Right now my focus is on house hunting, but, I know there are things I should probably ideally do before I pull my IUD this summer or fall.
What home/life/relationship/money things were really important for you to get lined up before TTC?
Hindsight being 20/20, what do you wish you'd done?
Did you get any advice about things you "should" do that didn't turn out to be important or useful to you?
*edited to fix a missing word*
bananas / 9229 posts
Traveling! We went to Japan this past thanksgiving, saw DMB at the Gorge Labor Day weekend... Those were two big items for us!
GOLD / cantaloupe / 6581 posts
Ours was buying a house! Which we did! We wanted to travel out of the country before TTC, but budget-wise, it would have put our TTC timeline back at least a year, if not two, so it was not worth it. We have managed to take small trips in the country every year, so that scratches my travel itch 
coconut / 8483 posts
@lilyofthewest: Hoping to travel a bit before we TTC, but the only thing holding us back is that I get barely any vacation time!
pear / 1697 posts
Travel has been on my mind. My sweetie really wants to do some international traveling, but, I don't get enough leave at my job to take more than a week off. My prior experience is that even when I do everything right, if I move more than 3 time zones, I'm a jetlagged mess for 3 or more days on either side of traveling.
I think we're going to compromise and do some significant but less time zone heavy trips this summer and fall.
bananas / 9899 posts
We wanted to have the house mostly paid off. We're actually around 2 years away from it being completely paid off, right on schedule as planned! 
Also, I want to get to Europe to visit my Grandma sometime before I am too pregnant.
eggplant / 11824 posts
Traveling; so much easier/cheaper before kids.
Having our finances in good order. That didn’t mean being completely debt free, but it meant having NO credit card or consumer debt (I’m ok with mortgage and student loans) and a decent amount of savings.
Talking about the “big parenting decisions” (cue scary music!) beforehand, including pregnancy decisions like what we would do if the fetus had health issues, etc.
Go to the dentist, have you annual physical (both regular PCP physical and GYN annual).
Also, my husband only had a 2 door sports coupe, so we traded that in for a more family friendly car.
pomelo / 5469 posts
Travelling was a big one for me. Last year alone I got to go to Hawaii, California, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Spain. I also wanted to get to a certain point in my career which will hopefully give me a better chance of getting work when I go back.
The only thing I wanted to do but haven't, is to buy a house. Though the time hasn't been right for us to commit to one location for a number of years, so we're putting that on hold.
wonderful cherry / 21504 posts
Traveling or planning the big trips that we wanted to do before baby (like we knew we wanted to go to Alaska, so we planned it while pregnant, but knew before TTC that we would).
Taking advantage of girls weekends away, lazy weekends, general things that will be harder come baby. We also did a big New Years trip last year with friends, hoping that I'd be pregnant this year (which I was/am).
I wanted to lose weight and get fit before TTC so I'd go into the pregnancy in good shape, which would hopefully help me come out of it in good shape. Failed on that one, but so far weight gain and everything has been totally fine and generally I'm more comfortable with my body now than before I got pregnant.
Most things I felt we could do after we got pregnant- like I didn't want to move to a bigger rental until I was pregnant, so we wouldn't be living in a big place, paying more for it, and have it as a daily reminder if TTC took a long time. It was a little stressful looking for a place once I did get pregnant, but I'm still glad we did it this way. You still have 9 months of time to prepare!
ETA: Obviously financial planning stuff but I think that's a given, and where you want to be financially is different for every couple!
GOLD / wonderful apricot / 22276 posts
We had a bigger apartment on our list. We wanted a house but we wanted to TTC right away so the house was on hold. We did just buy a house though and DD is 6 months, so it wasn't too much of a wait.
cherry / 131 posts
For me it was finishing my degree and becoming established enough in a job that I qualified for mat leave, and also wasn't going on leave too soon after starting. This was very important since I'm the main earner (DH is still in grad school and will be for a while).
DH just felt we should have a house first, so I'm taking the speed with which he initiated the search and decided we should put in an offer as a sign of his ttc readiness.
We also plan to get a car at some point. We're fine walking, biking and using transit for now, but I would really rather have a car for when we have a baby in tow.
apricot / 280 posts
Buying a house is really the only major thing holding us off right now, though, we still feel like we’re too young to have a kid anyway. We think that 30 is a good age for us so we still have a few years left. Our plan is to *hopefully* buy a house late this year/early next, get settled, maybe take a big trip or two (we’d love to get to Europe and maybe an Alaskan cruise) then start trying. We have no desire to rush. Once you got the kid, you can’t return it so we really want to make sure that we’re in the best position possible before taking that leap.
pear / 1697 posts
@FoodNerd81 - I'm trying to get a bit more fit before throwing the challenge of pregnancy at my body, but, it is an uphill struggle. I am finding it a little easier to motivate myself stay active and eat well with the goal of making pregnancy easier. Just a much more rewarding goal than "avoid fat shaming".
@Boa - A house is a must on my before list because I dread and loathe the process of moving. Even in a best-case scenario I whine, moan, and generally behave as though I'm being tortured to death. Props to you for doing it with an infant.
@KissMeCait - Good for you for planning while you've got time. I did an abrupt 180º on wanting kids about 2 years ago. Before then I was in the never, ever, absolutely not! camp. So, now I'm 31, my partner is 6 years older, and both of us are feeling not only the baby rabies but also the practical time-crunch of advancing age.
persimmon / 1491 posts
insurance...check to make sure you have additonal coverages necessary...like AFLAC...i didnt know about it and we were going to start to TTC but because there is a 3 month wait period...we had to delay our TTC by three months, because of it...
pear / 1697 posts
@MrsCastro - good point. I have short-term disability through my work already, but open enrollment (when I could upgrade my coverage and increase the % of pay I take home) is in July. IIRC, I just have to certify that I'm not *currently* preggers when I change my policy, but I'll have to double-check and find out if/what the waiting period is.
eggplant / 11408 posts
@foodnerd81 @lilyofthewest
Getting fit is huge for me! I tried on my own with no success for two years. In October, I finally got sick of it and joined Weight Watchers online. It was terrifying at first, because I had to admit that meant I was bigger than I wanted to be and couldn't do it alone. But I had a dear friend lose 60 btw her first and second pregnancies, and it made a huge difference for her. Five months out, I feel so much better and more ready to try -down 33 lbs!
That said, DH always reminds me-the number means much less than I think it does. Getting healthy-even just trying to -means everything. Hard to remember, harder to accept-but I try!
olive / 73 posts
I wanted to finish grad school and work for a few months before TTC and the time has finally come!
pear / 1697 posts
@Hazelnut - I originally wanted to try to finish grad school first. Then I looked at a calendar and realized exactly how long it would be before I had finished school, sat for my license, gotten a job, and had that job for long enough to qualify for FMLA.
And then I said, @#$%, I'm just going to give in to the baby rabies and spend 9 million years doing grad school part time.
Good on you for getting it done!
pea / 9 posts
I did have the big stuff - more financially secure, paying off debts etc on my list and then we said stuff it if we waited to be debt free we'll never be ready - thou we did wait until we were financially more sound (I am currently working a permanent contract for the yr which means a 40% pay increase for 12 months giving us a huge leg up - plus guaranteed to finish the contract out even if I got pregnant now as it ends dec and earliest I'll be due is Dec/Jan). I've also always had TRY to eat healthier and exercise as a goal - but that's for life not just before TTC
I actually put less serious things on my to-do list - travel and entertainment stuff, such as:
1. See the colosseum
2. Go to the drag races
3. Go to a ballet
4. Go see something "on-ice"
5. See Cirque Du Soleil
etc
It just gave me a boost to try new things (yes I am aware I can do some of these things once I am pregnant/a mum but it is much easier to do it now :))
bananas / 9227 posts
I had my teeth fixed and in better shape before TTC. I wish I did a better job with my weight, but I had an accident and injured my ankle (which left me immobile for a few months) and it couldn't be helped.
I wish we did more home improvement. I felt like we needed to be more conservative on spending because of the baby, so we put off all our renovation plans. Now that DD is almost 9 months old, it's still not done and my guess is it'll take awhile! We should have just done it then, who cares if it was noisy while I was pregnant?! Sigh.
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