Mr. Lime has hinted at delaying really TTC due to possible career advancement. He is convinced if I become pregnant some opportunities may disappear. Having a fulfilling career is important to me and a delay would be minimum 2-3 years. Did you delay TTC until you hit some milestone in your career or just established yourself more?
-
I would be more advanced in my career if I did not have children. I didn't even put in for a promotion this year because I'm pregnant. But, had I promoted then got pregnant, it would be a difficult situation for many under me.
-
Sort of. I had been trying to transition into a new job after leaving another one. It took longer than I had planned, so we waited a year more than we probably would have if I had been working at a place I liked. At one point, we decided to move forward with TTC regardless of what was going on with me.The irony is that I got my current position AFTER she was born. That said, I'm glad that I did have the extra year to do certain things.
-
I'm facing this now.
When I joined Hellobee in October, we were planning to start TTC in January/February … then I was accepted into a training program that pushed us back to May … now I have another (possible) opportunity that would push us back to October at the very earliest!
My Facebook newsfeed is blowing up today with people announcing pregnancies (after telling their families yesterday) and I am struggling more than I thought I would be. Doing all these things will provide a better foundation for our family and allow me to move forward in my career … but waiting is hard, especially when I feel like we've waited long enough.
-
I pretty much peaked in my career and then started a family. I am glad I was able to have that success before having kids.
-
No, I actually moved it up. I'm very early in my career (only been working full time 2.5 years) and in order to 'move up,' I either need to be in my job a few more years, or finish my Master's, which will also take me another 2 years. We decided it was better to start now before the opportunities were even available.
-
My career is still in the early stages as well. I have a few years before a promotion is possible so we decided to go ahead and TTC.
-
We may be delaying a second baby if I decide to move into educational administration. I don't feel it would be fair of me to accept a new job and then go out on maternity leave within the first year.
-
We decided to put it off when we first got married partly because we felt we were so early in our careers. We weren't that young but after grad school, switching careers, etc, it took us a while. A lot of things ended up changing before we decided to go off hiatus and we didn't TTC until things felt stable one way or another. Sometimes we wish we'd just taken our chances when we were younger but it is what it is.
-
We waited until I was at a point in my career where I had established my value to the firm and could afford to be away from work without any repercussions.
-
We were going to start ttc in summer 2012, but decided to wait until spring 2013 because of my career--I'm getting a phd, and decided I wanted to finish my qualifying exams first and get a big chunk of my research completed before I was due, since my research requires traveling, and about half of it is abroad. I'm really, really glad we waited--we got pregnant pretty quickly (4 months off bcp) and I will still have research I need to do after the baby is born, but it's a much better time right now than if this was last year and I wasn't finished with all my requirements aside from my dissertation. This time last year I was studying from like 6:30am-12:30am daily and was so stressed out, I couldn't handle that while pregnant!
-
@Bookish: We moved up as well.
I'm on a 3 year partnership track, and we figured why not have the first one now before I bump up? We may even be pregnant with #2 around promotion time, but my firm is very family friendly and have specifically told me that any kiddos and maternity leave will not affect my timeline whatsoever. Pretty generous, which made it easy to bump up the date rather than feel the pressure to delay like many of our friends.
-
Didn't delay at all, but career delayed serious relationships and usual life stuff, if that makes sense. So I didn't have much of a choice!
-
@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: Yes, I delayed TTC to start my career and run my own business. I slightly regret it. I'm 35 now and am struggling to conceive. Also, now that I'm established as a company, it will be hard to cut back. I'm a wedding photographer, so I book at least a year in advance, which makes planning for a baby really difficult. Anyway, you shouldn't delay too long, but you're probably just fine if you're still in your 20s!
-
No, and in fact my business is hitting some levels I never thought it would, and I don't have as much time to nurture it, but I don't regret choosing to have babies at the expense of my biz.
-
No, but then again I fell into what I'm doing and I passed up a promotion to have a more flexible schedule for babies. I love what I do and that its flexible for a bigger co.
-
Nope.. But I've always known that I want a family-friendly career, so taking time off for maternity leave and having flexibility was always a consideration of mine (and always will be). So I'll only be working for companies that don't see that as a detriment. Wagon Sr is similar. A bit tough to find, and we both make less than we could by working for non profits, but for us it's worth it.
-
No, but I got married when I was almost 33 so I was pretty settled in my career.
-
No but I got married in my early 30s so it wasn't as much of an issue.
However my career plans may delay or preclude ttc a second LO. -
Absolutely had to...we got married while I was in medical school and now I'm in residency. Can't possibly have a baby with the hours I'm currently working. However, my schedule gets lighter starting in July so that's why we are TTC now. We're both 30.
-
Not really, but the almost year delay in getting that BFP we were hoping for helped establish my current place at work much more than I could have expected. As hard as it was going through it, I'm very grateful it happened so I can continue my work on a more part-time and freelance aspect than I would have been able to before.
-
We didn't. My career gets progressively demanding so starting a family sooner rather than later made sense. Also, many women in my career end up without families because of the nature of the work. I do not want to become one of those.
-
Kind of. We waited until I was in a PhD program and had a year under my belt, even though I really would have liked to start a year or so earlier. But we didn't wait as long as some people advised us to. If we had, we probably would have had to wait a year or two later than we already did. So we just will make do!
-
The delay was in finding the right guy to start a family with. But in the meantime, I've been lucky to finally land a flexible job with a decent salary and good benefits. My job is one of the best I could have for balancing work and family.
Of course, I had to go and start grad school... (My job pays for it, so why not?) So that's what I have to plan around now.
-
My job is my life and I'm most worried about how a baby will impact it. As a teacher, I won't be advancing until I go back to school for my admin credentials. I won't feel comfortable in a supervisory role for a few years anyways...and I'm not waiting 5-7 years to start a family. However, I teach welding, mechanics and run a greenhouse, teach animal science and a speech class, and I have no idea where they will find me a sub. My kids will probably also have to miss out on contests and field trips while im on maternity leave and this breaks my heart because i know how much those experinces mean to them. I finally decided id just have to do my best and accept what would come.
-
Kind of. We held off on marriage and thus TTC for a while, we were together for 8 years before tying the knot. The reason we held off is because we were still in school and then I went back to nursing school, delaying everything further. Now that we are married, we wanted to TTC immediately, then I got into Nurse Practitioner school. It's going to be hard, but I don't want to wait 2-3 more years to start having kids. It's going to be hard as hell, but DH is so supportive and has told me that everything I've ever really wanted to accomplish, I have. He's the greatest!
-
@Mrs.Panda: wow, we are relationship twins! DH and I waited to get married to get our careers (mostly mine) on track with me going back to nursing school. We were together almost 8 years before we got married too! Crazy! <sorry to thread jack there>
Anyway, I'm a firm believer in everything working out like it's "supposed to", whether you wait or throw caution to the wind and go for it!
-
When DH and I got married I said I wanted to hold off on having kids for at least 3-4 years... not due to career advancement per se but because I had just finished grad school the year before and wanted a "break" from jumping from one thing to the next. At age 26 (the age I got married), I had been in school for a total of about 22 years (from pre-school through grad school) and have worked since I was 14! No way I wanted to juggle working full time, getting used to marriage and a baby
Anyhoo, the one nugget of advice I gleaned from Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In book is to not step out of the game until you're out of the game. Meaning, if you're thinking of trying for kids this year or in XYZ years, don't pull back from work until you actually have the baby! So many women do that, missing out on opportunities for career advancement before and even during their pregnancy.
I am pregnant now at age 28 (and praying for a H&H baby) so we only ended up waiting 2 years. This is fine for me because I feel initially I was kind of waiting for my ideal career/dream job and I realized why the hell am I putting such a huge important component to my life just because of a job. I love working but I refuse to let my job run my life.
There's no such thing as work/life balance... there is only "life balance" so no matter what you decide just let it be the best decision for you and your family.
-
Well I was in a long relationship before I met my husband, I was with that guy from the time I was 24 to 31. Then we broke up and I was engaged to my husband about a year later ( we knew each other 2 years before).
I worked because I had to, there was no one supporting me or in the position to support me if I didn't, YKWIM? My former boyfriend wasn't the best with money and also had to support his mother. So, I worked and just did what I had to do.
When my husband and I were married I was older and we decided to wait until 2010 to try to conceive. We were married about a year and I half when I got pregnant. I had been working for so long that I got an extended maternity leave and was in the position to take 2 years off following my sons birth.
I don't know if that provides you any useful insight, lol. I just would live it if you had a child sooner than later, I feel like you'd be spectacular and super stylish!
Reply
Subscribe to our newsletter
- Google Plus
- Stumbleupon
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Pinterest
- Favorite0
28 comments