Strollerderby

The September 11th attacks influenced me as well.  Waiting to be a tiny bit more financially secure started to seem silly after that.  "Things just have a way of working out" and "you just make do" are things my parents told my husband and me.  Also, since my husband is 7 years older than I am, we had to balance our financial situation at the time with the fact that it would be tight on the "other end" when our kids would be heading to college just as he was retiring.  Our financial situation was not great in my daughter's first couple of years, but we "made do" just like my mom said we would and eventually moved to another area of our state where purchasing a home was far more affordable and are now very happy and financially secure.  

Interesting.  I had my first in spring, 2003 (so I was preggers just 10 months after 9/11).  There's also a little baby boomlet going on here in Seattle.  I was trying to figure out why kindergarten enrollment is booming, and thought intuitively it must have something to do with 9/11.  So thanks for validating my hypothesis.

I didn't have kids because of or in spite of 9/11, though.  It was simply time to move on with things if I wanted to have a family.  So I guess was "biological clock" for me: I had my first at 34, and my 2nd at 36.  I realize I'm considered an older mom (although I seem to be just about average here in Seattle).  

Having kids a few years earlier might have been nicer in some ways, but I was simply having too much fun traveling and backpacking and all that.  My husband and I went on one last big trip to India, then I came home and easily got pregnant within a couple of months.  I had kids when I felt (and my husband felt) we were ready to slow down and do something very different for a while.  I didn't want to miss out on having children.  I have a lot of friends, now around 40, who are freaking out because they never had kids (too busy having fun), and now probably won't.

I'm 27 and pregnant with my first. I think the decision was pretty easy. My husband and I have been together for almost 9 years, married for 6, and we just felt it was time to move forward. Our jobs are stable and secure, and to us, fun means hanging out with family, who we adore, so we wanted to add one to the bunch!

I was 23 when my daughter was born, and it was a planned pregnancy.  I finished my last semester of undergrad just as finished my first trimester.  My long-term plan was to have the baby, stay home with her for a year or two and then go back to either grad school or law school when she started preschool, and this is about the way things are working out.

I just didn't want to wait until I was finished with school and into a career to have a baby.  I thought being a young mother would give me extra drive and energy, and in a way I think it has.  My husband is 10 years older than I am, and I have to say he had a lot more trouble with the sleepless nights than I did.  

Financially speaking, it has been a struggle, but I think that is a hit you take if you have children at any age.  That was another part of our reasoning.  We felt like if we waited until things were "perfect" then we would wait forever.  I tend to think you're never ready - physically, financially, psychologically - for the baby tidal wave.  It sweeps you away no matter where you are in life.