Oh baby

There comes a time I think in every married couple's life when your thoughts start to turn to whether or not you want to have children. We've reached that point. There's no doubt we both want children; I don't think it's ever occurred to us that we wouldn't. The question, really, is when.

Like many people of our generation, we've left child rearing until our 30s. We've enjoyed a wonderful, carefree, joyous life together - in fact, we continue to live that life, and it's hard to give up. We're selfish about our time together, often choosing time spent alone together over larger social occasions, because we feel that, with our jobs being as they are, we don't get enough time by ourselves already. Clearly, if we have children, that time will, by default, be shared. As my mother's refrain goes, you lose the right to be selfish when you have children.

Not that this, of course, is necessarily a bad thing. I know having a baby brings joy, and my friends who have children tell me their child added to their happy family, not detracted from it. I believe and hope this will be the case; so why am I still scared? I'm scared about how having a child will change our relationship; how it will affect my job; how it will affect my body; and how I'll cope when my husband's away. I'm worried I'll be lonely, and the spectre of post-natal depression scares me witless.

So, what to do? I know my husband is in favour of waiting a little longer, and in many ways I agree - I also want a little more time together, enjoying our "carefree years" (another of my mother's favourite phrases!)

But - time marches on, and what if we struggle to conceive? Age isn't really on our side - although of course we're not that long in the tooth yet! That's my main concern, though, and it just won't go away. What if we wait another year or two, then decide we want to have a baby, and never manage it?

Questions, questions. And, unfortunately, the only answer can come from us.