what is your age, or more importantly your wifes age?

this is important as you may find there are certain rules around fertility treatment for your area. So if stuff doesn’t go to plan you need to know how quickly you should be engaging help from the NHS.

We nearly missed the boat and had to pay (a lot) for IVF because my wife had just turned 35 when we spoke to the consultant. However we’d be in the system for about a year, and had been trying since she turned 30.

Luckily the first round worked, and the second was natural (and pretty quick when we started). Both are now 4.5 and 2.5

Re whether they are worth it. I have brilliant days, and I have truly awful days. They have stretched my emotional bandwidth hugely. Lack of sleep (by that I mean less than 4 broken hours a night for 3 years as the second one was as bad as the first) basically broke me, and I’m still recovering. Everything is easy if you have sleep….pray you get an easy one and read this not really understanding the fuss other parents make about a couple of missed hours….

Oh and from the small sample that is my friends, girls are much much much easier when they are little.

Bet you wish you’d never asked brokenbanjo.

Another question for the ” Don’t have kids” brigade….

Is it cos you don’t want anyone else to play with your Lego/Airfix?

Turned out we’d been ‘trying” for longer than I’d realised. Seems to be more common than you’d hoped. The timing of our first was far from my ideal, but I wouldn’t be without them, despite the issues it caused.

Try not to make it a routine or duty, it’s supposed to be fun.

Something like 1 in 3 pregnancies ends in miscarriage. We have 2 kids from 4 pregnancies. It will be a roller coaster.

If you can’t have your own, consider adoption. The NHS spends thousands helping couples conceive. Children’s services spends thousands more dealing with kids that need a safe and loving home their parents can’t provide.

Be absolutely sure your relationship can survive. Every quirk and niggle now will be magnified a million times by sleep deprivation, constant illness and poverty

Who’s going to care for you when you are no longer able to care for yourself

With the money I save from not having kids, when the day comes that I can’t wipe my own arse I’ll be employing a smoking hot eastern European nurse to look after me in my old age.

Do I strike you as the type to make jokes?

Now I feel stupid. 🙁

Don’t feel stupid. It wasn’t a joke.

It was a lazy*, half hearted troll.

*I have 3 kids. I’m really tired

Not up to your normal standard PP, we’ve come to expect so much from you and to have that stop, well, let’s just say we feel let down.

it helps if she has an orgasm afterwards

Houston we have a problem

A question for the ” Don’t have kids” brigade….

Who’s going to care for you when you are no longer able to care for yourself?

I don’t know if this is serious question, but if so, it’s a bonkers argument in favour of having children. Who says your children would want to look after you when you’re old/infirm? or even be able to? to expect them to seems incredibly selfish

It was a lazy*, half hearted troll.

just saw this…ignore me

Who’s going to care for you when you are no longer able to care for yourself?

My pension plan is to sell up buy a motorhome and drive round until all my money has gone then top myself.

Who’s going to care for you when you are no longer able to care for yourself?

MAkes life worse ? What the holy F…. Couldn’t be any further from my experience

Obviously whether kids improve your life or make it worse depends on how good/bad your life was before. My life with my kids is fantastic. It’s a constant laugh, we’re always out kayaking/sailing/biking/camping. But my life before kids was also a a constant laugh, and I was always out doing the outdoor stuff I loved (in a less limited way), and without the unimaginable amount of graft and inconvenience that goes with kids.

it should be equally desired by both parties.

In my bubble children are rarely desired equally by both parties. Desire for Children is more generally a female thing. For example thinking back to my school days I don’t think us lads were endlessly planning for, and discussing, marriage and children from six or eight years old the way my daughter and her friends do. For many women nurturing (and complaining about having to nurture) is a desirable hobby in itself. Less so for men IME.

My pension plan is to sell up buy a motorhome and drive round until all my money has gone then top myself.

If this goes badly you’ll have a Bedford Rascal camper and you’ll top yourself somewhere just outside of Worthing. No-one will find you until summer by which time your bloated corpse will be attracting the local wildlife and infested with maggots.

I’d rather top myself than live in a motorhome. What a strange world we live in!

what is your age, or more importantly your wifes age?

this is important as you may find there are certain rules around fertility treatment for your area. So if stuff doesn’t go to plan you need to know how quickly you should be engaging help from the NHS.

This could be important I agree. Some Trusts provide the NICE recommended 3 cycles for anyone without children struggling to conceive (I am not aware of any that will provide IVF if one or the other would-be parents already have children), some fewer, some none at all (or so restrictive to be practically none at all). The rate of male infertility these days is shockingly high (I remember reading recently it is around 20%) so even if you *DO* want children, it may not happen and, depending on your postcode, you may get little or no help from the NHS. Our twin girls (now aged 10) were conceived through IVF (male infertility). Fortunately we were successful first time as it cost us almost £6,000 and we could not have afforded another attempt. I know of friends that tried multiple times (>10) unsuccessfully which eventually tore them apart so be mentally prepared from the outset that things aren’t always as easy as you may think they will be.

But good luck – they are the most stressful things at times (we have one with some severe anxiety issues) but equally can bring you wonderful times (we have just heard that one has just passed her Grade 2 flute exam with a Distinction) 🙂

pray you get an easy one and read this not really understanding the fuss other parents make about a couple of missed hours

When our midwife did a home visit we complained about lack of sleep. Midwife asked how much we were getting. We told her if you added it up we were probably getting 8 hours a night. We didn’t get as much sympathy as we’d hoped. 🙂

Firstly, I don’t think the OP’s replied yet, STW is playing the usual game of top tropes, and I’d guess good for six pages. That’s a clear 9/10.

Okay…

Who’s going to care for you when you are no longer able to care for yourself?

The Wipearsatron II. Or basically anyone other than my kids.

Re shagging,”They’re trying for a baby” is a phrase you don’t hear much these days. The skills involved on the mans part are highly underrated. It’s very much like making love to a beautiful woman. Fine wines, Belgian chocolates, bish bash bosh, job’s a guddun. Over-disclosure: doing this everyday’s routine for a couple in their 20’s. By #3 and mid-30s having had the shit kicked out of us by two small ones it may become more of a grind. Push on through for a quick win.

It’s very much like making love to a beautiful woman.

Very much like, except it’s the wife. 🙂

From all my friends that have had trouble making little ones the only advice I can offer is to make sure your life is as stress-free as you can. Adding pressure of conceiving on top of other pressures just makes it harder to happen. Good luck!

Turned out we’d been ‘trying” for longer than I’d realised. Seems to be more common than you’d hoped.

Had that with an ex, despite me having had the talk with her early on about how I didn’t want kids. Later found out she had planned it from the start, thought I’d change my mind! Had the snip as soon as we split up, which was a shock to her when she phoned me and asked to meet up as a way to try and get back together.

If no one has spotted the lack of OP response and obvious thread to bait the masses yet, then standards are slipping round here.

Bring back Cressers!

conscientious values that are held by people who are worried about their impact on the planet are exactly the kind of values we need to be propagated in society in order to save it.

That is true. However, those that I know who have kids almost any sense of reason or ecological consciousness goes straight out the window.

Ferrying the kids about. Toys, almost exclusively plastic. Holidays on a beach in the sun, because who wants an active holiday in rainy UK?

My sister claims to be doing her bit for the environment because she is on a Facebook group where they share tips. Still going to Portugal this year. They still have two cars.

And she is not the only one. Parents become very me-me-me very quickly, ime.

On another note… Friends of ours with kids seem to be a lot shoutier than they were before kids.
The GF’s b-in-l has been visiting a sleep clinic for the last few months due to not having had a solid nights sleep in the last five years. Obviously partly his fault for getting up each time kiddo made a noise and letting them both sleep in the parents bed. Looking back at photos from their wedding you would think their wedding was 15 years ago. It was seven.

My pension plan is to sell up buy a motorhome and drive round until all my money has gone then top myself.

Very much my idea, too…. **** dying in a hospital or worse, a hospice.

Be prepared for the crushing disappointment, bimonthly episodes of grief, the occasional miscarriage and the emotional breakdown of your wife after

 spending all your savings on IVF

doesn’t work either…

Adoption is an option, but bear in mind that healthy, un-traumatised kids are not normally up for adoption

If no one has spotted the lack of OP response

Ahem

Firstly, I don’t think the OP’s replied yet, STW is playing the usual game of top tropes, and I’d guess good for six pages. That’s a clear 9/10.

I mean we’re getting grade II flute exam results here!

 Holidays on a beach in the sun, because who wants an active holiday in rainy UK?

Sorry and the problem is?

We nearly missed the boat and had to pay (a lot) for IVF because my wife had just turned 35 when we spoke to the consultant. However we’d be in the system for about a year, and had been trying since she turned 30.

Everyone is different, I’m 33 and my wife is 35 and we conceived without really trying, thought I’d get more practice in TBH… She’ll actually be 36 when the child is born. We thought she’d be high risk but cos she is in okay shape she is actually low risk.

Risk increases heavily if the first child is conceived at 40 or later and you will always get risk profiled for Downs prior to that. If you go through IVF, then it’s possible to ask for the more expensive tests too.

WRT IVF, it is a total test of a relationship and will expose any small flaws that are present or could develop. it’s really difficult to communicate how much strain several failed cycles puts on you as a couple, especially when/if the cycle is successful during the implantation stage and only fails in mid7late term. The worst is losing the foetus just before it is old enough to have reasonably developed lungs and therefore be a viable baby.

Yeah, that’s pretty much impossible to explain.

If it were me I’d just stop using contraception and cart on as normal. As much as I like horizontal jogging and being on a promise is cool, I’m not sure as I’d want to set recurring Alexa alarms for it. But then, I want kids about as much as I want an elephant so what would I know, each to their own.

None of you clever know what right for other people and the planet etc types have mentioned the obvious… it should be equally desired by both parties.
Can we just check this is the case before we go on?

Beat me to it. “The missus has decided” rather than “we have decided” is a bit concerning, unless it was tongue-in-cheek.

“The missus has decided” rather than “we have decided” is a bit concerning,

Concerning, but typical IME.

If it were me I’d just stop using contraception and cart on as normal. As much as I like horizontal jogging and being on a promise is cool, I’m not sure as I’d want to set recurring Alexa alarms for it.

Based on my experience I’d agree.  Its a pain in the arse and can become very clinical.  At least one of my kids was conceived after 6 pints of Stella & a Kebab aka the pretty normal shagging process 😉

At least one of my kids was conceived after 6 pints of Stella & a Kebab aka the pretty normal shagging process

The fact that you know that suggests there wasn’t much shagging going on in your relationship. Which suggests maybe for her it was all about conception even if you didn’t know. (Unless you have 6 pints of Stella & a Kebab every day, in which case, fair enough.)

Its a pain in the arse

You’re doing it wrong.

Unless you have 6 pints of Stella & a Kebab every day

Bear in mind we didn’t have kids at that point…   Its a euphemism anyway.  The reality and in seriousness point is we got bored and frustrated with the contrived process so reverted to spontaneous romance.  Not long after that Mrs K was pregnant.  For our second we didn’t revert to any clinical, astronomical or medical process.

I can’t put it any other way than that I don’t think.  But, its works for some and not for others.

The reality and in seriousness point is we got bored and frustrated with the contrived process so reverted to spontaneous romance. Not long after that Mrs K was pregnant.

A colleague tried, failed, tried IVF, failed, was told by consultants that their chances were very small due to her medical issues, started the journey of looking at adoption, went away for a weekend and got very, very drunk (kebabs probably featured too) and wound up pregnant. It’s a funny old world.

The missus has decided that now is the time to have sproglets. Bit of a leap of faith and what not. Anyway, just wondering if any of you did anything different to usual and how long it took until you’d conceived?

This is code for ”I made a bit of an error with a work colleague at the Christmas party but if I con you into copious unprotected sex now there’s a chance I’ll be able to fob it off as yours and get you to bring the little blighter up.”

I hope that helps to reassure.

P.s. If you decide to go through with it and you are one of these younuns that learnt about getting jiggy through internet porn then……not on the face. That’s not how it works.

The fact that you know that suggests there wasn’t much shagging going on in your relationship

Pretty normal marriage then?

Bear in mind we didn’t have kids at that point… Its a euphemism anyway. The reality and in seriousness point is we got bored and frustrated with the contrived process so reverted to spontaneous romance. Not long after that Mrs K was pregnant. For our second we didn’t revert to any clinical, astronomical or medical process.

I can’t put it any other way than that I don’t think. But, its works for some and not for others.

Fair enough.

+1 Avoid the contrived, set-the alarm-for-9pm-and-orgasm-together thing. Tried it and hated it. Turns you off sex it does.

Just make love.

Or not have kids. You really need to want them, as it’s a 50:50 call IME.

Has to be a wind up with that username surely!

If not the 3 pages of having your life judged by complete strangers is totally deserved for not just using google 😂

This is code for ”I made a bit of an error with a work colleague at the Christmas party but if I con you into copious unprotected sex now there’s a chance I’ll be able to fob it off as yours and get you to bring the little blighted up.”

I lol’d…. 😁

Reminds me of my cousin’s mate. This girl the guy was with was always said to be a bit promiscuous and had a thing for black guys. My cousin always joked about it. Matey was in the delivery room when the baby was born. The baby had a very dark skin colour.
Matey walked out there and then, went home and drove all her shit to her parent’s house.