OH CRAP- I’M BROODY!!
We’ve been married for a year now, have been together for over 7 years. We’ve always knew that we wanted children in the future.
When we initially got married the plan was clear. I was only 24, Rav 25, we knew we wanted to wait atleast 4 years before having children.
Why the wait?
NUMEROUS REASONS.
1. We wanted to have quality husband-wife time before little babies took priority-that’s ok isn’t it?!
2. We wanted to earn enough money to afford kids- nappies are expensive!! Plus we wanted to be in a position where our kids would never go without anything, take them on holiday twice a year, have a cleaner/maid/ironing lady around the house so we can spend quality time together with the kids rather than being bogged down with housework (we don’t want much do we?!).
3. We wanted to get our travel bug out of systems. We both left school, went straight into 5 years of uni then have been working like dogs for the past 3 years. We want to see the world and have fun whilst we’re still young- so we had decided to take a ‘kind of a year out thing‘ from August 2015 onwards. The plan was to locum for 6 weeks, and ‘travel/holiday’ for 4 weeks etc for a whole year or maybe more. This was we can continue to pay our mortgage and properly explore far away destinations like China, Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific.
4. I think we both felt too young to have kids. We just about can look after ourselves! We almost felt too selfish to have children at the moment.
5. Sounds selfish- but I didn’t think I was ready to go through the body changes in pregnancy- does that sound bad?!! I’ve been slim for so long and have been lucky in the sense that I eat more than my husband and still remain slim (I do exercise regularly)- I just know my fat genes will kick in after having the a baby- ‘Plump’ does not suit me- it goes all to my face and ass- just like Kim Kardashian- but she was stunning to start off with- so God knows what you’d get with me!!-Rav knows what I look like as a plump chicken- he’s seen my early teen picks when blocks of cheese used to constitute a meal for me- NEVER AGAIN! Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all about putting on a bit of weight, but the backache, the tiredness, swollen ankles, and what’s more scary is worsening of the heart burn…mine’s so bad as it is, I just know I’ll be a total moan bag when having to deal with all these changes. The only upsides are the bigger boobs and rumour has it that if you’re pregnant you’re allowed to wee in a policeman’s hat without getting into trouble (I have no idea who told me that!).
6. We didn’t want to regret having children too early. Take a look at my parents- they had me when they were my age (I think), they went on honeymoon in the early 80′s to Spain- nearly 30 years ago! They have only managed to have a holiday by themselves a few weeks ago. They never liked leaving us kids and always gave financial priority to our education. Don’t get me wrong, I think they were happy to make those choices, and they’re still happily married together, they actually have a really strong relationship considering my dad worked away from home 5 out of 7 days of the week for the past 30 years. I think my fear was ‘losing ourselves’, being so busy and consumed by your kids, you forget who you actually are as a single human being or as a couple.
7. We wanted the rest of Rav’s cousins to get married and have kids at the same time as us so our kids can enjoy growing up with their cousins. Being Indian, both of us grew up with our cousins- they were more like our siblings and best friends. Most of our best childhood memories were made when we were hanging out with our cousins, we want our children to have that experience too.
So as you can see there are many reasons why we thought we should wait to have children, some logical and some a little selfish (I never said we were perfect!).
BUT
I was surprised to see that our views had changed when we went on a short 5 day European break 2 weeks ago. We spent the entire trip planning our children and getting REAL broody.
How has this happened?
We saw parents introducing their toddlers to swimming, grandparents throwing their grandsons across the pool and parents making sure their children’s suncream was topped up. We saw children smartly dressed for dinner, then stuffing their faces with spaghetti like they wouldn’t get to eat again. TOO CUTE FOR WORDS!!
Children and SCARY but then can be such BLESSINGS.
Just seeing the love between parents and their babies has triggered something in us! I think part of it may well having something to do with someone close to us currently being pregnant. It’s almost like all of the reasons listed above didn’t matter anymore.
I think Rav will be an awesome dad, he’ll be the strict parent, I think I’ll be a pushover (my siblings will disagree!).
We left our holiday wanting a baby, wanting to start a family BUT that was until reality set back in- I went straight into nightshifts and we were back to feeling beyond exhausted again!
All I can say for now is that we SO look forward to having children, the fun that we’ll have and the memories we’ll make will be priceless.The birthday parties and Christmas days we’ll have will be totally AWESOME (all thanks to Pinterest!).
But for now, we can’t even look after ourselves when we’re doing all of these crappy night shifts and long weekends at work, and as a result I don’t feel we could give our child everything he/she would deserve and that’s including the simple thing called TIME. You can have all the financial stability in the world but no child will do well if the parents can’t make time for them- you don’t need to be a genius to work that one out!
I want our family to eat dinner together at a table, I want us all to go on walks, I want to have time to paint/draw and help our children out with their work, and I want to see my children on Christmas day rather than be working a long shift at work. These are the things that are important to us in life. Last year it totally broke my heart that I couldn’t spend Christmas or New Years with my husband and my family because I had to work, I don’t want to do that to our children.
So that’s why the plan still stands at maybe baby in 4 years time, when we’ll hopefully reach a point in our careers where we’ve become established and don’t have to work unsociable hours (hopefully the Government will back off and won’t make any changes to our working directives). And just a note to our cousins reading- get a move on and make sure your baby delivery is synced with ours!
WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT YOU WOULD HAVE TO PUT SO MUCH THOUGHT INTO HAVING A CHILD?!?! {teenagers take note}
I take my hat off to every parent out there, to work and selflessly dedicate yourself to a child is a pretty amazing thing- I DON’T KNOW HOW YOU DO IT, but I hope one day we will get to raise our own children and will work it out for ourselves!
We will be looking to you for tips!
