Wedding Forum - The biological clock and the wedding: He...

I am 32 and H2B is 28. I wanted to start making babies as soon as we are married. But he said he is not sure he is ready. He wants to wait a bit longer. He points out, rather logically, that we could do with more income. I say that it will be tough financially, but we can make do. We can get things secondhand, we can save up and I bet our parents won't let us do without. People on benefits manage and so we could too. We may even be entitled to benefits when I am not working.

He says he'd like to go travelling with me and I'd love to do that, but I feel like it would be a shame if we did that and then we couldn't have kids. We've both been travelling in our youths, before we met - him to NZ, me to the States. And we're having quite an exotic honeymoon.

He said he's worried we'll lose our freedom. I say we surely will, but that it will be worth it.

I said, it's alright for you, you don't have a biological clock ticking away. With each tick, the chance of getting pregnant, having a healthy happy pregnancy and healthy baby get less and less. Men's fertility doesn't drop til their forties. For women, peak time is early twenties, then it drops. At 35 it drops again.

He said that his cousin is 40 and just had a baby. Sure, it's possible, I said, it worked for her, but the chances are less and less as you get to that age. And if we want two children, well, ideally you leave a gap between them.

Then some things happened that I think helped:

1) He saw how sad I was when he said he wanted to wait. I was really emotional and he saw that.

2) His best mate's wife is pregnant, so he could relate to that.

3) I showed him a magazine article about a woman who is 32 and was told by her doctor she had 6-12 months of fertility left due to endometriosis and PCOS. After 6 months, she tried IVF and had to inject herself every day and then the conception involved "five people in the room, three of them wearing gloves". Not exactly romantic. Plus it costs several thousand pounds if you don't want to wait on the NHS. I explained that even IVF doesn't guarantee pregnancy, just improves your chances, that it can take several goes and even then may not work. I explained how unhappy I would be if I didn't have the opportunity to be a mother.

He is now saying that he is happy to try when we are married in September! Yes!! I feel like I've really had to push my point of view across. But for me having kids is more important than career development, being well off or going travelling.

Has anyone else had to convince a reluctant male that time's-a-wasting?

REALLY HAPPY FOR U :-) COULD U TRAVEL AND TRY AT SAME TIME ;-) XX HES CORRECT ONCE U HAVE HAD KIDS THERE WILL BE NO TRAVERLING THOUGH X BUT U COULD DO IT AGAIN WHEN U OLD AND KIDS HAVE GROWN UP AND LEFT HOME LOL X

Thanks guys, and especially SpecialSundae's point about travelling with children - sounds adventurous and educational!

Good luck Melody. I had suspected endometriosis, but I was unwiling to do the endoscopy surgery to confirm the diagnosis. Internal and external scans and cervical biopsy came out clean - but sometimes small amounts of endo can cause lots of pain, even when they don't show up on the scans. I did courses of acupuncture and mefenamic acid (presription anti-inflammatory), both seemed to help. When I'm on the pill/ patch, there is hardly any pain. But expecting it to come back when I come off the patch and start trying for children.

Good point, stmb2b

Didnt have that problem unfortunately as our little girl was conceived and we dont remember how awful does that sound !! long story short it was new years eve both legless and the week before i had been really poorly injection didnt work and that we have it. Was a really big shock for both of us and h2b took a while to come round but he is so happy she is here a real daddys little girl

im so broody hes deff not, but we're blessed with 2 lovely children already so i shouldnt really be dissapointed, but i dont really want to wait as i like them close together. one more will be fine. Good luck melody. I know you'll do it :D

Ahhh we dont have that problem we already have our little prince :)
xx