I FINALLY GOT A JOB SO WE CAN START TRYING FOR OUR SECOND SOON!

It took 5 months to find work. In that time my mental health has been in the gutter. So much pressure for every single interview. It's not just that I can give my existing family a better standard of living, it's also that I'm 39, so time isn't on my side.

BUT I GOT THE JOB.

I'm taking the next month to 'complete' my prep (vitamins aren't where I would like them to be) but in December we will be entering the next phase of our lives and hopefully bringing new life into the world in 2027 😊

My now husband (30M) and I (28F) have been together a little over 2 years but have known each other for the last 6 years. In June we got engaged and talked about eloping around October. Well in August of this year, I found out that I was pregnant around 4 weeks.

We have always had very open communication about our options if we ended up getting pregnant, I think that we both were very on the fence about it if it ever did happen. When I took the test and saw it was positive, I immediately felt absolute dread. I ended up telling him immediately and while we were both in shock, I felt that his reaction was not what I was expecting. In my mind I had always pictured both parties being excited and happy finding out about a pregnancy. For the next week or so we had some really hard conversations. My fiance was very open about his feelings and opinions on our current finances, the lack of space/safety of our current house, and the unfortunate timing ultimately leading to both of us deciding to abort the pregnancy. While I agreed with his reasonings, I admit that I followed suit with his feelings instead of feeling strongly about my own. I also felt that I was confused and feeling a lot of emotions so I felt that my judgment was clouded. Obviously this is all in the past so I can’t and shouldn’t dwell on this decision we decided on, but 2 months later and I’m still feeling immense grief and sadness about my choice.

Its now been a couple weeks after our wedding, and we’ve continuously had multiple conversations on how we both feel about the situation. My husband still feels the same about his feelings but I am wanting to get pregnant again and have a child. He wants to know why it is such a rush and wants to wait til at-least mid next year when our finances are “better” and we are potentially moved out of our current house. Again, while I agree, I still don’t feel that those reasonings outweigh the grief and sadness I feel about wanting to try for another baby. It is very frustrating to me that we can’t seem to get on the same page and I don’t want our relationship to fail because of this.

I am trying to find a therapist, but unfortunately my insurance makes it very hard. I am hoping within the next month to get on my husbands insurance or even pay out of pocket in the meantime. Currently, I feel that my depression is getting really bad and I just need some advice and guidance.

Hey everyone,

My partner and I are looking at opening our official TTC window around February 2027. We are feeling really ready to take this step in life, but we have a few moving pieces over the next 1–2 years and I’d love to get some perspective from anyone who has navigated something similar.

Here is where we’re at:

- Aiming to conceive around Feb 2027. (I’ll be in my early 30s and my partner will be in his late 30s).

- We are planning a major 2–3 week trip to Asia in mid-to-late March 2027. If we conceive on our target timeline, I would likely be in my early first trimester during this trip.

- We have my cousin's wedding in early September 2027 (which also requires travel to another state). Depending on how long conception takes, I’d potentially be in my late second or early third trimester.

- I work in education on annual contracts. My current contract runs through this school year, and my goal is to secure another contract for the 2027–2028 academic year to ensure full health/parental benefits before taking leave.

- We currently rent in a high-cost-of-living area where buying isn't realistic for us. Our long-term plan is to move back to our home country in a few years to set down permanent roots, so we're focusing on overseas real estate/investments now rather than buying where we currently live.

Where I’m looking for advice:

- Has anyone done a long-haul international trip during the early weeks of pregnancy? Is morning sickness/fatigue manageable, or did you wish you had pushed TTC until after the big trip?

- For those in contract-based roles (especially in education), how did you time TTC so you didn't miss out on contract renewal or full parental leave benefits?

- Am I overthinking the alignment of all these milestones, or would you recommend shifting the TTC start date by a month or two (e.g., waiting until after the March trip) to simplify things?

Would love to hear your experiences, thoughts, or any blind spots we might be missing. Thanks so much!

My husband and I are waiting to try. I always wanted a family and children, and my husband has too but is much more anxious about it and just hasn't felt ready. We agreed to wait until mid next year, very reluctantly from me but I just can't force someone to be ready for something like this. The problem is we're 35 years old. Literally ALL of my friends are simultaneously pregnant. My two best friends and college roommates are due the same week. I am so happy for them but to be honest I've been really kind of down about it. Some mixture of anxiety that it will not be as easy for me as it seems to have been for all of them, jealousy, and fear that my husband won't be ready next year either. The deepest want in my heart feels out of reach. I don't want to be resentful of my husband, and I'm mostly not resentful of him because he is being really understanding and he can tell I'm a little sad about all this. But no amount of sympathy can make someone ready to have a baby.

Congratulations! Please share your graduation news here!

Please discuss you current goals and plans! However, please save graduation news for the monthly graduation thread.

My wife (30F) and I (31M) have decided we are going to start trying for a baby in 2027. We want to wait until summer to get our finances (Budgeting) in a better place as well as kicking a few vices, mainly being nicotine and cannabis. Both of barley drink these days.
I have a bit of anxiety about being a dad, but I am beyond excited!

For those who are waiting to try or on the cusp, what books helped you prep and what steps did you take to prep your body?

My husband (26M) and I (26F) are having crazyyy baby fever!! Our plan is to wait until May 2027 to start conceiving and here are our reasons why:
-hoping to avoid a winter birth as much as possible due to seasonal depression, shorter days, and flu/covid/RSV season. We’d love to have a spring/summer baby (this is our #1 reason for waiting)
-wanting to have time to be the healthiest versions of ourselves. We’re already pretty “healthy” (we’re both active and eat fairly well) but we’d like to spend time incorporating more whole foods into our diet to help with fertility and pregnancy
-going on an Alaska cruise Sept 2027 that we wouldn’t want to miss!
-we’d like to renovate our backyard before having a baby and assume that will take a few months
-we have a wedding in April 2027 that I will be a bridesmaid for. This definitely isn’t the highest priority on our reasons to wait but it will definitely be a huge party with lots of drinking all weekend

We both have reliable, full time jobs with benefits, own a home, have a significant savings to support pregnancy/baby, and have been married for just over a year. It all feels like such good timing but just not “perfect”!! We also get worried about the chance of it taking a while to get pregnant once we start trying.

Are we crazy for waiting to try to conceive?? Or should we be riding the baby fever and trying now?! How do you suppress the baby fever and embrace waiting??

My husband’s close friend is having a destination wedding in a country with a zika virus risk in the spring of 2027. I recently learned that our government recommends a 3 month waiting period following travel to this destination before trying for pregnancy.

I’m devastated as we were planning to TTC immediately following the trip, which is already later than intended. My preference would be to skip the trip entirely, but it’s his close friend, so my husband is resistant.

I know it’s only 3 months but I have some anxiety around how long it could take to become pregnant and would rather not delay any further. Also, I’m hurt about making this emotional sacrifice, and my family planning preferences being put second.

Curious to know what others would do in my situation.

Does anyone else have a pre-baby bucket list? Here’s mine so far (but I would like to add to it, so please give me suggestions):

• Ride as many roller coasters as I can
• Do one of those wine advent calendars
• Get in better physical shape
• Go to Europe

Hey y’all,

Me (30F) and fiancée (30M) are getting married next year and would LOVE to have kids soon.

We recently moved from a HCOL city to a smaller, slightly more affordable but still HCOL city in the U.S. and I still feel like we are just slightly above water each month (we make combined ~$136K pretax - I work in social work for a nonprofit & he’s a teacher). We both took pay cuts when we moved, we were making a bit more in our hometown but the cost of living was just too expensive.

I genuinely don’t know what to do. The obvious answer is to make more money but that is easier said than done, especially in our fields! That’s definitely a priority for us but I’m not sure when we will be in a spot where we’ll feel financially comfortable.

Our savings are on point, we have a 6 month emergency fund saved and are steadily working to bring this up to 12 months. The biggest worry for us is daycare, we absolutely cannot afford $3k or even $2k a month for childcare. Since we are in a different state away from our parents, we can’t rely on them for support with childcare, either. Moving back home would be an additional expense and the higher cost of living would most likely eat up anything we’d save in childcare costs.

Is anyone in a similar boat? How do you cope? I don’t meant to be dramatic but I literally YEARN to be a mother and start a family and it is so damn saddening to feel like that dream of mine is indefinitely out of reach because I don’t have enough money.

I’m (33F) in a great relationship (29M). About 3 years ago we got accidentally pregnant but we both felt it wasn’t the right time so terminated the pregnancy. We agreed that we want to buy our own place first.

Fast forward to now, we have just got the house and about to move in, and yesterday I find out that our dear friend who lives with us got pregnant by accident. She presented me with a glaringly positive test last night. To make it worse this happened while on my period lol.

She’s 28 so a bit younger than me and I know that she really wants to keep the baby even though the conditions are less than ideal - technically she’s not in a relationship with the person, her job isn’t well paid and she lives in a house share currently.

My partner and I agreed to start trying beginning of the new year but I am so worried that it won’t be very straightforward. So I guess I just am a little envious of my friend. Seeing that extremely positive test felt a bit like a punch in the gut.

I’m happy for my friend but at the same time feeling scared that it will be very hard for us to get pregnant (and stay pregnant!!).

This is a long rant, thanks for reading!!

Hello! My husband (29M) and I (25F) both want kids, but we are on different pages as to when.

Background: we have been together for just about 5 years, just newly married, we own our home, have lived together for 3.5 years, and we both have stable careers, with no desire to go back to school and advance our education/careers.

I have wanted kids since forever (my mom says I started talking about being a mom at 5 years old). It is this deep, innate feeling I have, that I can’t even fully explain. I often have dreams about pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, and wake up sad when I realize it was a dream. I am also a Labor & Delivery / Postpartum nurse, so that is my world.

I am young, but all of my inner circle is either pregnant, TTC, or have a child already. My husband isn’t ready yet, and it just kills me inside.

We have talked about ttc and planning, and he just says he’s “not ready yet” but “he is getting there” and is very vague as to what he means by that. He won’t give me a timeframe, and I don’t want to pressure or badger him.

My biggest fear is fertility issues, also. He also doesn’t understand that trying can take a bit, and he just says to me “we’re gonna get pregnant on the first try so don’t worry about it” and that just feels invalidating and ignorant to me. I know I’ll be resentful if I wait for his timeline and then we end up struggling to get pregnant and that extends our timeline of having kids.

His family is different than mine, all getting married and have children in their late 30s/40s, or not having children at all, which I have no desire to do, personally. I’ve always dreamt of being a young mom and always thought I’d be the first but it’s looking like I’ll be the last.

I can see that his family is all he has to compare to, and on the contrary my experience is the opposite. His friends are very immature and most of them are single or newly married, and even though he says his unreadiness is not at all related to what his friends are up to, I can’t help but think it’s related.

Now that all of my close friends are either having a baby, TTC, or have a child, it’s looking like I’ll be the last, and no sign of when that time will come for me, since I’m at the mercy of my husband. I’m also having a very hard time being happy for my friends and family, because I’m so jealous and quite frankly depressed about my situation. I don’t want to attend baby showers, and I don’t even want to go to work because instead of feeling the joy I once had for caring for mothers, I now feel grief for myself.

I’ve also been feeling this intense desire for at least the past couple of years, but now that we are married it’s ramped up tenfold.

The help I need:

- How do I navigate this? I don’t want to rush my husband and make him resentful of me, and I don’t want children to become a “sore” subject between us. I think we both need to compromise in some way but I just don’t know how. Maybe some personal experience stories may help?

- How can I help the jealousy, resentment, and depression I feel when I see other people experiencing motherhood? It’s becoming increasingly harder to be happy for others.

- Do I just force myself to wait until he’s ready?

*I’m not looking for judgement, tough love or anything harsh, as I am a gentle soul lol. I’m mostly looking for advice from people who can relate, those who have come out the other side, or any helpful ways to cope.

Thank you!

For those who are already parents of 1+, how does the wait between children compare to the first time you were waiting to try?

I'm having a hard time, looking forward to being past this. I guess I'm just looking for someone to tell me it gets better. People say having kids is hard, but it can't be harder than this feeling right now.

I’m very conflicted right now. My husband and I decided we were going to start TTC about a month ago, but I am having a terribly long cycle, so we haven’t actually been able to officially “start” yet. I’m reasonably sure I have PCOS or another condition causing an imbalance, but am in the midst of a work up with my doctors. No one has told me anything I’m doing should pause my TTC journey, and because of this cycle, I haven’t thought to ask.

I do Inito tests every day right now to track my hormones and am trained in the FAM. To my surprise (due to how wild this cycle has been), I started getting hints at ovulation yesterday, spotted and got egg white last night and today, and Inito showed a huge jump in LH this morning, while E3G has dropped. Woo!

I want to try, but I’m also nervous for the following reasons:

1. possible logical fallacy from being new at this: weird/abnormal cycle = not good month to TTC
2. my iron stores are low, and I’m scheduled to start iron infusions next week. I’m worried, because I’m seeing mixed information online about if I’ll be able to do the infusions in a 2-week-wait or early pregnancy, if I were to get pregnant. The infusions center is closed for the weekend. In theory, I’ll be done with the infusions (5 of them) by next ovulation. My doctor specifically wanted me to do them to prepare for iron demands during a pregnancy.
3. if I don’t try this cycle, and I have another long one right after this, I know I’ll be really disappointed that I didn’t try.

What would you do?

(I will note, I would consider myself TTC, not waiting to try, and thwarted by my body for the last few months — it seems I am ovulating on day 72! but was told this is a better spot for my post)

Me and my fiancé are 33, I was about to start TTC but was miserable in my job and was casually looking but just landed an amazing opportunity.

I will start in January 2027. How long should I wait now to TTC considering my age?

Kindly no comments about waiting to get married, this is in the plan and not what the post is about😃

I feel like it’s pretty common to see posts on this forum about husbands being hesitant to start trying because they want better finances. My husband is the same way. He has a $5500 loan with stupid interest that we’re now paying $1000 a month on to get rid of it before we start trying next year. He also has a $24000 loan with only 2% interest (shout out to the military) that we’ve accepted won’t be paid off before we start trying but every time we talk about trying he mentions that he feels like our finances aren’t good enough and he’s stressed about the fact that I won’t be working when the baby comes (I’ll be in graduate school which will be free because of a scholarship). I just feel like we’re in a much better place than a lot of people who have their first kid. He makes $6000 a month and is in the military so we get free healthcare. He’ll also rank up and get a $1000 per month raise by the time I have the baby. So we won’t be paying that $1000 loan anymore and we’ll also have an additional $1000 every month. I don’t even make much from working rn (about $1300 a month). Is there any way yall have eased your husbands stress about it? I understand it’s natural for them to be stressed like this if they are already the main providers it probably feels like a heavy responsibility to add another life that they’re taking care of.

Hi everyone, first time posting, but I feel like I am going crazy. I am ready to start trying (29F), but my husband (30M) wants our finances to be more in order, but when I look at all our friends with babies, I feel like we’re in a much better position. We both have very well paying full time remote jobs, but our main concern is my student loan payment that is +$1,000 a month, I’ve paid off over half of it, but still have a couple years left.

I get where he’s coming from, I’m just anxious that if we choose to wait, we don’t know what our lives will look like in two years. I could lose my job, or he could, or we can’t get pregnant, there’s so many scenarios!! And it doesn’t help that we spent the last two years taking care of my ailing mother who was living with us, so I felt like our lives were on hold for that time.

So as the title states, I am going crazy with baby fever, and my husband is cool as a cucumber, and doesn’t live with the impending limitations as a child bearing woman of age.

I’ve recently come off the combined pill, how long did it take to fall pregnant? I have been on the pill for 10 years, so unsure how long my cycles are etc as I’ve only had withdrawal bleeds on the pill. What’s the chances? We are not actively tracking and trying but just seeing what happens but ideally I’d like to be pregnant in the next few months? Is that realistic?

I (F33) am desperate to start trying for a baby as soon as possible after having held off for longer than I’d like so that my husband (M36) feels ready. Finally we were planning to start TTC in December, but then my sibling got engaged and revealed their plan to get married in Europe next September. I will need to be able to fly from the UK to a Nordic country for this wedding in mid September. I am conscious that not only do I need to put off trying in order to not miss the wedding, I also need to consider restrictions on flying when pregnant.

Realistically, what are my options? Different sources have suggested February, March, or even April as being the earliest sensible time to start trying so that I am able to travel and attend. Is February too risky? Could I hope to be able to fly but have a back up of driving or taking trains? Is that really unrealistic for a heavily pregnant woman?

I’m so frustrated at the prospect of even having to delay by 2 months when I feel like I would have been having kids in my late twenties if I hadn’t had to compromise! Waiting till April feels like such a tall order…