that we envision it to sometimes.<li class="itemsubmitter"><li class="itemsubmitter"><li class="itemsubmitter">meggiek123@xanga - EXCELLENT advice. As much as with my situation it would have been ideal to wait even another 1-2 years, we want to have about 6 of our children, then are planning on fostering/adopting after that. I don't want to be 30 already (I know that isn't "old", but for the amount of children + the fact that I want to maintain a job for some of it, it might be an obstacle) and only have 2 or 3 kids by the time I am 30 is not an option. So, even though I am still young and we have all of the struggles mentioned above, at least we are staying in line with our life plan of having the kind of family that we have decided to. 23 years old + new baby on average of every 2.5 years (will probably be closer together for the first few - 1.5 years, then slow down - 3 years) = me being 38 by the time we have our 6th child. Perfect timing to be done if you ask me. Still young enough to be a foster parent, etc, but getting up there if we weren't finished having our own children yet. Definitely take into consideration your family life plans. If you want 2 kids by the time you're 30, say, then waiting until you're 26 (an eternity away, I know), is still definitely doable and will only leave you in an even better financial place than you are now. You also would be able to get a big travelling trip in between now and then (at least 1), which would be nice for you and the hubbs, because it won't be the same travelling with kids (though my parents always did when I was growing up and we all enjoyed it, too).for all the people who say just enjoy being married first: I disagree with that. I feel that pregnancy has only enhanced my marriage and deepened our connection. I think as long as you are truly committed to the person that you are with and both share the same goals (which it sounds like you do), then having something else to share and bring you closer will only enhance your relationship, not diminish from it. Even though we were married, before being pregnant it still very much felt like we were both still single - doing an imaginary tug-of-war to get the other spouse to do what we wanted. Now we look at things together as a family unit instead of as two individuals and it works much better.In conclusion, I know that I didn't give any specific advice about whether you should or shouldn't - because I can't. I would have told myself to wait if I could have, but would I have listened? No. Baby fever was too strong. I threw caution to the wind and would again. I love that I am pregnant now and wouldn't change a thing about it - but it will create stress - especially when it comes to finishing school.It would have been "better" to wait another year and be done school before having to think about this next stage of life.
Anyway, hope you find peace with your decision, but in the end, even though it would probably be more advisable for you to wait, if you don't I for one certainly won't hold it against you because I understand that sometimes things are beyond your control. But just be forewarned that things can get really complicated really fast. If your education is important to you, then it would be way better for your own sake to finish that first because I guarantee that after you have a child you won't be putting the same amount of effort or energy into your school work that you are now - even if you think you will.Best of luck!
I'm 22 and just moving in with my boyfriend of 5 years. If it goes well, we plan to get engaged and married and the whole she-bang. I have a chinchilla now that I baby. And I plan on buying a new pet after we move in as well. So we'll have a chinchilla, cat, and _______. I know that if I don't do that I'm gonna want babies. I want a baby now... it's baddd baby fever and I've had it since I was like.. 18. If I could quit school now I would. But that's not an option. I feel your pain :( !! Hahah. Just remember, in time you will have a baby.. no need to rush it. [even though I have trouble reminding myself as well]... haha.
I am going through nursing school right now also with an 11 month old. About to start clinicals soon. For the love of god, WAIT!!!! You will not be sorry. It is difficult to leave my son and head off for a long day.
Wait until you are finished, financially stable so you can actually enjoy time with your baby. It will be worth it I promise.
be embarassed. things like that and a baby are in fact mutually exclusive