r/waiting_to_try

Hi all! I am a ftm to a 15 month old little boy! My husband and I are currently discussing the idea of another child sometime in the future.

The problem is this: my mental health got extremely bad postpartum with my first. Extreme postpartum anxiety and depression. Even some SI. I am in therapy now and have been doing lots better since starting therapy. My baby was also a very colicky baby. He screamed constantly unless he was sleeping for like 12 weeks. And even after that he was what I think would be considered a very high needs baby. He still has zero chill as a toddler but it’s just more like tantrums and getting into everything all the time.

My husband was and never has been what you would consider a “baby guy.” He loves our son and is super involved with him now. He was involved when he was a baby but you could tell that he was at a loss most of the time and had never been around a baby before. Hes mentioned several times that hes just now starting to enjoy time with our son and he doesn’t want to do the baby stage again. More importantly he says that he’s worried that neither he nor I can handle another postpartum period like I had with our first. He says our marriage won’t survive it and he’s worried that I potentially wouldn’t “survive” it (if you get his drift). I admit that things got very dark and our marriage has taken a big hit — especially before me starting therapy. The mental health aspect scares me too — that was one of the worst times in my life (mood/self image wise). I am worried that it will happen again. I am worried that our second would be just as hard of a baby as our first has been. But I also don’t feel done. I don’t want my little boy to grow up alone, to go through life alone, to bury us alone. My sister and I fight but I wouldn’t ever wish I didn’t have her. I feel that if I don’t have another that I will look back and regret it. My husband doesn’t feel he would regret not having another, he’s perfectly fine with things the way they are now. He was essentially an only child — he did have a stepsister that is 9 years his senior.

My husband feels he is OAD. I feel like I need one more. And to elaborate: prior to getting married we had always discussed two children and agreed on that. Having the first has just changed things with how badly it went for a while.

I guess I am asking for some perspectives/advice here?

If you had severe postpartum symptoms with your first, were they better or worse with your subsequent pregnancies/births?

If you had a really hard baby first, was your secind easier or harder?

What age gap would you veteran parents recommend for someone in my situation if we decide to proceed with another baby?

Just looking to hear some real-world experiences and see what the universe sends back. ✨

I've been doing a lot of research lately, and one thing I've learned is that IVF generally has significantly higher success rates per cycle than IUI. 🧬

Short version: I just turned 30. 🎂 After spending years navigating the dating world, I still haven't quite found someone who feels like true husband/father material. Because of that, I've started seriously looking into the IVF/IUI route.

If I'm being honest, I feel like I've been putting motherhood on hold for a while... and that biological clock is definitely starting to chime. ⏳👶

I'm not particularly excited about IVF because of the medications and minor surgical egg retrieval involved. If I met the right man, I'd much rather build a family that way. ❤️

I'd especially love to hear from women who have been in a similar position. I'm confident in who I am, have a lifestyle I'm grateful for, come from a supportive family, spend my summers riding horses 🐎 and winters skiing and traveling south. ❄️☀️ Part of me wonders if online dating simply isn't the best place to find someone who shares those values and that lifestyle.

So I'd genuinely love to hear your perspective.

If you waited to have children, are you grateful you did... or do you wish you'd started sooner?

If you pursued IVF, IUI, froze your eggs or embryos, or intentionally became a single mom, what was your experience like? What do you wish you had known at 30? 💭

TL;DR: I just turned 30, my biological clock is getting louder, and I'm trying to decide whether to keep waiting for the right partner, embrace motherhood on my own, or freeze my eggs/embryos while I still have time.

I'd truly appreciate any advice, experiences, or perspectives. 🤍🌸

just venting. multiple friends have either just had a baby or are currently pregnant. several of my coworkers are too. so I can’t really escape it lol. and most of them have mentioned they weren’t trying for long. not only do I wish we were planning right now, but I have anovulatory PCOS and my gyno thinks it will be difficult to get pregnant naturally. so seeing everyone have an easy time of it just kinda stings. and the waiting is making me anxious. since I know we’ll have difficulties I just want to get the ball rolling 😩 husband isn’t quite ready and I understand. but dang. sucks right now. anyone in the same boat??

We decided we want to start trying this year. Originally it was September but my husband now has said maybe we wait until January. I have so many friends that are pregnant or have newborns and I feel like everything on social media is pregnancy announcements, gender reveals, babies, etc and every time I see anything I just want to cry. For months, I have been doing anything and everything to get ready for pregnancy, losing weight, eating clean, exercise, prenatal vitamins / supplements, reading every preconception book I can find, all of it. And I feel like I just can’t wait any longer.
How do I learn to be okay with the wait 😭

Hi everyone,
I’m 27 and I feel completely torn between two huge dreams.
I’m a teacher and I have an important professional exam in August that I’ve worked toward for years. I already postponed it once and this is my last chance for now.
At the same time, after a long IVF journey, we now have frozen embryos and I’m planning my embryo transfer in September.
The problem is that I feel completely exhausted — mentally, emotionally, and physically. I have brain fog, anxiety, nausea, and I can barely focus when studying. My body feels like it’s asking me to stop.
My husband and family think I should step back from the exam and protect myself for the transfer, but I feel devastated. Like I’m losing years of hard work if I let go now.
Has anyone here postponed or given up an important exam, career step, or goal because of IVF? Did you regret it? How did you cope?
I really need to hear from someone who understands.

So here goes
I’m 28 and with my bf for six years. We have a mortgage, stable jobs and earn a decent wage. I’m ready for a baby but he is not and I 100% respect that, I would never put pressure on him.
However, I am ready now and I’m getting anxious that it won’t ever happen as he is very happy and content with life (I’d never want to jeopardise that). He isn’t interested in getting engaged or married but he says a mortgage together is just as serious and maybe he’s right.
Just worried he will keep putting a baby off and then it will be too late. I am only 28 but I am worried time is ticking as late twenties is peak fertility.
He says he wants kids but doesn’t know when and that’s fine, but how can I stop this long and impatience for the time being?
Thank you

okay so my SIL & BIL have been trying to get pregnant for about a year. they got pregnant once and lost the baby, and have recently started IVF.

my husband and I got married in February and I am getting my birth control taken out so that my body can regulate (have had nexplanon for about 10 years). I am nervous about telling my SIL because I don’t want there to be any like hurt feelings that we are also going to start trying soon (like next year). we love them, me and her have had drama in the past but we have been great for a long time. I don’t think it would be hurtful to her, but I think it would feel sad on their journey that we’re also now thinking about TTC.

I am just conflicted on how to handle it because I know I will have a bruise from getting it out and we see his family frequently and if one person knows, everyone will know. but I want to be really sensitive to their situation, I know it’s hard and she is having such a tough time and it breaks my heart for them.
but I also know my husband and I would like to start our family in the next year or so, so I am taking the protective steps for us.

how do I approach it with them?

We are currently wanting to have a baby. Our first month of trying was unsuccessful, due date would have been beginning of March. Now we are faced with the decision to try again and have an April 8 due date. As full time wedding photographers we have 5 weddings in May the first one being May 8th. If we don’t try this next month the next window for us that we can try would be a January 2028 due date. So it’s now or in 6 more months. I’m just wondering if this is a smart decision for us to try to conceive one more time or if will be too close to our wedding season to recover in time. Need advice!!

My husband (39) and I (33) have been together for four years. We both were unsure about wanting children when we met. After meeting quickly decided no children. We love to travel, value our marriage, and felt my husband is getting older (he has to retire by 56 but can at 50). He got a vasectomy and we have been paying to freeze sperm just to be safe. After a few years of traveling, buying a beautiful home, and being financially stable, we have found ourselves wondering if this is it? It feels like something is missing and have been thinking about the idea. Since we are continuing to get older, we really want to make sure we have fully thought it through before that time is going to be gone. These last few weeks we have been getting by more excited about the thought. Our plan would be one and done so we can maintain the best we can our love for travel, marriage, sense of identity, etc

Any suggestions with this journey?

Maybe not so much a question moreso word vomit.

My partner and I have been together 2 years now. He is my person and I knew very quickly that he's the person I want to marry and have children with. We've spoken about having kids before 35, roughly trying from next year but as time goes on I just can't stop thinking about having a baby this time next year.

It's all I think about honestly, the good and the bad. Can we afford it? is it the right time? is there ever a good time? how long will it take when we do start trying? Am I missing my window? Do we wait and enjoy the time we have just the two of us?

In a perfect world we would be married and own a home together but that stuff can wait imo as I'm more worried about the biological clock (33).

I am in a good financial position (although I still worry about it because that's just the type of person I am). I have a stable job with good leave entitlements, mat leave and flexibility (when returning to work). I have been working since I left school and I've been in my current job for over 10 years. I'm tired. I need a change but I also know I don't want to leave before having kids which feeds into me wanting to ttc earlier.

I know we need to have a more serious conversation about it but I'm a catastrophiser and I worry that the timeline might look differently to how I've hoped. At the same time I need to know a definite date so I can plan for it.

How do you not let it completely consume your thoughts (impossible I know) and how do I navigate making certain life decisions when I know it's totally influenced by future plans to have children?

Now my husband seems frazzled and hesitant about our plan to start trying for a baby next summer. Obviously MA is a high cost of living state, and our combined income is about 170k right now. We’re hoping that will be closer to 180-185 in 2028 through promotions.

Is this true? I know a lot of people say you never feel 100% ready, and I don’t need to have the top of the line baby stuff, but we need to be able to afford our mortgage, necessities, part time child care, etc. My worst fear is waiting to start trying for the perfect time and then what if we have trouble?

I have few questions related to this, I'm just going to list them... First of all, how long should I be a non-smoker before trying, for The best possible outcome? Does it matter if The father is smoking when trying? Can you use any nicotine replacement or are they as harmful anyway?

If you have any tips on making The quitting easier, go ahead and tell! Any advice is welcome.

I have posted here before but I was triggered while bowling with my husband’s cousins. One of the cousins has an adorable 3 year old, and my husband joked that the little girl gave me baby fever. I laughed along “haha not yet, bank account disagrees LOL!” 🥴

I told my husband his joke bothered me because he I am very insecure about our finances, and he apologized. We have been together for 12 years, married for 4. We are 200% ready to have children, the only thing in the way is money. We are in no position to pay for daycare and need a few more years to save. I feel like we will never be ready financially, even though we are already very frugal. The only debt we have are student loans; our car is paid off and our credit cards are paid every month. I feel like no matter how hard we try it will never be enough.

Hi everyone, I’ve been lurking on this sub for a while but this is my first time posting because I’m really struggling and wondered if anyone else has or is feeling like this. My partner (m) and I (f) are both 26 and we’ve been together for 5 years. We both want children, but we’ve made the decision to wait until he finishes university because we know it’s the right thing to do financially and practically. I know that waiting is the best decision for our future family.
The problem is that my heart doesn’t seem to care about waiting. For the last year, my baby fever has become so overwhelming that it feels like it takes over my life. Every single month around the same time in my cycle, I convince myself I might be pregnant. I’ll start symptom spotting, googling everything, analysing every twinge or feeling and buying pregnancy tests even though I know they will be negative. It’s like I can’t stop myself, despite knowing there’s really no chance. Lately it’s become even harder because pregnancy seems to be everywhere around me. Someone I’m close with at work is pregnant, my hairdresser is pregnant and even my therapist is pregnant. I’m genuinely happy for all of them and I don’t feel jealous in a horrible way, but every announcement or bump is another reminder of something I want so badly but can’t have yet. It feels like the universe is constantly putting it in front of me.
I know waiting is for the greater good and I know that when the time finally comes I’ll be glad we waited until we were in the right place. But right now that doesn’t make the waiting feel any easier. Has anyone else experienced this level of obsession while waiting to try? Especially the symptom spotting and buying tests every month? Did anything actually help you get through this stage or make the waiting feel more manageable? I’d really appreciate any advice because at the moment it feels like I’m spending a week or two every month completely consumed by it and it’s becoming emotionally exhausting.

ever since i went off birth control it’s like baby stuff has completely taken over my brain. it’s all i think about and all i talk about, to the point where i can tell i’m wearing my husband down and driving him insane. i’ll catch myself bringing it up for the third time in a day and i know it’s a lot for him.

part of what’s fueling it is i’m not totally convinced of my own fertility. i ovulate really late in my cycle and only have 8-9 day luteal phases, possibly bc of low progesterone too. my OB said not to worry about any of it until we’ve been trying for a year with no luck, which i understand, but it doesn’t exactly quiet my mind. i feel super anxious about it and feel like i need to start trying ASAP so we can find out if it’s actually going to be a problem or not.

ive talked to my husband about it and he originally wanted to wait a couple more years(people in his family have kids a bit later in life than my family does, so his family has been telling him he’s too young and my family is telling me i’m waiting too long), but he agreed to start trying in January/february. i’m also not 100% sure my husband is as locked in on the january/feb timeline as i am, so there’s a part of me that’s anxious about that too and him trying to push it back further once we get there and i think i overcompensate by talking about it constantly, which probably isn’t helping my case.

i’m not really looking for hobbies or projects to fill the time(i’m extremely busy with work most of the time, with these thoughts on top of it). it’s more that i don’t know how to quiet this down in my own head so it stops dominating my thoughts and my conversations. how did you all actually cope with the waiting? how do you sit with the wanting without letting it take over everything?

I’m on cycle 2 of trying to conceive after around a full year of waiting after making the decision that we did want to try. I’ve always tracked my period, but I’m kicking myself for not also AT LEAST tracking my cervical mucus for that year. This is my first cycle tracking ovulation with cervical mucus, ovulation prediction kits, and basal body temperature, and I’d kill to have solid past data to compare to. If I could do it again I’d go back a year ago and buy a wearable like tempdrop to track my BBT and start documenting my cervical mucus. It’s so annoying having no idea what’s typical for my cycle as far as when I ovulate or IF I even ovulate at all.

Hello! I'm mainly looking for opinions or to hear from anyone who has been in a similar situation.

I (24) and my husband (26) don't have kids yet, but we definitely want them, ideally 3–4. We've never really had a set timeline, and we've always had more of an "if it happens, it happens" approach. We don't use any form of birth control, and I have never been on birth control. Whenever people ask us when we're having kids, my husband usually says, "Hopefully one by 27."

We've been married for almost 5 years, and despite never preventing pregnancy, I've never been pregnant or even had a pregnancy scare. Lately, I've started wondering if maybe I have fertility issues, or if we've just been lucky (or unlucky) enough that it hasn't happened.

The thing is, I'm starting to feel ready to begin our family. Since we know we want multiple kids, I'm wondering if it makes more sense to start actively trying now instead of waiting until I'm closer to 27. By actively trying, I mean tracking ovulation, tracking BBT, taking prenatal vitamins, and timing intercourse around my fertile window.In my mind, I don't see a huge difference between starting now versus waiting another couple of years. If either one of us has an underlying fertility issue, I'd rather find out sooner than later instead of feeling like time is slipping by.
I do have an OBGYN appointment next month because there's been some discussion about whether I could have PCOS, although my primary care doctor doesn't think I do. Either way, I'd like to get answers before we intentionally delay trying.

So I guess my questions are:

Would you start actively trying now if you were in my position?
Would you bring this conversation up with your spouse now or wait until closer to 27?
Has anyone else gone years without using birth control and then found out there was an underlying fertility issue, or ended up conceiving once you started tracking ovulation?
I'd really appreciate hearing other people's experiences. 🫶🏻

My husband has always told me that he wants to be a dad and he wants a family, and family is the meaning of life.
His dad spent his entire childhood complaining to him about how hard his life was, they were extremely poor with a very large family, so my husband internalized all of that and now he’s terrified to have a kid if we’re not completely set financially, to a much higher standard than I would.

Beyond that, though, he will never entertain me with coming up with baby names or getting excited about kids or anything like that. When I bring it up to him, he says how many 28-year-old man do you know who have baby fever and think about their kid all day. When he thinks about his kid, he just thinks about how much work it’s going to be.

He knows my entire purpose in life is to be a mother, I nanny and work in preschool full-time, and I remind him of it every day. So if he truly didn’t want Kids, he would have broken up with me. (he’s definitely the guy that would break up with someone over in compatibility.)

But yeah, I’m just curious as to that part, like I wish we could have a conversation about our kids. The only thing we’ve done so far is agreed to put them in a specific school, but that’s the most I’ve gotten out of him. Not even a baby name. We also agreed to vaccinate. lol

We are wanting to travel to Thailand for a month in November and the plan was originally to start trying when we return home in the December, however after further reading into the virus it’s obviously not a good idea.

There are SO many conflicting things online about this, originally I thought it was just a danger to pregnant women but then found out it can live in men’s sperm for months after, some places it says 6 and some places 3 .

We’re not in a position where we want to wait that much longer to try and conceive as it may also take us a while to even fall pregnant in the first place etc.

So was just wondering if anyone has been in a similar position? Or knows where I can ask a medical professional about this? As it seems some GPs in the UK are saying it isn’t actually a threat anymore. There are also antibody tests you can get, so I thought could it be an option to get one of these before trying? Or is it worth just forgetting about Thailand for now if the risk is too high

Please let me know if anyone’s been in the same position as me and if you can offer an guidance.

Thankyou x

I have compromised on timing several times, first it was when we turn 30, then need to be married and a house, and communication issues. When it got close to the date we agreed to try, on a date in the spring, I talked to him again about readiness because I was preparing to go off medications for migraines. He said yes he’s on board.

Then 3/1 arrives at first he said nothing, like tried to pretend it wasn’t happening and when I brought it up we had sex that day and once the next. Then he spent several weeks refusing to be intimate until I called him out. He said again not ready so I said ok I told you this was last compromise I was making so I guess we’re divorcing. He acts devastated and wants to keep trying to fix things, so I cave and he finally goes to a doctor. Finally gets the antidepressants/anti anxiety help he’s needed for years. I give it a month, then two, then three. I try to ask how we will know when it’s time? He says he doesn’t know.

Then he got laid off from his job this week, so of course that’ll be another delay. I tried to talk about it, he shut me down and wants to talk to his therapist first. Meanwhile everyone around me has had their babies and I feel so left behind. I want to leave the relationship, but I’m afraid I won’t find someone new.