My husband and I have been playing fast and loose with birth control for a couple months now (rhythm method), and had talked about getting serious about ttc in August with the goal of a summer 2016 due date. But, his brother's wife is currently pregnant with number 3 due in November and his sister just announced last weekend that she's pregnant with her first and due in February. I'm wondering if it makes sense to back off our plans and let them have their time or if it doesn't matter if we're all pregnant/having babies at once. I don't think his family would be weird about it, but three pregnant/newly post-partum ladies would be a lot at the holidays this year. Has anyone else on here been pregnant at the same time as multiple family members? How has it worked out?
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DO IT! My SIL and I had kids only 9 months apart from each other, so we weren't actually pregnant at the same time, but our kids LOVE each other!!!! It's so great having cousins so close in age!!!
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I don't see why not! My SIL and I were pregnant at the same time; her with 2nd and me with 1st. It's great that DD has a cousin that's practically her twin!
ETA: the girls are 2 weeks apart
Also, not too much downside for us. She hogged her mom, and I hogged my own. Even if her mom was free, she couldn't have been much help anyway since they were further and they don't drive.
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My SIL and I had our boys 4 months apart. I think its awesome because those boys will get to be best buds growing up! Being pregnant at the same time was a non-issue.
I wouldn't change your plans because of anyone elses. -
I have two sister-in-laws on one side of my family, and all three of us had our boys within 4 months of each other. Lots of commiseration, sharing clothes, and built-in playmates.
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My response doesn't fit into your options.
The pregnancy part was fun in some parts, but was predominately hard. We both had pregnancy complications and our family was spread super thin. I also don't feel as close to my nephew sometimes as I would be if I didn't have a child the same age. I adore him, but my arms are always full (so to speak) when we are with them. My mom was also pretty exhausted in the beginning trying to give us equal support (although our kids are 1 month apart).
BUT... the boys are BEST FRIENDS. Absolutely and completely adore each other. From that perspective, it was the best thing ever.
ETA: I think SIL and sister are two very different scenarios.
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The only downside is that someone misses out on good hand me downs. My two nephews are only six months apart so obviously my sister and SIL were pregnant at some of the same time. I think my nephews are so lucky they have a cousin so close in age!
Not the same thing but if my mom group from my first LO, almost all of us had second kids within 8 months of each other. Ten of us went to dinner once and nine were pregnant. It's been awesome going through stages around the same time again.
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My nephew is exactly 14 weeks younger than my son, and it's the best thing ever! My sister and I LOVED being pregnant together.
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I would never put my own pregnancy plans on hold just because other family members are pregnant. Our family is so large - there are currently 3 of us in the same area pregnant - and I know my sister is TTC, too. So yeah, no. Continue on with your plan.
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Eh, I don't think it's worth considering in your own family planning. Sometimes MIL over schedules help so that can be frustrating. I'd rather have her say no than be running late- after I missed a dr appointment that T could not come to because SIL was running late I asked MIL to no longer book us on the same day.
ETA our niece and T are 4 months apart.
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My brother's wife and I had babies 2 days apart last fall! It was AWESOME. It's so amazing to have someone exactly at the same stage as you during pregnancy and baby days. We text non stop. We live a plane ride away so the boys won't really "grow up" together, but I know they'll still have a really close relationship which is great. For both of us it was our second babies so that may have played into it more that we didn't really need to feel special and celebrated. But I really don't see any reason for you to hold off. I think having babies close together will be great.
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My close friend has a twin brother and their wives just had kids two weeks apart. They're both still newborns so I don't know how it will work out but I know that neither of them felt upstaged or anything.
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Thanks everybody, it sounds like it usually works pretty well. I'm going to tell myself to stop stressing, and hopefully that works.
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I'm due very close in time to another family member. It's been awkward to say the least. She married into the family while I was born into it and she's not well-liked to begin with (lots of reasons for this, trust me when I say we've tried!!!). I don't really care ordinarily but I feel like she really resents me which is petty as hell. And not to be an ass, but she tried for a few months when it took us two years!!!!! So if anyone should be resentful, you'd think it would be me. I just want this baby. The rest of it is dumb. But I think this is all symptomatic of a relationship that isn't the greatest, and if we were close, it would be awesome!
ETA: But I wouldn't let any of the above impact family planning!
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I wouldn't plan my Family around anyone else personally nor the holidays - it's on year, it will be fine. If anything it would be better for the kids to be closer together.
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I think you need to do what works best for your own family. But I'll say my SIL had overlapping pregnancies and it's fun that our LOs are only 5 months apart.
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To me this would be ideal in terms of instant same-age cousins. Plan your family on the best time frame that works for you and your SO.
None of our sibs have kids or planning to have any though. No close in age cousins over here.
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I say go for it--especially when you really don't know how long it'll take to get pregnant. Hopefully it'll be quickly, but it certainly doesn't always work out that way. And you'll all still be plenty far apart to get to have your own moment in the spotlight, but babies to grow up together, too. Good luck & welcome to HB.
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@GoGoSnoGirl: True. I have work (higher ed) obligations that make a summer baby kind of important, though, so we're planning to try for 4 cycles and if it hasn't happened stop trying until next summer. So who knows.
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I don't think it makes sense to factor other people into your family plans. I got pregnant the very first month of trying with LO1 and it took 14 months to get pregnant again (had a couple miscarriages in the interim). I guess the lesson I learned is that sometimes you don't always have as much control over things as you would expect (which was a hard lesson for this control freak to learn!). If you want a baby, I say go for it!
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Go for it! Do what is right for you and your husband. Don't worry about other people, even if they are your family members. I think it's kind of silly to center your family making plans around someone else's life.
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My mom has 4 sisters and tons of close in age cousins, plus I have lots of girl cousins so someone is basically always pregnant. I don't live close to them unfortunately, but my mom said it was great to have close relatives in the same stages as her and I always loved having cousins. Every time I visit my daughter enjoys being around so many kids her age! Think of your kiddos all growing up and being instant best friends. Also... I think it would make it easier rather than harder at holidays and other family get togethers- there will be age appropriate toys and the right size emergency diaper at everyone's houses.
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My niece is two weeks older than LO. It's awesome. The only issue was around announcing we were pregnant. We both started to TTC at the same time and had losses (ours was public, they hadn't announced yet) and people were worried that there would be ill will when they announced. There wasn't, especially because we were pregnant too
It was nice to go through pregnancies together. The only drawback was that sometimes it's hard not to compare weights and milestones.
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My sister and I were pregnant at the same time and it was exciting. Our boys are 3 months apart and it's really cute. It was such an exciting time. I would never base my plans around anyone else's, it's too important.
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Do it! Forget about pregnancy and newborn stage. Think about how amazing it would be to have all those cousins so close together! My cousins all had their kids close in age in stages (so they did it not once, not twice, but three times!) and it is adorable and awesome.
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Having gone through this, we had a difficult outcome that most don't have, so I will say.. it can be tricky if something goes wrong.
One of our IVF cycles worked and we were gleefully expecting. Within a few weeks, my brother/SIL had a 'surprise' and we were excited to find out we were due a few weeks apart.
Unfortunately, I lost our baby at 11 weeks and had to go through the rest of that time with a very, very pregnant SIL (& friend) and it was so very difficult.... the pregnancy, the birth, the newborn we never had.
It's fine now - and I love my nephew like crazy, but it was tough. x
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pregnancy is a whole 9 months so I wouldnt put it off because a sister or sister in law was pregnant. I dont think I've heard of that being done. I dont think any pregnant person should have that expectation of being the only pregnant one in the family/extended family at a time
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I would never base my family plans around my siblings
do whatever you guys want to do and when you want to do it!
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Do it! I was pregnant with 3 other cousins at the same time, it's fun!
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I personally would not hold off TTC based on birthdays or holidays or pregnancies or any other event. If you are all roughly in the same stage of life, someone is bound to be pregnant at the same time as someone else. For both of my pregnancies I was pregnant at the same time as my SILs and it was never an issue, and now the cousins are close in age.
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I **wish** my sil's would have kids around our kids ages. But alas both are still single and we're already cooking #2 which will be our last....
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You can't let other peoples pregnancies effect your reproductive plans, it could take you months to even GET knocked up!
From my side: We are now starting cycle 11 of trying,, and would NEVER dream of taking a break just because someone else was pregnant. If fact, my moms boyfriends kids BOTH recently announced this month that they were expecting in January/February, and it was a surprise for both. (I may have cried a bit when I found out, they don't know we're trying).
Also, my cousin is only a year and a bit younger than me, and our sisters are only 6 months apart, so we all always had a cousin our age(ish) to play with at gatherings.
That same cousin and his wife had their first daughter just 11 months before my daughter, and they love playing together.
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Honestly, close in age cousins might turn out not to be the closest cousing pairings! Right now, my son is closest to his cousin that is 8 years older than him!
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@karenbme: lo1 is 6 months younger than cousin 1 and lo2 is 3 months younger than cousin 3. It was nice to "share"
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@looch: good point. My cousin who is like my sister is over 10 years older than me and it's always been that ways I'm just over 10 years older than the oldest so they are Ts closest cousins even though they are way older.
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