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Ideally, 35. But I would be willing to go up to maybe 38. Pregnancy was hard on my body even with my first, at 30. So I'm a little scared to push it too far out, you know?
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I'd ideally like to be done by 35 but if that wasn't in the cards for me, I'd be fine being pregnant up to 38-39.
ETA: I'm 30 but will be 31 when we have our first. We are considering two biological and one adoption.
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early 40's. had my first LO at 36, and would like to have another but not sure when. sooner rather later would be nice (like at 38 or 39), but i'm leaving myself some wiggle room.
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I would like to be done by 35, with 36 being my absolute latest
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34 or 35.
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Based on our planned child spacing, we'll be done by 32 if we stop at 2 or 35 if we go for 3. But if something were to happen to mess up our plans I'd still be open to actively trying until I was 40, and then probably evaluate the situation. By that point it would be more about not wanting 10 years between oldest and youngest and being in the "active parenting" stage of life for so long vs. health risks.
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35 is the latest. I'm 32 now, so she'll probably be my only.
@luckypenny: ((hugs))) I'm so sorry. My grandma had Alzheimer's and it's quite trying on families. Praying for you and your family.
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I think 39 would be my cut off. I'm 35 and want 1 or 2 more.
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I'm currently 34 and I think my cut off would be 36. If you asked me when I was in my 20s, I would have given you a very different answer.
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I said 31-35. I just can't see myself having the energy to keep up with a baby/toddler if I'm much older than that. Granted, I have narcolepsy, so that has a lot of influence on my decision.
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This thread has turned out to be really interesting!
@luckypenny: I'm so sorry for your situation!In my childhood, I grew up with exceedingly young parents (19/24 when they had me).. It definitely had benefits and drawbacks. They were done with four kids and an 11 year age gap between me and the youngest by age 31/36. Unfortunately, young age for having kids didn't always predict good health, and we still had some serious parental health issues to deal with.
I feel lucky that we did get to our ideal family sizeby age 40, but if you asked me at a younger age, I think I would have said I'd definitely plan to be done by age 30! (little did I know that I still felt like a little kid at that age!)
Anyway, it's fascinating. When I lived in Seattle I probably would have a higher age limit than I do in SLC because all the moms at SO young here! One of my co-workers has 8 mostly grown kids. She's 38--- a time when I was just starting!
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My age cutoff is 32. We'll being getting a permanent form of birth control at that point if we haven't had another.
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@looch: remind me to do that experiment when all of the hellobees are 10 years older!
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I really wanted to be done by 30, but with my long hiatus of being single I gave in & said being done by 35 would be acceptable. Now that we'll have 3 before my 30 cut off though I might stick with my original plan.... idk, one more *might* be nice. lol
I would never terminate a pregnancy that happened past my "cut off" but I really don't think I'd ever actively ttc either.. I really liked being a young mom & still am trying to come to terms with how old I'll be when the kids are finally out of the house.
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I'm 32 and not started TTC yet but soon, so by late 30s I hope to be done
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My mom had her first two daughters (me and my sister) at mid 20's with ease and then her third daughter at 32 and had so many health problems. She ended up delivering at 27 weeks and it was a struggle for all of us. We thought our baby sister was going to die. But she pulled through and is healthy now.
You can call it a fluke or coincidence but my aunt also had her first two in her mid 20's no problem and her third at 40. The third was actually a twin and she lost one baby. Then had a rough labor and the child now has a lot of health problems.
I just don't want to go through that. Seems like the earlier the better in my family.
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I was an oops baby with older parents- there's a ten year gap between my siblings and I. We will be done with bio babies by the time I'm 27, had our son the day after I turned 25. I wouldn't actively TTC after 30.
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@Mrs. Jacks: @looch: I agree-my answer is different now than it was in March! I think a lot depends on each person's TTC journey. If I've learned anything, it is that I may not be able to have much control over this, so at this point, we will take it one day-and one baby-at a time.
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35 for me, too. I'd like to be done by 33, though!
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Well I'll be a few months shy of 30 when we start trying for our first and we want at least 2. Ideally we will be done by 35, but who knows what our TTC journey will be like. I chose 36-37 in the poll though.
If you'd asked me 10 years ago, I would have said I'd have had my first by 25, and been done by 30, but life just didn't work out that way.
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I said 40-42. I would like to be done by 40 but will be 38 in October and am still TTC for #1 and would like to have 2. So unless I get twins in the first try, we will at least try for #2 beginning around age 40 - assuming I get PG with #1 soon
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If you had asked me years ago, I never would have thought I would have a child before 30.
In actuality, I had my first at 25, so my personal cut off for getting pregnant would be 40. I can't imagine having a 15 year old and a newborn!
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I voted 31-35 but would consider it closer to 35.
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@Honeybee: what's the age gap between oldest and youngest in your sib set? I feel like the 11 years in our family was so profound when we were little.
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For me just by myself, I'd say 38-40. I know so many women in their 40's who have gotten pregnant with zero issues that I've never been worried about my eggs magically expiring the day I turn 30 like some women seem to do. Plus, now that I'm almost 32, late 30's don't seem "old" at all.
My husband will be 48 this year, so if we wanted #2 we would need to act sooner than me being in my late 30's, and we only want one so my answer is pure speculation
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@yoursilverlining: laughing at your very hypothetical answer to my solely hypothetical question (since we are so done!)
We have the opposite issue in the sense that Mr. Jacks is 31. If he decides to have another at 38, he's on his own because I'll be 49!
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Well I am 30 now, hopefully start trying in the next year and have a baby in the next 2 and we a going to re evaluate after first baby for a second. We are open to one and done as well. But I would say done by 35-36. Have them close and get it done if we are going to have another
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If i hadn't had any yet I would have said 35, but since I had my first at 24 (just turned it) and I'll have my second and last planned pregnancy at 25 (almost 26) I plan on being done long before 30.
I'm happy my kids will be out of the house when I'm in my mid 50s, and DH and I can enjoy his retirement from the Navy without chasing kids around. (He's eligible for full retirement benefits in 9 and a half years).
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35 is my absolute latest cut off, because my DH is 11 years older than me, and I don't want my kids dealing with a father who is too old to go to their high school graduation, you know?
I'm 23 right now (almost 24) so we'll have 2 by the time I'm 25 and DH is 36. my ideal number of kids is 3-5, but we'll see what happens
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About 35, because I was able to start so young. Actually ideally I'd like to be done by 30 though.
There was a mom at my birth center who was 49, healthy and pregnant with her first!
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I always said I would have my first around 28 and then have a three year gap between kids. I wanted time to have 2-3 and be done by 35. I still want 2-3 but I am almost 31 and we haven't even started ttc yet so my timeline is probably going to get pushed back. I would love to be done by 35 but that pretty much limits us to 2 and requires us to not have fertility issues.
ETA: I realized I didn't actually answer the question! Obviously my ideal is done by 35 but I think I would consider up to 40. Apparently "the change" happens on the early side for my family so I doubt nature will give me much time beyond 40 anyway.
My in-laws were youngish when they had their kids and they are just having a grand time right now enjoying life as empty nesters and I really want my husband and I to be young and healthy enough to enjoy that stage of life too!
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@Mrs. Jacks: my oldest sister would be 33 right now, and my youngest is 26. I agree that 11 years is such a big age difference, when you're little. And remember, DH's older sisters are 7 and 9 years older than him, making him a both the baby and an only child.
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@Honeybee: Apparently I don't think 11 years is a big deal now
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@Mrs. Jacks: hehehe, here's to older women and younger men!
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@Honeybee: Hey it works for us. I think if I married a guy my own age, he wouldn't be able to keep up!
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@Mrs. Jacks: sometimes I can't even keep up with you!
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@Honeybee: nice try! I think you are just as busy as I am!
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@Mrs. Jacks: yeah, but you make it look a lot easier!
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it's easy for me to say since i was done at 33 (a couple weeks before I turned 34!). but if life circumstances hadn't worked out, then i would have considered kids into my late 30's.
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@Mrs. Jacks: Ha, my mom is ten years older than my dad! I feel like your family is in a very similar situation to my family growing up, though my parents were a just a bit older
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