This is an excellent way of putting it, I feel like.
I’ll also say, NOT having kids (but trying) grew me up a lot. Especially where communication, empathy, and the importance of community were concerned.
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As for my own timeline… not totally sure yet. We oscillate between “oh god try soon lightening doesn’t strike twice” and “but c section recovery and Latte as only child time and we have a few embryos still”. So we swing between soon and like 1.5 years from now. We shall see. The pandemic weighs in this too, certainly.
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Hi! I like this topic.
Basically, preparedness…if you can support yourself financially, then I think that you can just decide to leap and it might work. Ideally having a whole apartment, but I downsized from a 1 bed apartment to 1 bedroom in a shared house when baby was 6 months, and that’s fine too. We should probably get another bedroom if I get knocked up though
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I shared a room with my parents, and eventually baby sister, until we moved to the US when I was 6. Then I was a grad student’s kid. I didn’t care until I was like 8. Sometimes grandparents watched me for one or more weeks. I probably cried when mom left but I was fine.
After ~age 8 things got more complicated. Comparing with peers. Wanting toys, stuff, my own room.
I didn’t want a grad school kid because of stress and time more than money. Also, its harder for women to have a kid in those circumstances, with our bodies and minds on the line…
I will also admit Human and I are totally spoiled and don’t want to purge our stuff to make room for a small human. 
I’m glad to know we could though.
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Lowkey lurking here because Wizard and I have talked about this and I’m just… constantly noodling about it in my head. I’m 34, I only have so much time before it’s kind of now or never. Wizard, on the other hand, is 28 and just finished his PhD, so I think he kind of wants to do things like get a job before he ponders babies in a more concrete way.
So, uh, yeah.
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When I was at this point—pondering about time running out, not sure how on-board partner was at that exact moment or when would be ideal—I did the mail-away Modern Fertility test. Getting bad numbers on that, and then checking with my IRL doctor, is what gave me the kick in the pants I finally needed to be more urgent about the whole thing. I originally took the test just to see if I maybe had more time left (at 37) than common knowledge dictates—turns out it said I had less.
Ended up gathering partner’s and my shit together over the ensuing 10 months, getting IUD out at 38, and now tentatively pregnant at 39. Being informed was really helpful though.
I forget exactly how much it is—somewhere between $100-200. But I think I have a $20 off code to share? If you’re interested.
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Honestly, I’ve been wondering about taking one. My PCP isn’t worried, but I’ve seen so many people have a rough time of it that I fret a bit.
specific medical thing
I was on HBC for years and years and now seem to permanently have light periods, which is great for my day-to-day life. I know that this can be a problem for implantation, though. Flow that needs more than a tampon pantiliner is only a day or two, and then I’ll have two or three days of essentially extremely light flow/spotting. My cycle is pretty bang on though (24 days, very regular). So, I don’t know about egg quality, but I do worry about the uterine lining bit.
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Prep: I had mental & physical health problems I had to sort out before I was ready to get pregnant that delayed it for me. I did not want to wait, but I am glad my partner put his foot down. For his part, he wanted to have a job and be married a year. I made the wedding happen, and then we enjoyed being married for most of a year before trying for a baby. I’m glad I got my health stuff sorted because my pregnancies are rough. I wanted to start at 24 and we ended up having our first at 27.
@diapasoun a really easy place to start could be to get a thermometer with 2 decimal points and follow the instructions in “Taking Charge of Your Fertility” to see what your cycle is doing with regards to ovulation timing and luteal phase length during your cycle.
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Thanks for starting this topic! I’ve been in the “waiting to try” camp for a while ago. Around this time last year we were talking about switching to actively TTC, but late November of last year I found out I was getting laid off.
I was fortunate to find a new job pretty quickly, and my husband happened to start a new job around the same time. So then everything was on hold while we got settled in at our new jobs. We might start officially TTC in November, but I’m hoping to get some more information about my job situation in the next couple weeks that would help me be more confident about moving forward.
Cut for length
My career
I’m American and work for an employer small enough that I’m not eligible for FMLA, which means I’m not even guaranteed unpaid parental leave. My company seems like a decent place, other employees have young-ish children, and I’m in a fairly specialized role and wouldn’t be that easy to replace. My boss actually wants to hire one more person for our department to make our workloads more manageable but wants to be able to train a new hire in person, which isn’t possible with our current pandemic protocols.
As someone who started this position about six weeks before the office shut down for the pandemic, I definitely benefited from having some time to get training in person but more would have been better. So I definitely get where my boss is coming from.
It takes a new hire several months to get up to speed, so I’m a little worried that getting pregnant too early would make it difficult to take any sort of leave. But I also don’t want to wait to TTC until someone gets hired on, because there’s no way to know when that might be.
I also don’t actually know what my company’s current parental leave policy is. The employee handbook was last updated about two decades ago. It’s allegedly almost finished being updated and will be distributed soon, but apparently it’s a Whole Thing that’s been under revision for a long time now. It sure would be nice to know what the policy is, but I don’t know how to ask without it being a clear indication that I’m trying.
Husband’s job
My husband has also been working from home due to the pandemic. He works for a giant company that offers twelve weeks of (fully?) paid leave.
Before this job he had quite a few jobs that he stayed at 1-3 years. He really likes his new company and wants to stay with them but might try to get into a different division. But that shouldn’t affect our TTC situation.
House stuff
We’ve been married for eight years now. We rented until last year, and moved around several times, including moving from another state back to our home state to be near family. We bought a house last year and I’m hoping to stay in it for at least three decades.
While we’ve been in this waiting room try limbo, we’ve been working on projects around the house. I don’t want to presume that we’d get much done (at least in terms of house projects) during pregnancy/newborn stage/maybe even longer, but it seems pretty unpredictable. So we’re working on things like removing wallpaper and painting now.
What we’re doing to get ready
I started taking prenatal vitamins a little over three months ago. I got my Mirena iud removed about six weeks ago to see what my period does without it.
I started tracking my temperature to try to figure out whether/when I ovulate. The Fertility Friend app is in fact not my friend right now. My temps have been all over the place. I’m not sure how much of that is due to my wildly inconsistent bedtime (should settle down once we’re done painting) or the fact that one of my cats likes to wake me up for snuggles in the wee hours of the morning, but then I go back to sleep for a few hours. I was taking my temperature during kitty snuggles, but then I decided to just take it when my alarm goes off in the morning and hope that the kitty-induced wake ups don’t throw my temps off too bad.
If I don’t conceive within a few months I may add in OPKs and/or a temp drop, a wearable thermometer that’s supposed to smooth out temperature fluctuations.
I was lurking on Reddit’s TTC and TTC30 subs for a bit, but my temporary all-consuming hobby is painting so I’ve taken a break.
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I feel like I should also talk about prep for subsequent pregnancies.
My first was hard, and then I had postpartum stuff, so our initial plan for a 2 year gap between each of our kids became trying when our first kid turned 2. I had to sort myself out again mentally and physically prior to trying, in terms of nutrition, fitness and being in a good feeling place, because we knew when I got pregnant I would be very limited in what childcare, housework and work-work I could do. I also quit my job and started a PhD between Kid 1 and Trying For Another.
We were correct about my abilities while pregnant, and it turns out I might be a lucky sod who gets worse each pregnancy, so prep for the next pregnancy will be as extreme as I can manage. Extra freezer full of meals, care plan for each kid and the house, partner saved up leave to pick up where I can’t, and planning for me not working the whole pregnancy.
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It’s a special kind of hell when the non-birthing partner gets paid leave and the one who pushes a baby out of their tiny hole gets none. Solidarity.
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If you’re interested in anecdata
Your cycle sounds exactly like mine except 26 days. I was on HBC for probably about 15 years before coming off to try. It took a very clear 6 months for it to get out of my system and 9 months for me to get pregnant the first time.
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Oh Wow! That is not a small thing!
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I feel like I should be doing so much for my physical health to optimize fertility & pregnancy outcomes. The ideal me would be cutting out alcohol, reducing sugar, making sure I’m exercising the recommended amount every day…
The actual me is sipping whiskey most evenings and eating a lot of desserts.
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Summary
I was on HBC for about 10 years; I think it was just over 6 on the pill and just over 3 on nexplanon. The last year-ish I’ve had Paragard.
I was told that I would have really painful, heavy periods with Paragard, and I’m kind of concerned that I never did? I’m worried that means there’s some kind of problem with my lining thickness…
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Mild diet content
Actual me was super over work this week and asked for pizza tonight. Human obliged. 
I have also been hitting the stroopwafels pretty hard.
Part of it is we have no good vegetables left since we haven’t really grocery shopped in 2 weeks since returning from vacay. Tomorrow I will finally make it to sprouts and get fruit and kale and broccoli and roastable fall deliciousness.
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Actual me also played a half hour of beat saber today until I pulled my quad or something ??? Do not want.
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Not specifically aimed at you, but since you mentioned several “getting physically healthier” items that a lot of people have on their checklist, I want to clarify that in my case I’m outside the standard deviation of “normal person fitness” and with my hyperemesis gravidarum have to make sure I do specific things prior to pregnancy and to recover from pregnancy. Most people are in the “good enough” range for pregnancy.
Summary - content food issues.
Those things are gain weight before pregnancy and to rest a lot after - estimate is 1-2 months of postpartum recovery for each month of hyperemesis gravidarum, so I estimate ~6 months of recovery to get to a “average/normal” person’s typical 6 -12 week postpartum fitness level. I can’t just do normal postpartum exercise routines.
Before we tried for our first kid, I also had a lot of my anxiety disorders tied up in food and had trouble maintaining a safe minimum weight for my specific body, so I had to show myself I could consume enough calories to carry a baby safely.
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Here to share my experiences and work out thoughts of when to try for baby #2
Husband and I finished grad school, got jobs, moved to be in the same city full time, moved in together, got married, and started browsing real estate when we decided to go off birth control (by this time we had been dating for 7 years and married for 1). I was 31, husband was 33 at the time.
Pregnancy
I had been on HBC for 8 years at that point. It took about 4 months for me to have consistent periods, and then I was very regular with 26 - 27 day cycles. I did not track anything except my periods with the Fitbit app.
I have a bicornuate uterus, but from the research I had done and discussions with various doctors, there wasn’t a strong correlation between my condition and ability to get pregnant.
I ended up getting pregnant about 10 months after going off HBC. Baby settled in the right side of my uterus, and was borderline growth restricted and breech, likely due to the bicornuate uterus. Otherwise healthy pregnancy, scheduled c-section went very smoothly, and gave birth to a 6 lb 8 oz baby at 39 weeks.
We bought a house before I got pregnant but after TTC for a few months. Once I got pregnant, we did a bunch of panicked renovations on the house because we didn’t think we could do it after baby arrived, and I’m so glad we got it done even though it was stressful at the time. Baby is coming up on 1 in a week, I’m 34 now, and in theory would like to have a second in maybe a year or two? We’re both sure that we want a second child, but don’t feel like we’ll be ready anytime soon. Baby is a poor sleeper, despite all the sleep training we’ve done.
Privileged whining about housing
I feel like our house is too small. We spent $800k on a house in a quiet neighborhood in LA county, which got us a 1400 sq ft 3 bedroom 2 bath with a leaky roof and rusted plumbing. We’ve already spent $60k in repairs and renovation, with more to go.
House holds myself, husband, baby, and my retired parents 80% of the time, who moved in when COVID hit to help with childcare. I’m aware that I’m super lucky to have supportive parents but we did not buy the house thinking that there would be 5 people here all the time. Nor did we plan to have me working from home all the time and husband working from home 50% of the time. I‘m grateful but also going a little nuts, and then feeling guilty that I miss my office so much…
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This was my situation last time around. Mr E’s company had 4 months of fully-paid parental leave and I got none - plus didn’t qualify for short term disability. It sucked.
In regards to timing between one and two, we took the “closer is better” approach. In Mr E’s case, he felt like he was on the older side in terms of being a dad (38); additionally, the pregnancy plus nursing was really hard on my body physically. We had some discussions when Baby E was around 4/5 months old and we decided that we wanted them to be close together so I could get the pregnancy and nursing time behind me and work on getting back into athletic shape. We also liked the idea of having them in diapers at the same time, so we could get through the diaper phase all at once. Additionally, our house is on the small side and we just don’t have room to store all of the baby stuff! We wanted to save things like toys, clothes, swing, bouncer, etc to use with the next baby but we just don’t have room to store it for very long.
The girls will be very close together
We ended up getting pregnant MUCH faster than we expected. When we started trying for Baby E I had my nexplanon implant removed and we had a few months of just tracking dates and trying to time that way, and then I started temping and really trying. We conceived 8 months after removing the implant and 6 months after we started trying hard. So, we figured that it would likely take the same amount of time to get pregnant again. We decided that when my fertility returned I would start tracking and we wouldn’t do anything to prevent another baby, but we wouldn’t start timing things right away either. We were planning to start really actively trying when she was 9-10 months old and if we weren’t pregnant by the time she was 14 months old we just weren’t going to try anymore and we would be happy with one child. The funny thing is that your first cycle after having a baby, you don’t know you are fertile because you haven’t had a period yet! I apparently had my first cycle 6 months post partum, and somehow I got pregnant! There is nothing to track yet! Particularly confusing to us, we only had sexy times twice in a 6 week window (thank you baby sleeping in our bed)- definitely a case of divine intervention. I woke up one morning and just knew that I was pregnant. Sure enough, I had multiple positive pregnancy tests that morning. I definitely don’t consider this to be an “oops” baby because we knew we weren’t taking precautions and that it could theoretically happen at any time, and we wanted them to be close together, but we were definitely surprised about how fast it happened. Our due date puts the girls 15 months apart, but if this one is fully cooked a month early like Baby E was, they will end up being 14 months apart.
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