I needed to read these posts...I've been feeling like I'm going crazy with baby-fever, yet my husband says he would like to wait. We've been married for 2 years but we've been together for 9. I'm 25 and he's 22 which makes things worse. I've told him over and over I don't want to be the old mom at preschool. He claims he understands but I know he doesn't because he is younger than me. I do understand...at 22 I wasn't ready for a baby...but if I waited for him to catch up to me in age I would be waiting my whole life, lol. I get frustrated when we talk about babies and he says he would like to wait a year or two...then a year passes and he says in a year or two...a year later...he says he would like to wait a year or two. I can't stand the excuses, I really mean it when I say I don't want to be the old mom in preschool. Anyway...it's just encouraging to read everyone's words and suggestions. I know my husband and I will be fine, he knows I've got my limits and I know he needs to feel he can keep him self and me safe before we add another member to the family...but it will be a frustrating wait.
***Congratz Guest87!
I'm just going to spout it off today. My husband and I are still trying to come to terms with eachother. Just the day before yesterday he said that I can get my IUD (birth control implant) removed and last night even I was able to break the news to my best friend/ sister-in-law that things were finally comming together! I called three times yesterday to make an apt with my ob-gyn but it was busy. I figured I'd just try again today, but when I double checked with my husband out of curtousey he took it back. He gave me the "we'll see." How can he keep doing this to me!! Do I look like a rag doll you can shake which ever way you want? I'm starting to wonder if this is really a control thing. I asked him what it is that he is worried about and I don't get an answer. I'm really considering just calling anyway, I told him that too- ofcuarse I haven't. I can't bring myself to do it with out him agreeing.... again. This is REALLY the perfect time to have a baby right now, everything that conserns us adds up with good timeing. There's nothing more he can ask for- besides winning the lottery! I get that he is nervous, even I am a little, but this is what I want and I know it. I mean how can anyone not get nervous? I have two months before it's the best time to become pregnant, I need to set up an apt that goes along with my cycle... this is stressing me out- is he going to agree or disagree, or wait until it's too late to agree so then we'll have to wait til next year or later!? THIS has to be a lot harder that going through with having a baby. I dont know how much longer I can stay nice and patient. Expecially when its like he's dangling the bate in front of my face when he says yes then changes his mind.
I used to think decideing to have babies happens spontaniously and all happily, like some fairy tale. Nope here's reality for ya!
Thanks for a supportive place to vent!
Now here's my little story. My husband and I are newlyweds. I want baby. He doesn't but tells me babies happen. So if they happen, they happen. I have everyone after me asking me if I'm preggo yet, my mother, my sisters, my friends mother... Sigh. I started telling him "Baby or puppy. You pick." He's not a dog person. We have 2 cats. I love them but come on a cat you can only do so much with and they are just not as cuddly as a dog. I've had a dog all my life, I've had cats too. So it is rare for me to not have one. Here's another good tip for all you gales. Try getting a puppy with your mate. See how they are with being a care giver to puppy. It will give you a grander idea of what kind of daddy they will be. A puppy is just like baby only thing is it isn't human and their needs become a little more basic after a while. Get a puppy first. No cats. Kitty is fun and cute but won't give same results as puppy. Having puppy is easier choice and will be easier to get hubby to agree to it, and having to care for puppy may get him thinking about having baby more. It could unlock a maternal response in him that he may not have known he had. This could lead to him being more open to the idea of baby. Tis why I want a dog soo bad. So many reasons to have puppy around. I hope I help you girls. Hang in there.
Well here's my current baby-fever status.... After what went on last, my husband pulled another curve ball on me. The day before Thanksgiving he tells me out of the blue that he really does want to have a baby, it's just that he isn't sure if it's the right time plus it's a lot for him to think about. Those were his words. So he asks me for a few days, it's no suprize to me when those few days come and go. Now let me tell you, at this point I have numbed myself so much that it's like I don't have any emotion for this subject right now- ofcuarse I know it's in there but it's doing good barried right where it is. And for that reason I found some logic that I think is going to help out our situation a lot. This is what I told him: You asked me for a few days, so I'm giving you a month. You have until the 29th to give me your decision. 'Sounds fair,' he says. -If you feel you need more than a month then I'll give you a year, but no sooner. (Because I can't keep going back and forth)
This is my last stand, I'm really tired of this and I was ready to give up to be honest. I've tried everything, I don't want to keep on like this. If he says no to me this time then I'll accept it and leave it alone. I tell ya, there's really no end to the sacrafices in marriage, but if no one can make them then everything can be lost.
My husband and I have known each other 11 years and been married 2, though we spent one year apart due to his deployment. We're both 24. We had a miscommunication when we got married. I thought we agreed to waiting one or two years after marriage to have kids, so when the year mark was approaching I started talking to him about the possibility and got, in response, "not yet" over and over again with no real answer. I found out after some painful fights that all along he had REALLY wanted to wait FIVE years after getting married, so he was already compromising DOWN to "one or two" and to him that really meant two. Or more.
Throughout his deployment we had several arguments about it, and I finally realized that when I said I felt "incomplete" he took that to mean he wasn't enough for me, or he was just a means to an end for me. I have not ever figured out how to express to him that I love him dearly and he satisfies me... but that I still have this deep desire, almost a craving, that feels like an actual NEED .. to have a baby. Soon. As I said, I could never figure out how to explain that to him, so I stopped talking about babies. I focused on trying to make him feel appreciated and loved and, to make him feel respected I told him I was willing to wait as long as necessary and that he was much more important to me than a baby. And, thankfully, my constant baby fever faded, and for a while it wasn't even difficult to wait.
Then, weeks ago, I started noticing little symptoms here and there. I think we've all been there... we put things together and think, well, just MAYBE it could be early pregnancy signs. And I say to myself there's a chance, even though I'm on the pill. And once I get it in my head I just have to know, so I take a test, which comes back negative of course. And then it's on my mind. Last night, I had a dream - a very vivid dream that I found out I was pregnant... and woke up this morning feeling extremely depressed with only one thing on my mind and no one to talk about it with.
Also...
My husband and I haven't had a completely satisfying sex life, especially on his end. I was a virgin when we got married, and our honeymoon was pretty painful and did NOT live up to his expectations. Since then, we had a lot of ups and downs, and he would frequently say that yes, he was happy, but he still wanted more. Finally, I did some reading and realized that I had vaginismus, which causes involuntary muscle spasms upon penetration (Which explained a lot about our sex and my lack of enjoyment and the fact that I'd never really been able to wear tampons...), and before he came home from deployment I did some work with vaginal dilators to help the issue. Now, our sex is much more enjoyable, but still not wild and crazy like I feel he wants it to be. In my mind, I think that we need to have a satisfying (for him) sex life before he'll ever be ready to really consider having kids. And so, in light of that, I find myself feeling like I have to work for it. I have to make everything good enough, so he'll be finally happy enough and satisfied and want to move on to babies.
I don't even know how much those kinds of thoughts enter his mind. He's never said anything like that to me. His reasons are, for one, he felt we rushed into marriage (?!?!) and doesn't want to do that with children..he wants to fully experience and enjoy life as a married couple before adding kids to the mix. And two, he didn't want to miss out on any of the pregnancy or the baby's life due to deployment. And now that he's home, that's still an issue because he's moving to another unit and has JUST enough time left that he MIGHT have to deploy again... and we won't know until we get there in February. If we get there and find out he DOES have to deploy again, we'll have to wait at LEAST a year for him to go and come back, and likely longer because after he gets back from a combat zone he's not going to be immediately ready to take on a baby. (We were lucky with this deployment because it was a rather quiet one for him and he didn't have any trouble adjusting to home life again, but I doubt the next would be as good.)
To sum it all up.. I just feel like I'm crazy. Or going crazy. I feel... this intense desire, and I don't know what to do with it. It doesn't go away, and there's nothing I can do to fulfill it, and there's not even anyone in my life I can talk to about it. Do you know how many of my friends had babies while my husband was deployed last year? At least half a dozen. It's hard! I'm not happy! That is all...
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Edited by thechar123 on 2012-01-09 20:49:18;
I'm so glad I decided to look this up. I don't feel so alone now.
My husband and I will be married for two years this September, I'm 23 and he's 26. We'd talked about having children before we got married and when was exceptable to have them (he stated at least two years so we can get to know each other as a married couple and do extra stuff). We have lived together for almost three years, which you would think would qualify as getting to know each other. Not like he could avoid me anyway. I was ok with the two year wait, but then it kept being pushed back by things like, "we need a bigger house" "we don't have enough money" (if he's waiting on that I'll be cold and in the ground by the time we have enough money) "we need to go on a vacation overseas" and even "I want children when I'm in my 30s" (which would put me in my 30s). My best friend got pregnant right before our wedding, my cousin had gotten pregnant after we'd gotten engaged (and she's expecting her second child now), and almost all of my high school friends (even the girls who are younger than me) have all had children and are very happy and able to take care of their kids. People even ask when we're gonna start having children (to which his parents reply, if they're around "Oh that won't be for awhile" Their idea is 5 years of marriage until trying to concieve). I see people around my apartment complex raising at least two children in a two bedroom townhouse and think, "I can do that." We recently thought that maybe it would be possible to start having a baby soon since he's wanting to go work at Volkswagen which will pay more and maybe relieve some of his stress, but then we found out he will have to go through 3 years of school in order to even start working there and they may not do paid on-the-job training so we may have to move back to one of our parent's houses. I'm surrounded by babies and seeing all the other young mothers have their kids and have someone to love and play with makes me almost not want to have anything to do with them until I can have one, too. Sorry if I'm rambling but I feel like sometimes the best way to feel better about something is to get it all out in the open. I wish all of you ladies good luck on having children.
I am kind of going through the same stuff that all of you are. I am 19, almost 20, and my boyfriend is 20. We have been together for two years and known each other for longer than that. We have been living together for over a year now. These past couple months I have really been experiencing baby fever. It is in the back of my mind all day. I am on the Depo, but lately I have been reconsidering it. My boyfriend has been kind of encouraging me and telling me he is almost ready. I realized though, just about 5 days ago that he was lying to me and himself. He is so responsible, which is great, but for once I wish he would just let his hair down. We were talking last night, and he has the problem that most do with not being ready: WE DON'T HAVE MONEY. For me, that is less important, because I was raised super poor. He was not, and has never really been to those extreme points that impoverished people like myself reach. So, for him, not having money is like a huge thing. We are both enrolled in online colleges and might as well be unemployed. We are looking for jobs.... but I am so tired of money governing my whole life! The only other thing even slightly holding him back is that we are a bit young, but he does realize that age is not important if you are more mature than that. He gave me a promise ring for Christmas, which was really sweet. But we cannot get married yet because he needs his mother's health insurance because he has a few medical problems. And we cannot have the children we so dearly want because we don't have money..... If everyone waited until they made a decent amount of money before they had kids then the lower class never would have children.
What am I going to do? He is so afraid that I am going to break up with him over this, if he can't find himself ready in the next year or so. I don't think I will... but this feeling I have in the pit of my stomach reminds me hourly that this is something I need soon. I want to have kids young so I can see them grow up, see them have kids, see their kids have kids. I am a family person all the way.
I am feeling so sad lately. My boyfriend and I have felt very disconnected as well.
I fell pregnant in october 2009 after nearly 3 years together, and despite the vague hope i had been feeling for a good 6 months before, i was in such shock i blurted it out to my man before i really thought it through. i was completely floored when he said he couldnt deal with a baby.
i was ambivalent about keeping my baby- i'd always wanted to be a young mother, but when i thought about the anguish it would have caused my partner to have had fatherhood pushed on him when he was so far from being ready, i couldnt do it. i had an abortion for him, to save him (and later me and our child) from being forced into a family shape that didnt fit. looking back, i think the reason that i was so detatched about it, and that i had the chemical abortion at home rather than the surgical one at the clinic was that i was punishing myself for having an abortion when i had always said to myself that it was something i would never do. but i will never forget a second of that horrible day, not the terrible cramps, or the vomiting, or seeing the baby in my pad, so small, with perfect fingers and toes and tiny little eyes just looking, looking at me. i didnt know that i would see my baby, they never said that was a possibility. and that was when i started crying.
i ended up with severe depression, partly because i had wanted my baby so badly, partly because my partner didnt want to talk about it, and everyone i had told seemed to want me to forget. i was under incredible pressure at work, and i couldnt tell my family because my mother is insane (she has a family fixation and is unstable and unpredictable) and telling her would have resulted in her never forgiving me for taking away her grandbaby.
the problem was, i couldnt forget about it. i was on antidepressants for 18 months after the abortion, and that was when the baby fixation started. i became almost manic in my pursuit of baby-related knowledge. i've read piles of books about pregnancy and babies and started buying a few things here and there on the sly, and when my man got wind of it, he lost his mind and said he didnt want to have kids ever. he cried and i cried and it became a sticking point for us both over the next year.
at one point, i went to a friend's and told him it was over because i couldnt bear a life without kids, and he told me that he wanted them but was so afraid. i said i wanted a baby so badly. he asked me when, and i said 'september', three months away, and he said no straight away. i cried for two days whenever he spoke to me and then he hugged me and said how about december? to prove to me that he wanted to do the baby thing, he found, as a surprise, a bassinet for our child and presented it to me as a peace offering. then, in november, a month before our 'lets go!' date, he asked me if i would wait so we could have a baby born in the beginning of the year, offering advantages when school started. i said yes, it was logical and i understood. the date was set for march 2012, with us due to start prenatal vitamins in January. he kept putting off buying them, and one day we were shopping and i asked him if he wanted to go look at the baby stuff and he said no. i asked if he was alright, and he said 'honey, its not going to happen this year'. talk about pulling the rug out from under me, i was devastated. the reasons he is giving me is that he's still not ready (the perrenial favourite) and he is unemployed (true, but like you all know, its at least 10 months til baby time and a lot can happen in that time).
we've talked a lot, and we have dug deep enough to discover that what he is afraid of is not knowing what to do (he is an only child and has no younger cousins or friends' siblings) even though he wants to go to joint AND dads prenatal classes, and suggested that i express so he can do night feeds too. he is terrified that he'll have a baby and find he cant love it. he is scared of being like his father, not there enough. but a lot of what he is worried about also revolves around money and he refuses to give me a timeline, even a vague one. i cant wait forever and i dont want to. i went from limbo to standing reasonably firm to swimming in quicksand. i've tried whatever i can think of to help him see things from my perspective, but its so hard.
all these stories make me think its normal, but it doesnt stop the hurt.