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I feel ya except I am a guy and I really want to have kids right now. I'm just not married yet, that's the only thing stopping me. Having kids would make my life more fulfilling and give me something to look forward to and I also want to be a young father.
You should talk to your husband then see what happens. A lot of the times, pregnancies just happen when you least expect it.
Of almost 370 responses you've received in this thread, I can find only ONE which is encouraging you to go ahead with your baby dreams. All the rest are expressing concern, pointing out the flaws in your reasoning, offering valid suggestions of ways to get your "baby-fix" without actually leaping into parenthood, and are trying to help you make reasonable, realistic plans for motherhood - someday, several years from now, after you get the rest of your life in good order.
You are on a good academic track, apparently, and if you will graduate this spring, you should be seeking out job interviews right now. Does your college offer placement services (which may go by a different name)? Are you following up ads in professional journals or online sites dealing with your area of study? Have you done a practicum? (supervised field work, apprenticeship - again, it may go by a different name).
If you want to be a truly loving, responsible parent, you need to examine not only your own strong urges to have a baby, but what is required to care for a baby, who will soon be a toddler, then a small child, then a not-so-small child, then a teenager, then a young adult. You'll need a way of supporting that child and yourself. You'll need a decent, safe place to live. You'll someone to do the 24/7 care of that baby, probably in addition to you, since presumably you'll be working about 40 hours a week. You'll need all kinds of baby gear, then toddler gear, etc. You'll need a OB-GYN for yourself, and a pediatrician for your child.
And that's just the start. Rearing a child as a single parent is much harder than raising a child with a stable, committed partner who loves both you and the child. You have absolutely no assurance that the man you have your eye on cares about you as anything but a casual correspondent. You have your professional life ahead of you.
I am not saying that you would not eventually be a great mom. But now is not the time. You have a lot of work to do before you are ready to become a parent. Get those ducks in the proverbial row first, then look into motherhood in three or so years. You'll be a far better parent - more responsible, more loving, more mature - if you slow down and put your dreams in proper order and perspective.
As for your age, you have a good twelve or more years ahead of you. My own mother was almost 40 when I came along, and I was her first-born, and have no special needs. Her pregnancy was uneventful, and this was quite a long time ago. Maternal care has improved since, so you should be fine, as long as you take good care of yourself both prior to and during pregnancy. As for older mothers being at increased risk for exceptional children - it's also true that twins and children with high intelligence are more frequent with older mothers, and while the other risks are real, they still are quite low. So set those fears aside. You can have a healthy pregnancy and are very likely to have a perfectly normal, healthy baby well past thirty.
So take care of yourself physically, start learning everything you can about pregnancy and baby care and development, volunteer or work in a daycare with infants, get a good job that pays a decent salary, find a safe apartment, reach out for friends, get involved in whatever activities your community offers once you graduate, and do some serious self-examination about just why you want a baby right now, and how you think a baby would change your life.
Ask yourself if it would be fair to a baby to expect him to be a source of love and reassurance for you. Are you projecting your own needs - for love, security, companionship, etc - onto a helpless baby, who needs all these things herself?
So this was REALLY good. (Not to say there haven't been other good ones but it is like 30 pages long and I can't go back and say thanks on all the ones that have been great). So I do intern now (have a field practicum) I know the place I am now will likely not hire me on because they constantly fill interns places with other interns yearly. There is the potential to be hired there part time next year but I am not sure that I want to work there. I LOVE LOVE LOVE where I am and what I do (I'm not posting specifically what I do lol) but I want to explore other populations and the medical side to SW. It is my dream to work in a hospital which is great because where I live there are tons lol. My school does attempt to get you out there to network and most places where people are interning now will hire people from the program. I have not started applying to jobs, I have started seeing what is out there but I intend to start applying after I pass my clinical exam (fingers crossed) so right now I am doing school, interning, and studying every free moment I have.
I know it is unfair to expect a baby to give me what I should give myself. I think things really got bad for me when my best friend got pregnant. It was devastating. Anyone who has read my other posts knows I am insanely jealous. So my best friend date this guy like a week or 2 weeds up pregnant and dating him (they ended at like month 4) but she was still pregnant and living my dream life. Even now, she doesn't have her degree yet but she makes it with her job, she has a really nice apartment in an area that is ok. I mean ideally I wouldn't want to send my children to those schools but I'm sure by the time her baby is school aged she won't be living there anymore and she has a boyfriend who she will likely marry and have more kids with. She tells me every time I talk to her basically that I need to find someone so we can have our babies together. Anyways point is I am just jealous and I want a family. I mean I thought by 25 I would have had a serious relationship and be pregnant or trying or married or something... something more than this, and it isn't my lack of trying to find someone because I think I have been trying to find someone since i was like 18.
I know what I need to do and what I am supposed to do but I don't know how that is going to get me my husband and babies that I want before 30.
I also know that I always say I want "babies" I never say children and that comes from my superficial place of wanting to be cute and pregnant and have a bump and eventually wear my baby bjorn and have everyone look at me and my cute perfect munchkin. Which is dumb but it is what I want so much.
I feel ya except I am a guy and I really want to have kids right now. I'm just not married yet, that's the only thing stopping me. Having kids would make my life more fulfilling and give me something to look forward to and I also want to be a young father.
You should talk to your husband then see what happens. A lot of the times, pregnancies just happen when you least expect it.
There is no husband, only a guy that she says is a player that she has met twice. But he is "perfect" for her!
Can you clarify what stage of this process you are in? It sounds as if you still need to (1) Pass the exam. (2) Get a job. (3) Get 2,000-3,000 hours of on-the-job supervision. (4) Get the clinical license. Is this correct?
If this is right, do you realize just how much supervision and how much time that is?? A typical work week is 40 hours - and I doubt very much that you would be supervised in person for every minute of those 40 hours. If your first year of working 40 hours a week is considered to be under supervision, even if it's not direct, personal superision, it will take you almost a year to get licensed, if the 2,000 hours is correct. If it's 3,000 hours, you would need to be working under supervision for a year and a half, minimum, with supervision for all of those hours.
When are you going to have time to work, get supervised, earn an adequate income - and have and care for a baby?? Not to mention time for some kind of positive relationship with the baby's father, time for yourself, for your parents, for your friends, for any other activities beyond working and caring for a baby...
So I need to take the clinical exam which for now will give me the basic license (LSW), find a job, graduate (May I intend to look for the job after passing the exam hopefully next month), get the supervision (in my state it is at least 3,000 hours no less than two years I just looked it up), then I will get the actual clinical license (no exam needed because I will be taking the clinical now) and I will be able to work independently. Does that make sense?
I didn't think of that. Part of me wishes I would have waited for grad school until I had those things so it would be less stress.
So this was REALLY good. (Not to say there haven't been other good ones but it is like 30 pages long and I can't go back and say thanks on all the ones that have been great). So I do intern now (have a field practicum) I know the place I am now will likely not hire me on because they constantly fill interns places with other interns yearly. There is the potential to be hired there part time next year but I am not sure that I want to work there. I LOVE LOVE LOVE where I am and what I do (I'm not posting specifically what I do lol) but I want to explore other populations and the medical side to SW. It is my dream to work in a hospital which is great because where I live there are tons lol. My school does attempt to get you out there to network and most places where people are interning now will hire people from the program. I have not started applying to jobs, I have started seeing what is out there but I intend to start applying after I pass my clinical exam (fingers crossed) so right now I am doing school, interning, and studying every free moment I have.
I know it is unfair to expect a baby to give me what I should give myself. I think things really got bad for me when my best friend got pregnant. It was devastating. Anyone who has read my other posts knows I am insanely jealous. So my best friend date this guy like a week or 2 weeds up pregnant and dating him (they ended at like month 4) but she was still pregnant and living my dream life. Even now, she doesn't have her degree yet but she makes it with her job, she has a really nice apartment in an area that is ok. I mean ideally I wouldn't want to send my children to those schools but I'm sure by the time her baby is school aged she won't be living there anymore and she has a boyfriend who she will likely marry and have more kids with. She tells me every time I talk to her basically that I need to find someone so we can have our babies together. Anyways point is I am just jealous and I want a family. I mean I thought by 25 I would have had a serious relationship and be pregnant or trying or married or something... something more than this, and it isn't my lack of trying to find someone because I think I have been trying to find someone since i was like 18.
I know what I need to do and what I am supposed to do but I don't know how that is going to get me my husband and babies that I want before 30.
I also know that I always say I want "babies" I never say children and that comes from my superficial place of wanting to be cute and pregnant and have a bump and eventually wear my baby bjorn and have everyone look at me and my cute perfect munchkin. Which is dumb but it is what I want so much.
You said earlier that you didn't intern. Which is it? You seem to change your story whenever someone presents facts, like someone pointed out that you should be interning, and now you magically are interning.
You are in no condition to have a baby. You are young, jobless and single, with clear mental health issues. Do you understand the burden you will put on any child you have?
My mother wanted desperately to have children because she was not happy and she thought kids would fix it, so she entered into an ill-advised marriage with my father, who ironically was sterile. She had me after artificial insemination, and immediately tried to mold me in her image. Despite the fact that I was a smart and kind child who made straight As, I was alternately berated or smothered throughout my childhood because I was nothing like her. She refused to recognize my learning disability, despite being an education professional, because she didn't want to admit there was something wrong with me.
While my parents gave me a lot of advantages and room to grow and I am grateful to them beyond words, I would not describe my childhood as happy. I am almost 40 years old, and I am just beginning to trust her on an emotional level. We will never be close, and I spend the time in her presence wondering if I'm going to put a foot wrong and trigger an explosion. She can't make me cry anymore, but good lord, dealing with that stuff is exhausting.
So drop this baby nonsense, build your career and look to have a child when you are mentally healthy and in a stable situation and relationship. To do anything less is basically unconscionably selfish. Your child should not bear the burden of supporting your happiness.
I also know that I always say I want "babies" I never say children and that comes from my superficial place of wanting to be cute and pregnant and have a bump and eventually wear my baby bjorn and have everyone look at me and my cute perfect munchkin. Which is dumb but it is what I want so much.
Yeah, it's REALLY dumb.
You sound like a little girl who wants to get married because she wants to be a bride and have all the fun of picking out a dress and walking down the aisle with ***everyone*** looking at her and thinking how beautiful she looks ...
... yet somehow forgetting that after the wedding comes the "being MARRIED" part, which is NOT always so fun and requires you to make selfless decisions with your husband in mind. Oh, yeah. Remember him? The other PERSON involved?
In your pregnancy fantasy, that would be the "perfect little munchkin," who is a PERSON that is completely and totally dependent on you, and is not a fashion accessory.
GET A GRIP, Gab.
You are fantasizing, and your BFF is not helping you. She probably doesn't mean any harm, but telling a single friend to "hurry up and get pregnant so we can have babies together" just sounds like a subplot in some trailer park reality show.
Please seek out friends from school who are doing what you are doing and stop reading online forums where women talk about babies and pregnancy. That's not who you are or what you're about right now.
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