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I agree. I don't want to be raising kids in my 60's and yes, I'm aware of the risks of waiting.
Texas doesn't have expanded medicaid/they do not go by your income (lack of). When I started to sign up for insurance, it was going to be $140/mo and that would have made things a bit tight right now.
If $140/mo will make things "tight" I am sad to tell you that a child will cost a WHOLE LOT MORE... and you can't "opt out" when it goes into the second grade!
Seriously tho, it sounds like you can't afford children now and will be too old for babies later.
I'd get the education first and adopt an older child or become a foster parent if you still feel the need to have a family beyond what you have already.
Our experience - my husband and I were waiting for the perfect time to have kids. Married 13 years and I guess we were waiting for a sign from above that it was time. Finally my bio-clock was shouting at me that I better get busy. I had my first at 33 & 2nd at 35. How I wish we had done it 5-7 years sooner!
Babies actually don't have to be that expensive. If you are fortunate enough to breast feed, you don't have those food expenses for the first 6 months. Lots of the baby gear is really superfluous. You need a good crib & car seat, the rest is just extra. My experience is that if you have a little bit of time, you can find practically new baby clothes and gear pretty easily and cheap. Babies grow so fast that their items are barely worn. I don't think I bought any "new" clothes until my first was over 2 years old. Yard sales were a gold mine. I still have books and toys I bought for pennies. Perhaps that would give you time to get the work situation squared away. Children are very expensive, but mainly as they grow older.
We regret waiting so long as we are getting older and TIRED and still have 10 years until our youngest is 18. The thought of having teenagers in our 50's is horrible! We wish someone had kicked us in the rear way back then to get moving, since we knew we always wanted to have children.
Hope you all can come to a decision that is best for you.
In addition to my above, i just want to remind you that this isn't all about "special needs" children as so many here have written. Yes, it is a possibility. But yes, you can test for Downs while pregnant and abort if you feel you need to.
My daughter has autism. There are many special needs you can't see on an u/s.
It seems as though having children isn't a top priority or else you wouldn't have waited this late in the game. And besides, you can always travel and get a master's degree later but as a woman, your biological clock is ticking. You don't have time to fool around.
But with the lifestyle you are describing it is not very child-friendly anyway.
I'd say at 35, it's now or never. Realistically, you aren't going to be able to achieve everything you want to do. First problem: If you won't have insurance through your husband's employer, how are you going to pay for a pregnancy/labor and delivery/newborn care? Second problem: If you do have a child and $140 month for insurance would be straining your budget, that is nothing compared to what you will be spending on diapers and formula. Third problem: If you have a baby, I'd pretty much say you aren't going to have your master's degree at 40. Kids have a way of taking up all your time.
So I'd say you have two choices. Either pay $140/month for insurance and have a baby now, realizing things are going to be tight (and no better if/when you find a job, because you will be paying for daycare). Or decide kids aren't in the picture and go ahead and get your master's now.
You know, we've all been focusing on the potential health problems for a child born from an older parent. I don't think anyone mentioned the increased possibility of the PARENT having an age associate health issue. I know of 1 couple that waited until their mid to late 30s to have a child. One parent had a stroke in his/her 50s and became permanently disabled. That's not easy for a kid, or even a grown child, to deal with, much less the other parent, who now has 2 people to take care of. Yes, we can all say that we're healthy and nothing like that could happen...until it does.
Don't believe in statistics which you haven't forged yourself!
I'm surpised how many people are able to give medical advise here. Has anyone of you ever thought about how these statistics are made? Think about it.
Until today there is still no method available to fully measure a women's fertility.
Can you definitively say anything about one individual's fertility? Of course not.
But, can you rely on statistics developed from data from hundreds of thousands of individuals across decades? Yes, you can. People who are posting on here are not giving medical advise per se. We are quoting these well known (and accepted) statistics.
Fertility issues and complications increase at a very high rate after age 35. Those are facts. Can a woman still have a healthy child after that age? Of course. Many of us have posted our personal experiences with that.
If you really want to have children, then don't put it off much longer.
My husband kept putting off baby-making for years and years until I finally pushed the envelope. I was already 39 at that point, and it was almost too late for me.
I was lucky, because I had a large egg supply and still produced a good number of high quality eggs by age 39. Even then, we had to go through IVF FIVE times before we were blessed. (I was not lucky a second time though, so she's an only child.)
To this day I have a great deal of resentment towards my husband for making me wait so long, and it's possible that I might never forgive him. (I also have strong regrets and self-resentment for agreeing to wait!)
If having children is important to you and your husband, don't risk a life of regret by putting it off----at least not without seeing a fertility specialist first.
A woman's fertility diminishes with age. How fast your fertility will diminish will depend on your own ovarian reserve. Some women have a huge supply of eggs and are able to continue having children until a very late age. However, some women become completely infertile by age 35.
You can go to a fertility doctor to learn more about your own ovarian reserve. They can do ultrasounds to see how many eggs your ovaries produce each month. They can't tell you about the quality of your eggs without doing IVF, but they can at least let you know if you still produce a good quantity for your age, or if you're already running low. If you still have plenty of eggs, it might be safe to wait a couple more years. If you're running low, you don't want to wait.
You can also try to guess at your ovarian reserve by finding out when female relatives/ancestors began menopause, or when they had their last child. It's no guarantee, but it would at least give you a little hint of if you need to hurry or not.
Don't pay attention to the stories you hear of women having children in their 50s or 60s. Most of those women are using donor eggs.
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