Hellobee Boards

When my husband and I started dating we had a long list of criteria. I wanted to go back to school, he wanted to make X amount of money, we wanted to own a home, etc.

We've let go of most of those now. It will be a long time before most of our goals are met, and a child won't make them impossible. We both want to be young-ish parents and we figure that there will always be something. We have enough money to provide, insurance, and more than enough love to go around. I think we're ready!

We've had 3 TTC start dates. Something always came up and so the date would always pushed back. I realized that we were waiting to the 'best' time. We had checklists with things we have to do. At this point, if we went by those lists, we wouldn't have kids for about another 5-6 years. They were major things that could wait til after the baby. (We don't want to wait that long.) After those setbacks, we realized that they were just excuses. So we have most of our important things done, so now we are just waiting for one more minor thing to happen. Even if it doesn't work out, we are still going to start TTC in a November/December. I'm excited!

We've already accomplished everything that would be on my "list" (college graduates, steady, stable income, own a house) before we were seriously considering having children.

So at this point, we are in the "winging it" camp and will try whenever we feel like it, which might be soon.

We recently discussed this and since we are already married, have a home and love our jobs, but there are still things we want to accomplish....

pay off my student loans - almost there!
make it to the next level in each of our careers- both on track for this in the next year or two
buy a new car
save up a nest egg we feel comfortable with
go on one more big trip
renovate our bathroom
get to a healthier weight

It sounds like so much, but I think it may realistically happen in about 3 years. I think we'll re-evaluate where we are in a couple years either way, because it wouldn't be the end of the world if these weren't all checked off first.

We made spreadsheets in our decision to TTC--Budgets, Timelines, etc. Basically, we wanted to make sure we were in a position to raise our kids the way we wanted to (AKA not strapped for cash), but ultimately decided that the conditions would NEVER be perfect and now is as good a time as any despite not owning our own home quite yet or having our lives truly in order.

We're going the "traditional" route, I guess. Met in high school, got married after college, got good jobs, bought a house & got a dog last year. A few of our friends who got married after us already have kids or are pregnant, so we're one of the last ones! But I'm glad that we did everything else first, so now we feel a little more "ready."

I didn't get married until I was 30 and DH was 41. Having a baby was part of our pre-engagement discussion. We already had a house, jobs, and lots of experiences so we started during the honeymoon...

A few things that would have been on our list were things we accomplished prior to marriage (house, finish school). Mainly, we wanted to wait until a certain age to TTC, but we just decided to go for it anyways (initially wanted to wait until I was 28 -- I'm 26).

We definitely wanted to pay off any debt other than my student loans, our car and house... which we did. Now, we're just winging it!

@Pepper - We were planning on waiting until I was 28, but moved up our timeline and I was 25 when we got pregnant.

We actually waited until we had bought our house and I had been at a company with insurance for a year so I could take FMLA. Aside from that it just felt right. We took the Purposeful Conception class (http://www.purposefulconception.com/) with Mrs. Cheese and it really helped us realize how ready we actually were. I would highly recommend it.

We kept changing what was on our list. When we first got married, we agreed to wait a year and try and pay off all cc debt. Once we hit our anniversary, I was two months into a new job, so we decided to wait a few more months to make sure I was FMLA eligible. We also knew we wanted to move before a baby was born, but we got ahead on that one and bought last fall when the market crashed.

So we are not quite TTC yet (almost! Counting down the months/weeks/days!), but I'll throw in my 2cents. For us getting married was the biggest criteria. Second to that was time-- we wanted to be married a while and have time together to build our marriage and our life as a couple. But then I got baby fever and voted to move our date up

So then the criteria shifted to paying down some debt, but primarily putting money into savings. We're working on both of those things now. We also have an unofficial list of things to experience before baby makes 3... everything from dinner parties and dancing lessons to road trips or staying in bed all day. It's making these last few months quite the adventure!

We had a list but when my endometriosis started getting worse we decided to toss the list and start trying. Little did we know we'd get pregnant right away!
If I've learned anything in my life it's that I can't make a plan because it never works out

We don't necessarily have a list. We were married in July and have always wanted to start trying to have a baby. We wanted to pay down some debt (not necessarily all of it), and did not feel necessary to buy a home first. We live in a pretty sizable duplex so we are happy here.

I suppose one major thing was to make sure I was not going to deliver said baby before receiving my Master's Degree - just easier to have it after the fact

I don't think we had a specific list, but we wanted to have our "us" time after marriage before having kids. After a couple of years of marriage, we realize there wasn't really an "ideal" time to have kids, but we already had a lot of things in your poll checked off...
We already owned a home, I finished grad school, our only debt was the mortgage... the only thing we thought about was getting through the wedding season so we didn't have to explain why I wasn't drinking (if I got pregnant right away)!

I voted "winging it" without really thinking about it, but after reading the other responses, I really think it's just that we've already checked things off the list--we're in decent places in our careers, have savings, are married, live in a big enough home for a baby, I'm in grad school but will be done with classes in the spring...so there's nothing big left on the checklist. So really we're just waiting now for DH to be comfortable going for it...

No list, per say, but I wanted to be married roughly a year before TTC. I don't think we're emotionally ready for a baby yet, as a couple. As individuals, we really want kids. But we didn't have an open, unguarded conversation about kids until this past month. As much as I want to be off birth control yesterday, he's still got to make career decisions. (We can't raise a baby on my disability payments while he goes to school, and getting a job is really hard when you've got a history of seizures and memory loss.)