What to do when reason is not on the same page as

[Deleted]

Your hear desires?

I knew I shouldn't have taken her to see those babies, I knew it from the moment she was holding them.

Saturday night, right in between of you know what, my wife said: Why don't we get pregnant?

That almost kill the mood but I recovered. Last night same thing and we talked about it.

She said while in her mind she knows we are not ready to have a kid, but in her heart she wants one. She can't stop thinking about it.

She listed all the reasons why we should wait (I was having fun playing devils advocate and saying maybe we should) and how she feels her cousin that had one should have waited.

Basically she talked herself out of it staying why not:
- career: she just started her career
- job stability
- our finances
- she wants to live a bit more, travel, etc

All pretty good/valid points and I was impressed. She says another 2-3 years. But I can see how she is fighting it and it's like a battle between the good guy vs bad guy in her head.

And lately she has been briging a lot of conversations about kids: raising them, babies name, private school vs public, will I put our child first, etc. It's like she is testing me to see if I am ready.

I am thinking we need to keep contact with babies to a minimum the next couple of month / years.

P.S: posting from my blackberry so did not spell check or re-read. Sorry.

[raeoflyte]

Good luck on that! I had several years of ticking that didn't mean much, but when I REALLY wanted a baby, nothing could have stopped me.

[Deleted]

Sounds like you guys are getting close!!


Congrats!!!!

[swamp]

Have her take a colicky baby overnight, having him puke on her, and then send her to work. And make sure he pukes on her just after she gets dressed for work. that will cure her.

[Wisconsin Beth]

Jul 8, 2011 12:23:51 GMT -5 swamp said:

Have her take a colicky baby overnight, having him puke on her, and then send her to work. And make sure he pukes on her just after she gets dressed for work. that will cure her.

Swamp, I love you. Karma to you.

[zibazinski]

You had best take care of bc on top of whatever she is taking because she is saying what she knows you want to hear but reality is very different.

[swamp]

Jul 8, 2011 12:24:49 GMT -5 Wisconsin Beth said:

Jul 8, 2011 12:23:51 GMT -5 swamp said:

Have her take a colicky baby overnight, having him puke on her, and then send her to work. And make sure he pukes on her just after she gets dressed for work. that will cure her.

Swamp, I love you. Karma to you.

Awww.

But seriously, I don't get the whole baby love thing. I have kids and I love them to death. But they're a ton of work, and sometimes they're kinda gross.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Right now I have baby fever really bad for some reason (stupid hormones!) and every time I see a new baby wheeled by as I go to pump I want another one RIGHT NOW. It passes quickly as I leave because we are just not in the position to have another one right now and when I am honest with myself I don't WANT another one right now. I am just getting ready to wean DD and I'd really like to have my body 100% to myself for awhile before being host to another baby.

That being said I am more open to another one than I was before. DH and I have agreed that we'll give ourselves a 5 year window to decide because that is when my Mirena expires and I personally would really like to be done with BC and start considering something more permenant.

Before we had DD I wanted to be established here first, which meant roughly a year so I'd at least qualify for FMLA. Before that we agreed to shelve the topic because I wasn't even sure I wanted to have children and the more people asked the more pressured I felt and I started to shut down. So we tabeled the topic and DH told people to back off.

The big question you need to ask yourself is do YOU want a kid in the near future. If I had been game DH would have loved to start trying on our honeymoon. Both of you need to be ready to have a kid and if you aren't ready you really need to tell your wife that rather than listing a bunch of reasons why you can't.

I did that and it sets it up that once they get over that hurdle they expect you to be on board. Then I threw up another one and another one till DH point blank asked me if I wanted kids. I could have saved us so much trouble if I had just been honest upfront about not wanting kids at the time.

[swamp]

Jul 8, 2011 12:37:22 GMT -5 @tbird said:

Get those two babies over to your house to babysit for the weekend....


She might be glad to hand them back.....

She needs to take them on a weeknight when she's got to get up for work the next day.

[oreo]

"Get those two babies over to your house to babysit for the weekend....


She might be glad to hand them back..... "


....But then again, she might NOT be!

[thyme4change]

That being said I am more open to another one than I was before. DH and I have agreed that we'll give ourselves a 5 year window

My personal opinion is that your kids should be close in age. Once your kid is 5 or 6 they can really start doing fun stuff. You don't want to be thrown back into the baby age after that. I loved having babies, but it ain't nothing compared to having a 6 & 8 year old. They are so fun, and can do so many fun things that you just can't do with a toddler. I would absolutely hate to start over now and miss all the fun family stuff I can do with my older kids. I like that my kids are in the same school, at the same age-ish, have similar activity levels, have similar talent levels, can hang with each other's friends, etc. It makes them less lonely when we vacation, because they don't have to bring a friend - they already have someone their age.

Granted, my kids seem to get along unusually well. I mean, still in the normal range, but certainly close to the line between "normal siblings who are close" and "freakishly close to their sibling." They are usually quite peaceful with each other - not too much fighting or rivalry. (And, there's the jinx. I'll go home today and they will punching each other and asking if one of them can move out.)

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

5 years is when I want to start considering permenant birth control. DH isn't ready for that yet. I'd be fine with it today if he said he was ready.

Five years is when the Mirena expires and I expressed that instead of getting yet another one or a different form of BC I'd really like to start looking at permenant birth control solutions.

He's comfortable with that timeline. It can be taken out at any time before those 5 years if we want to.

[moneymaven]

Good luck on that! I had several years of ticking that didn't mean much, but when I REALLY wanted a baby, nothing could have stopped me.

Ditto. I would also say that I would have likely felt differently about having a baby if DH wasn't 100% on board.

I think you keep bringing this up because YOU may be vacillating back and forth between wanting a baby or not...

[Deleted]

I would start planning an exciting vacation, that isn't baby friendly. All the rational reasons in the world wouldn't have stopped me when I had baby fever, but the change in travel options, might have made me hold off for a year or two. It took DD years to be able to do the things we love, like hiking and rafting.

Getting her around babies may backfire. The babies will seem easier in a small dose like a day or weekend. She may think it is really doable.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I think you keep bringing this up because YOU may be vacillating back and forth between wanting a baby or not...



The babies will seem easier in a small dose like a day or weekend. She may think it is really doable.

It's so much easier when you can send them back home with their parents!

Not so easy when you are the one cleaning up puke in the middle of the night. Crib sheets SUCK.

[swamp]

I'd have to agree with Thyme. My kids are 17 months apart. While it was tough when they were little, now that they're doing stuff, it's great. They also punch each other a lot, but that's OK.

I'm 5.5 and 7 years younger than my siblings. It sucked for me.

[qofcc]

You can't keep her from seeing or thinking about babies for years at a time. You can't even prevent her from getting pregnant unless you take control of the birth control yourself.

Taking the babies overnight might be a good idea.

Are you ok with the 2-3 years time frame? Is that 2-3 years until birth or conception? Can you give her an incentive to wait?

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I said a five year window before we decide that is it do we want PERMENANT birth control as in not ever going to have more kids.

I'd be fine with just one child (go ahead and flame me), but DH isn't 100% sure if he wants to be done having children. So we went with the Mirena and we'll revist the topic once it expires.

[Deleted]

Jul 8, 2011 12:14:26 GMT -5 TheHaitian said:

That almost kill the mood but I recovered.

By the way. Way to keep going strong!

[thyme4change]

I'm 5.5 and 7 years younger than my siblings. It sucked for me.

Me too. I was a burden to my family because I could never keep up. And even now, my sisters' kids are full-on adults and mine are young, so when planning stuff, we have to keep in mind the youngest kid.

[swamp]

Jul 8, 2011 13:05:16 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

I'm 5.5 and 7 years younger than my siblings. It sucked for me.

Me too. I was a burden to my family because I could never keep up. And even now, my sisters' kids are full-on adults and mine are young, so when planning stuff, we have to keep in mind the youngest kid.

Damn, that sounds familiar. At least my brother had kids late in life and his kids are about the same age as mine.

[moneymaven]

Saturday night, right in between of you know what, my wife said: Why don't we get pregnant?

BTW, your wife is a genius. I can get DH to say yes to anything while in the midst of sex.

[Wisconsin Beth]

Jul 8, 2011 13:01:02 GMT -5 swamp said:

I'd have to agree with Thyme. My kids are 17 months apart. While it was tough when they were little, now that they're doing stuff, it's great. They also punch each other a lot, but that's OK.

I'm 5.5 and 7 years younger than my siblings. It sucked for me.

Mine are 18 months apart. Sometimes I see the light at the end of the tunnel regarding sleep and not having to watch them like hawks and then I get hit by the oncoming train...

Take the kids for 3 nights, Friday, Sat. and Sun. That lets you figure out how it works out, although you won't likely have kid laundry in there...

[swamp]

Jul 8, 2011 13:07:11 GMT -5 moneymaven said:

Saturday night, right in between of you know what, my wife said: Why don't we get pregnant?

BTW, your wife is a genius. I can get DH to say yes to anything while in the midst of sex.

No, that's just common knowledge for a woman.

[qofcc]

Close in age is nice, mine were 26 months apart. But farther apart in age isn't bad either. My sister is 4 years younger and when my parents adopted her it was like getting a living doll to play with. We played well together, but we never had the friends relationship so much as the mini-parent/child relationship. I wasn't involved in sports or a lot of extra curricular activities that required parents attendance so there was no dragging a younger child to older child's activities. I don't remember her getting in my way of doing things or feeling like she was in the way.

My SIL just had another baby. Her oldest is 25 and the second youngest is 16. That seems to be the worst of both worlds, she's been raising babies since she was a teenager and will be able to collect social security by the time her youngest is in college. UGH.

[Wisconsin Beth]

Jul 8, 2011 13:05:16 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

I'm 5.5 and 7 years younger than my siblings. It sucked for me.

Me too. I was a burden to my family because I could never keep up. And even now, my sisters' kids are full-on adults and mine are young, so when planning stuff, we have to keep in mind the youngest kid.

My younger sister's kids got that. My older sister and brother have 5 kids between them ages 16-21. They did lots of stuff together and the kids are all pretty tight. My younger sister has 3 that are between 11-not quite 15. The gap was just enough to screw up vacations as her kids couldn't keep up with swimming, skating or biking. At least mine are so much different no one expects us to keep up on vacations and there's usually plenty of helpers although they're not going to be close to their cousins. My older nieces are like sisters/bffs and mine won't have that connection.

[thyme4change]

Not so easy when you are the one cleaning up puke in the middle of the night.

Yes, but you can't guarantee the baby will barf. Or that there will be significant barf. I only remember a couple of times that something really gross happened. For the most part, I could strip down the bed, and the clothing, throw it in the wash, and it was like nothing ever came up (or went down.)

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

My brother and I were 6 years apart. We fought like cats and dogs when he was a toddler, but when he started school we were fine. Then we started getting closer when I left for college and we didn't share the same house. Now he's a douchebag and we aren't speaking at all.

Shame really because I look at pictures of us from vacation when we were little and wonder WTF happened?

[8 Bit WWBG]

It sounds like you both handled it well, although as this comes up more and more, I personally would NOT risk playing devils advocate if you yourself are not ready. All it takes is one wrong or poorly turned phrase to put her in 100% "I want babies NOW" mode, and all your plans will go out the window.

...:::"BTW, your wife is a genius. I can get DH to say yes to anything while in the midst of sex.":::...

Wait until she figures out that an even better way is to NOT give you sex UNLESS you say yes to whatever.

[shanendoah]

cawiau: I have to agree with the people who say you need to figure out what you want. You and DW NEED to know where each of you stand and see if you can reach a compromise.
I've wanted a family now for a couple of years. The urge kicked in at the worst time (DH not having a job and all), but I have 0, lets say <0 desire to be pregnant. But adoption is expensive. So DH and I decided to look at adopting from foster care. Not only is it not expensive (possibly even free), we could get a slightly older child (verbal, mobile, potty trained) because while I like babies, I'd be perfectly happy not to have one.
We went to the training, and I was all gung ho. DH had to say he didn't think he could do it. And I had to step back. DH will be the primary care giver. If he can't be on board with the plan, I have to back off.
We kind of tabled everything since he's going back to school and we're completely on one income now, but we have my cousin with us this summer (she's 19) and its really, really got me jonesing for a family unit again.
DH will go along with whatever plan I put in place (that isn't adopting from foster care) but I still have to think of what's practical for us right now.
Luckily, there is an adoption agency that will do income adjusted fees, so we could adopt for around $10k instead of $30k. Almost guaranteed a baby (which is fine). But its going to have to wait at least a year for DH to be done with school.
Or maybe only until January, since there will be paperwork and screenings and waiting....
But the point is, DH and I have to be in this plan together. I have to know this is something we both want, otherwise, its no good. I don't desperately want to be a mom, I desperately want for us to be parents. There is a difference.