How We Decided It Was Time To Start A Family
Short answer: my therapist made me do it. 🙂
I place a lot of weight on things that I’ve learned in therapy and recovery — both from people who have been there before and those who are clinically trained to help me with my neurotic thought processes. Before I get into that, however, it’s important to back up and first express my trepidation with having kids and making such a life-changing decision.
Having kids was never the issue for me; I always envisioned myself with one or two, but the problem came with the disconnect in where I saw my future self and where I felt I was emotionally. It’s a general understanding with those suffering from addiction issues that the age when you started using is emotionally the age you are when you stop. That meant that even though I was 26 when I stopped, emotionally I still felt like I was 18. So when I turned 30, a perfectly reasonable age to start having children, I kept seeing myself as a 22-year old. I certainly never felt 30 and I definitely didn’t feel like an adult.
With every year that passed, I felt like the gap between current me and future me was slowly closing as I got married, settled down, got a dog, and found more stability in my career. The gap felt smaller, but I still didn’t feel emotionally ready. I wanted to make sure that I dealt with the issues that had led to my addiction so that I was capable of raising an emotionally healthy child. In short, I wanted to be an adult raising a child and not a child raising a child.
Each year I felt conflicted about getting older but not wanting to start a family. In fact, I wrote two posts about it:
After Neil and I almost separated and then I discovered the magic of therapy, a lot of things shifted in my life, but my uneasiness about getting pregnant still lingered. I took a therapy break after I made a lot of improvement and felt like I could handle things on my own, but I always knew it was there for me if I needed it again.
About a year or more ago, I started going again because I noticed that I felt off and after we tweaked my medication and I was able to get back into a productive routine of talking out feelings and issues, I started to feel better again. During one of our sessions, I told my therapist that I still didn’t feel ready to have kids. I told her about people younger than me having kids and that I felt like I was doing it wrong. I told her that I had a friend who had gotten pregnant and that by the end of those 9 months I didn’t feel any more ready to have a child, to which she replied “why would you?? you weren’t the one having it!” Touche.
As we explored my hesitation to start trying, she eventually told me that I just needed to start. There was no reason not to, we were in a great place, and there was no guarantee that it would happen immediately. It could take a year or more and I was 34. That’s by no means too old to have a child, but if we wanted another and that also took time, then we needed to consider that as well. I left that appointment, called Neil, and told him “My therapist says we need to have a baby.” HA.
I overthink a lot of things. I imagine every possible outcome and scenario, which often leaves me feeling overwhelmed and frozen. I’m not the biggest fan of change. I like to think “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” meaning if everything is going well, I never think to change things. I worry that I haven’t done ENOUGH work on myself to be the best parent possible, but as therapy reminded me, the fact that I’m even concerned about that means that I will likely be an amazing parent.
Basically, I knew there was nothing in our lives that would make starting a family a bad idea, but I got stuck in a cycle of “what if’s” and analyses that led me to feel like it was never a good time. I needed someone to call B.S. on my reasons (or lack thereof) and basically tell me that everything was OK.
It took four months of trying for me to get pregnant, something which I’ll talk more about in my first trimester recap. I received a lot of questions on Instagram about us trying, what my experience was getting pregnant, and many others, so I will make sure to address those in another post. I actually seemed to get the most interest about this subject, however, which is why I decided to write about it so soon after making the announcement.
Starting a family is a personal decision that may not be right for everyone. Of course I worry about being a parent and how both of our pasts will impact the future of our child, but the most important thing is that we are committed to being the best parents that we can be. We will tackle things as they come and learn along the way, which is really what I think any parent has to do.
I’m excited to see where this journey takes us and I’m thankful for all your support along the way. 🙂
I’m excited for you, Erin! Not overthinking things is the way to go. I’m sure the new baby will be a perfect fit into your lovely family. 🙂
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Thank you so much Charmaine!!
Erin! I was soooo excited and surprised by your news, but so happy for you. As a new mom, who just passed that first year mark, I will say yes — you are in for HUGE CHANGE, but for all the sacrifices it will be worth it times ten. You will grow up SO quickly once that baby comes, I promise hehehe! Can’t wait to read more, my friend!
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I know I’m pumped about it!! I’ll ask you any questions 😂
I think any trauma halts your emotional growth and keeps you at the age when it happened. I still feel emotionally 15 sometimes, the age when I was sexually assaulted. Ad to that, at 51, I feel as though I am 34 emotionally because that’s how old I was on 9/11, which happened to coincide with my husband abandoning us. I was a resident of downtown Manhattan. (Great year, huh?)
Thank you for this post. It’s really helped me today as I am mapping out my life now that my children are adults. Oh, and congratulations again!
Oh absolutely 100 percent. Anything trauamatic like that makes total sense. oh boy that’s a lot for you to have to deal with I’m so sorry. That’s good you recognize that though and can make a good map!!
I decided to try to get pregnant when I realized I was never going to “feel ready”. My husband, on the other hand, has felt ready for years so it definitely helped to have his confidence going into it. Anywho, congratulations and I am excited to follow along!
Oh yes that’s so helpful then. When I called neil he was just like “ok” which was better than him protesting and me having to push for it when I was already unsure haha. I think he was just waiting for me to say I was ready
Congratulations again 🙂 It’s such a huge decision and the thing is that yes, we all grow and change as our life circumstances change. Once you bring in a little one, everything will most definitely change. Some will be awesome and some will be not so awesome but it really shapes you to be the new person that you will be.
I always over analyze things too…I think that comes with having anxiety. At least for me it does. But, I will say that my mindset is very different now that I have a little one. Some of the things I worried about before having my daughter, aren’t even a worry anymore because my mind is on other things.
Can’t wait to hear more about your journey! Will you find out the gender?
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We should find out in the next two weeks or so! There may be something planned w donuts…
I think most people don’t feel ready (even if they really, really want kids)…. there is always something that could be done BEFORE planning a family.
I am 42 (and don’t have kids – for many reasons), but if you would ask me if I felt ready at any point in my life, I would tell you that I still wouldn’t feel ready, so I think your therapist’s advice is solid: just do it! (And you did!)
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Haha yes! Just take the leap 😬😬
Loved reading this post- I definitely struggle with whens and ifs so much! So excited for you and Neil and Donut <3
OMG, Erin. You are IN my head when it comes to the decision to start trying. It’s obviously not the same thing but I felt like I “stopped aging” at 24 years old when I lost my father. For years after whenever I used the elliptical at the gym and it asked me my age I automatically typed in 24–I did that for around five years.
I also overthink and get caught up with the “What-ifs”. I feel so emotionally unstable with my anxiety and depression sometimes that I wonder “How can I possibly take care of a kid if I can’t take care of myself?” Your thoughts about “doing it wrong” because younger people have families and your friend having a baby not making you feel more ready are spot on and your therapist sounds a lot like mine in her response.
I’ve had a lot of people tell me “you’re never going to feel 100% ready” and I still have some work to do in therapy but this post makes me feel a lot better and a lot less alone in my fears and insecurities about having children. Thank you!
Of course! Again, it always helped me to be reminded that the fact that we even ask ourselves these questions about being ready and worry about our abilities as parents show that we care and are willing to put in work to do so. I think you’d be great!
*sigh* I just saw you post this on your Instagram stories, and i just have to say it was really something I needed to hear.
My husband and I have been married 5 years and are ALWAYS getting the baby question. My parents were 20 and 25 when they had me (I’m now 32), and I feel like my window has long passed, therefore I’ve done something wrong. I know that’s obviously not the case but it doesn’t stop me from feeling it. We’re also procrastinators; every month when we could try to get pregnant I get really upset because I feel like I’m not ready but we should try now, but this, but that. So we say we’ll research more and come at it again next month. Well we don’t, the cycle starts over, and again I feel like I’ve done something wrong and my window has passed. Again, it’s obviously not the case, but here we are.
Long story short, this post has eased a lot of my worries and I want to thank you for that. There’s no reason not to try. Thank you again 🙂
Omg of course. I know that feeling – like well I want them at some point but there was never a time when I was like OH I CANT WAIT LETS GO NOW. Sometimes you just need that little (or big) push ❤️