Best age and time for TTC

emmaaa

ETA; Spin-off from the TTC at 42 thread. Thought it would be interesting to hear everyone's thoughts and experiences. 

When a couple decides to start TTC is something that is very personal to them that they normally have put a lot of thought into. The "best" time or age that a couple starts TTC is very subjective to each person's situation. 

With that being said, when do you think the best time is for TTC and at what age?

For DH and I, we want to start TTC in January 2016. By that time we will have been married a year, 25 years old, both in full time jobs (Lord willing), and in a considerably stable housing situation. I really want to have our first child when I'm 26 and be done having kids in my early 30's. I know things happen so, of course, that could change. 

What about you? When will you start TTC (or when did you start if you already are or have kids)? 

NowIamMrsKlein

I will be 29 and my FI will be 31 when we are married. 

FI is definitely ready to start TTC as soon as we are married as he feels his window of being a 'young dad' is running out. haha. (Cuz we are sooooo old).

We have some important life things that I would like to get sorted out before we start TTC, mainly moving back closer to our families as well as living in a city that has better health care.

I would say our timeline to start TTC is around when I turn 30. So a year after wedding.

Maggie0829

When to start?  No idea.  Really there is no perfect time to start because you are never fully prepared to have a kid, regardless of the job you have or how stable you are in your relationship/job/finances/etc.  But for me, if H and I do decide to have kids, I have put ages 35/36 up as the "no kids after this age" deadline.  I am going to be 31 this August so luckily we still have some time to decide what we want.  I personally don't want to be an older parent and (as horrible as it sounds) lose out on my golden years after retirement because I am still raising/taking care of a young adult.

mikenberger

Maggie0829 said:

When to start?  No idea.  Really there is no perfect time to start because you are never fully prepared to have a kid, regardless of the job you have or how stable you are in your relationship/job/finances/etc.  But for me, if H and I do decide to have kids, I have put ages 35/36 up as the "no kids after this age" deadline.  I am going to be 31 this August so luckily we still have some time to decide what we want.  I personally don't want to be an older parent and (as horrible as it sounds) lose out on my golden years after retirement because I am still raising/taking care of a young adult.

Totally agree with this. Especially the "cap" on 35/36 for kids. My parents were young when they had me, 21 and 22, so I get to see that your 40s and 50s are AWESOME and I wouldn't want to spend that dealing with a tween/teenager. 

But then y'know, my baby decision was made for me so boom! Now I just get to be the fun aunt to 11 nieces and nephews.

emmaaa

mikenberger said:

Maggie0829 said:

When to start?  No idea.  Really there is no perfect time to start because you are never fully prepared to have a kid, regardless of the job you have or how stable you are in your relationship/job/finances/etc.  But for me, if H and I do decide to have kids, I have put ages 35/36 up as the "no kids after this age" deadline.  I am going to be 31 this August so luckily we still have some time to decide what we want.  I personally don't want to be an older parent and (as horrible as it sounds) lose out on my golden years after retirement because I am still raising/taking care of a young adult.

Totally agree with this. Especially the "cap" on 35/36 for kids. My parents were young when they had me, 21 and 22, so I get to see that your 40s and 50s are AWESOME and I wouldn't want to spend that dealing with a tween/teenager. 

But then y'know, my baby decision was made for me so boom! Now I just get to be the fun aunt to 11 nieces and nephews.

I definitely agree with that! My mom had my younger brother when she was 32 or 33 I think and that would be around my age cap. Ideally, I'd love to be a young active parent and then a youngish grandparent or at least a young retiree. 

blabla89

I don't want to have biological children at all, but my ideal age for us to adopt would be around 32-35. That would give us 5-8 years to enjoy life as just the two of us, find a house we love, and save up for the cost of adopting.

Alas, FI wants me to have a baby and I'm not sure what the ideal time is. I'm 26 now, and ideally I would want 4-5 years of just us time before we start TTC, but I also want to have it over with before I'm 30, so I'm not sure when we'll start TTC.

southernbelle0915

I had a really interesting conversation about this with my cousin (an nurse and MSW - interesting combo). Her take was that American women are physically in their prime to conceive way before they're socially ready. 

I can't remember the exact age she was saying, but something like late teens (18 or 19) being when your body is in tip top shape to have a kid. But American women in their late teens are often not socially ready - just graduating high school, often looking to pursue higher education or start a career, not many are in relationships meant to last at that point..... Very interesting perspective.

I'll be 29 when I have my first kid. Ideally, I would have liked to be completey done having kids by 30 - but DH and I would have had to hop to it immediately after the wedding and we didn't want that. 

For me personally, I will not get pregnant after 35 - risks I'm not personally comfortable with. So whatever our situation is at that point (if we have 1, 2 or 3 kids), I'm getting my tubes tied.

lovemesomemonster

I think I'm the total opposite of all of you ladies My parents were 37 and 40 when I came along.. I'm now almost 28, on my own, had a full time job for a while and they aren't even retired yet (mom to retire this year). I think I'm on their path.. we are getting married when I'm almost 29 and he's 27 and we don't even want to think kids until we are into our 30's.. we are enjoying the freedoms of spending our money on traveling and investments right now. Our goal is to be in a place where FI can support us (we are basically there but would have to change some of our lifestyle and don't want to) before we take that leap.. Because my parents were older I was able to try out anything I wanted to, all sports, even if they were expensive and I want that for my kids. 

Maggie0829

blabla89 said:

I don't want to have biological children at all, but my ideal age for us to adopt would be around 32-35. That would give us 5-8 years to enjoy life as just the two of us, find a house we love, and save up for the cost of adopting.

Alas, FI wants me to have a baby and I'm not sure what the ideal time is. I'm 26 now, and ideally I would want 4-5 years of just us time before we start TTC, but I also want to have it over with before I'm 30, so I'm not sure when we'll start TTC.

I am confused by your post.  So just looking for clarification.  You don't want biological children but your FI does?  How exactly is that going to work?

holyguacamole79

For us, as soon as we were married, we were ready to start trying (or at least not doing anything to prevent).  We married at 33 (me) and 36 (H).  I'm 35 now and H is 38, so we are more aggressive.  But we are open to whatever God's plan is for us.  If we don't have a biological child by this summer, we will start the adoption process.

NowIamMrsKlein

What I have a hard time with is the 'cap off' age. FI met in our later 20's so I don't really like putting a cap on TTC simply based off our age. I want a timeline to TTC based on our life, relationship and marriage, as it would have been if we had met in our early 20's.

And this is what FI struggles with understanding. He always thought he would have kids by 30/31. 

If we had met in our early 20's, married by 25 and had a couple years married and then started TTC by 30 then great that's a great timeline in my mind.

But we met when he was 27. In my mind we can't stick to the same timeline to TTC because we aren't at place in our relationship that we would've been if we met younger.

I don't want to miss out on the newlywed stage and jump right into TTC simply because we've reached that cap that he had in his mind.

I have no idea if that actually makes any sense, it's hard to write what I mean.

larrygaga

I want to start doing the whole kid thing in my late 20's. I gotta travel Europe and Asia and I wanna do it when I'm young and able to walk all day comfortably. That's really my only reason. I'll be an old parent.

southernbelle0915

Maggie0829 said:

When to start?  No idea.  Really there is no perfect time to start because you are never fully prepared to have a kid, regardless of the job you have or how stable you are in your relationship/job/finances/etc.  But for me, if H and I do decide to have kids, I have put ages 35/36 up as the "no kids after this age" deadline.  I am going to be 31 this August so luckily we still have some time to decide what we want.  I personally don't want to be an older parent and (as horrible as it sounds) lose out on my golden years after retirement because I am still raising/taking care of a young adult.

Oh yea, and this too. (I don't think it sounds horrible.)

I know a lot of adults pushing back retirement because they had kids later in life and simply can't afford to retire because kid-related-expenses/reasons. It sucks, but that's their reality. I do not want that for my own life. 

I want the kid out of the nest and off our payroll by the time they're done with college. We plan to pay for college and related expenses with the understanding that their responsibility in the deal is to be self-supporting afterwards.

blabla89

Maggie0829 said:

blabla89 said:

I don't want to have biological children at all, but my ideal age for us to adopt would be around 32-35. That would give us 5-8 years to enjoy life as just the two of us, find a house we love, and save up for the cost of adopting.

Alas, FI wants me to have a baby and I'm not sure what the ideal time is. I'm 26 now, and ideally I would want 4-5 years of just us time before we start TTC, but I also want to have it over with before I'm 30, so I'm not sure when we'll start TTC.

I am confused by your post.  So just looking for clarification.  You don't want biological children but your FI does?  How exactly is that going to work?

Having my own biological spawn isn't something I personally feel any desire for, but I'm not strongly opposed to it, either. It's important to FI, and it's something I'm willing to compromise on.

Bubblegum5586

I always said I wanted to have my first child before 30 and I am turning 29 this September so I better get moving to make that happen!

My cap would be 33-35 Max and that really isn't that far away anymore, especially since we want 2 kids. 

H and I have been together over 9 years and married 18 months. We own our own home and have good jobs. I know we want to pay down some more debt and save some more before starting a family but that could be as soon as this fall to start TTC.... which typing that out felt CRAZY! I can't believe we may be actually getting that close!

emmaaa

I hear a lot of people saying they want to be able to travel and spend the money on that, which I totally understand. But honestly, DH and I won't really be able to afford that right away starting off in our careers. I just accept we're going to the beach or the mountains every year for a while, hah!

Maggie0829

@SoontobeMrsKlein - What you wrote makes sense.  You are saying that just because you may have seen yourself having kids by the time you are 30 doesn't mean you have to stick to that time line and that you will adjust accordingly.  But I agree that a hypothetical timeline that you may have set when you were say 20 shouldn't be something you stick with once real life rolls around.

For me a 'cap off' age is an age where I do not want to have kids after, at all.  So if we have kids before the deadline age then great, if not, then I guess we have made our decision.

VulgarGirl

I think the best time to start trying is whenever the fuck you want and you are able to support yourself and your future spawn.

There's no...magic formula. I go from "I can't wait to be a mom" to "Holy fuck this is a terrible plan I can't take care of a child" on a nearly hourly basis. 

SmileDamnit

Yep, incredibly subjetive. For me, personally, there is absolutely no way in hell I was either ready or had even one quark of a desire to marry in my 20s, let alone have kids. I'd say was in my early 30s before I started seriously contemplating either, so the fact that both happened in my mid to late-30s seems fitting. 

DH (now 39) will have a couple difference experiences to compare. He married the first time in his very early 20s and had his son at 24. It obviously ended in divorce & he was left to raise his son on his own so he's got pretty strong feelings/opinions on marrying/conceiving "early" and is a huge proponent for waiting until one is "older". He may change his tune after we have newborn in the house in a month or so, though .

southernbelle0915

emmaaa said:

I hear a lot of people saying they want to be able to travel and spend the money on that, which I totally understand. But honestly, DH and I won't really be able to afford that right away starting off in our careers. I just accept we're going to the beach or the mountains every year for a while, hah!

For us, it wasn't the money involved with travel post-child... It was the child care aspect and logistics.

I mean, once you have a newborn, you can't really just bounce for 2 weeks to Fiji and leave the kid with (insert someone's name). I mean, you could if you weren't breastfeeding and had god-send of a family member/friend, but I don't personally know anyone who would.

Plus the types of vacations we like to take are white water rafting, hiking mountains, downhill skiing...not exactly baby friendly activities. 

bethsmiles

SO and I have always talked about having kids around 28, ideally done by 30. But now we've both decided we want PhDs which we probably won't be finished with until we are 30. We haven't discussed in detail how that will change our plan. At this point we are thinking it won't but it's so impossible at this point to know what our lives will be like in 3-4 years. Hell we aren't even sure what state we'll be living in. 

KatieinBkln

"Best" for me will mean after I am 30, but if I'm being realistic, I am 29 this year and cannot imagine myself being ready, financially or emotionally, in just a year's time.

I do want to TTC before 35, not simply for health reasons (I realize that the complications people mention are still extremely rare, plus my mother had my youngest sister at 37 and it was fine), but for energy reasons--I have a solid medium energy level, but I know that can decrease with age and I'd like to be able to play with my kids and run around with them without it taking everything out of me. 

So for me, the best age to start trying will probably be around 33?

Although now that I've written it down I'm sure things will go down a completely different way than I've planned. Life tends to do that. 

redheadbride15

Just to throw in the perspective of another "older" gal. FI and I are 40 and 37, respectively. If we TTC immediately following the wedding then we will be 41 and 38 when the baby is born (assuming no infertility problems, which one can NEVER assume). If you had spoken to me in my 20s, or even early 30s, I would have said "that's too old! I have a 35 cut-off!" just like lots of you have said. But your perspective also changes as you get older too. As an older couple we have a lot of advantages: two really solid careers, a nest egg, and a considerable amount more confidence and maturity than I used to have. And I'm not too worried about losing my "golden years", because in exchange I have gained 15+ years of my young adult life with much more personal and financial freedom than I would have if I had started making babies in my 20s.

wandajune6

I just turned 36 and DH turns 39 this summer. He married at 20 and had The Kid at 22.

I don't have the words to express how much I want a baby.

Should I have started earlier? Perhaps. But I didn't want to be a single parent (not that I have anything against them) and I hadn't met the right person. DH and I knew that we wanted a baby together pretty quickly but didn't start trying until after we were engaged.

My ob/gyn always told me that I needed to start TTC by 36. We did that. We know that we have fertility issues that make a pregnancy unlikely. We don't know how long we'll spend trying or how much money we'll invest in the process. It's a tricky subject. We would have more options if we had started earlier.

Do I love the idea of having a kid at home when I retire. No. But that's not enough of a reason for me to give up the dream.

Maggie0829

KatieinBkln said:

"Best" for me will mean after I am 30, but if I'm being realistic, I am 29 this year and cannot imagine myself being ready, financially or emotionally, in just a year's time.

I do want to TTC before 35, not simply for health reasons (I realize that the complications people mention are still extremely rare, plus my mother had my youngest sister at 37 and it was fine), but for energy reasons--I have a solid medium energy level, but I know that can decrease with age and I'd like to be able to play with my kids and run around with them without it taking everything out of me. 

So for me, the best age to start trying will probably be around 33?

Although now that I've written it down I'm sure things will go down a completely different way than I've planned. Life tends to do that. 

Yup, seeing as I was in the "never having kids, never, ever" camp not that long ago and now here I am thinking, "hmm, you know it may be nice to have one or two."  But maybe it is that damn internal clock ticking loudly telling me that my eggs are getting old and dried up.  I really thought that internal clock thing was a myth, but I guess not.

emmaaa

southernbelle0915 said:

emmaaa said:

I hear a lot of people saying they want to be able to travel and spend the money on that, which I totally understand. But honestly, DH and I won't really be able to afford that right away starting off in our careers. I just accept we're going to the beach or the mountains every year for a while, hah!

For us, it wasn't the money involved with travel post-child... It was the child care aspect and logistics.

I mean, once you have a newborn, you can't really just bounce for 2 weeks to Fiji and leave the kid with (insert someone's name). I mean, you could if you weren't breastfeeding and had god-send of a family member/friend, but I don't personally know anyone who would.

Plus the types of vacations we like to take are white water rafting, hiking mountains, downhill skiing...not exactly baby friendly activities. 

I completely agree with that. I can't imagine my parents taking us anywhere over a four hour drive when we were younger. Three kids in a car is stressful. Also, I don't know many relatives that would be willing to just watch your kid(s) for an extended amount of time.

I guess DH and I aren't huge travelers and don't have the itch to go to too many places at this point in our lives for that to be a deciding factor. Now, if we had the desire that we absolutely had to see Italy before we had kids, that would change things.

chibiyui

When H and I started talking about spawning, I wanted to both be in our "forever" home and Have a kid before 30. Once I realized that time lone was untenable, I decided that beginning to have before 30 was more important than being in our forever home. We're planning on traveling to Japan this fall, so once we get back from that we'll be diving straight in, so I'm taking the time now to get healthy and ready.


Well. Sort of. The amount of frozen drinks I'm having today isn't healthy, but damn my throat feels better.

MyNameIsNot

redheadbride15 said:

Just to throw in the perspective of another "older" gal. FI and I are 40 and 37, respectively. If we TTC immediately following the wedding then we will be 41 and 38 when the baby is born (assuming no infertility problems, which one can NEVER assume). If you had spoken to me in my 20s, or even early 30s, I would have said "that's too old! I have a 35 cut-off!" just like lots of you have said. But your perspective also changes as you get older too. As an older couple we have a lot of advantages: two really solid careers, a nest egg, and a considerable amount more confidence and maturity than I used to have. And I'm not too worried about losing my "golden years", because in exchange I have gained 15+ years of my young adult life with much more personal and financial freedom than I would have if I had started making babies in my 20s.

This is so true. I don't want kids at all, so I have no perspective on the topic, but all of my friends wanted to have their first by 30, done by 35 back when we were younger.

Now we're all 33-36, and they all just started trying in the past year. Everyone had different reasons, but it's interesting how many people pushed back their timelines.

artbyallie

emmaaa said:

ETA; Spin-off from the TTC at 42 thread. Thought it would be interesting to hear everyone's thoughts and experiences. 

When a couple decides to start TTC is something that is very personal to them that they normally have put a lot of thought into. The "best" time or age that a couple starts TTC is very subjective to each person's situation. 

With that being said, when do you think the best time is for TTC and at what age?

For DH and I, we want to start TTC in January 2016. By that time we will have been married a year, 25 years old, both in full time jobs (Lord willing), and in a considerably stable housing situation. I really want to have our first child when I'm 26 and be done having kids in my early 30's. I know things happen so, of course, that could change. 

What about you? When will you start TTC (or when did you start if you already are or have kids)? 

We basically wanted this too. H turns 30 this month and I will be 28 in September. We have decided not to start TTC until he is in a PhD program and are still in that holding pattern because he has not gotten accepted yet.

chloe97

I think that there is a lot of misinformation about the risks associated with having children after 35. This article really explains well what doctors know and what they do not know know about having children later in life. 

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/07/how-long-can-you-wait-to-have-a-baby/309374/ 

The long of the short of it is you probably have just as good of a shot of getting pregnant between 35 and 39 as you did before 35, but there really is no good way to know for sure. Sure the risk of chromosomal abnormalities increases with age, but they are still quite small. I personally had friends with babies with chromosomal abnormalities at age 28 and 29 respectively, so don't feel that your age protects you from such things. Wait and have children when you and you partner are ready- don't feel like you need to rush because of some clicking biological clock. 

LadyMillil

We are planning to start TTC when my current pack of BC ends. We are 28 and 30, have been together 6 years, lived together for 5.5 years and married almost a year. I'm still working on my PhD, but I should be done in a year or so. I'm hoping to have a baby by the time I start writing my thesis. I can write my thesis from home with a baby and still get paid my full stipend, which is great because I don't get any mat leave. A baby at the end of the PhD has been the plan since I started my degree.