• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact + Collaborate
  • Privacy Policy
  • Nav Connect

    Subscribe Via Email 

    • Bloglovin
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Snapchat
    • Twitter

Whimsical September

A Family + Lifestyle Blog

  • Favorite Things
  • Motherhood
    • Pregnancy
    • Registry
    • Slice of Life
    • Potty Training
    • A Day in the Life
    • All The Feels
    • Activities/Crafts
    • Hadley’s B-days
    • Sadie’s B-Days
  • Military Life
    • PCSing
    • Home Ownership
    • Deployment 2011-2012 (Afghanistan)
    • Deployment 2013 (Afghanistan)
    • Deployment 2015-2016 (Kuwait)
    • West Point Days
    • Friendships
    • Other
  • Travel
    • With Little Ones
    • Beaches/Tropical
    • Disney World
    • Europe
    • More Fun Places
  • Home + DIY
    • Before and After Home Tour
    • Bathrooms
    • DIY Projects
    • Painting Projects
    • Bedrooms
    • Kitchen
    • Playroom
  • Style + Beauty
    • Stitch Fix Reviews
    • Fashion
    • Make Up + Skin Care
  • Recipes
    • Meats
    • Side Items
    • Desserts
    • Comfort Food
    • Pasta
    • Healthy Choices
    • Christmas
  • Blogging
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact + Collaborate
  • Privacy Policy
  • Nav Connect

    Subscribe Via Email 

    • Bloglovin
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Snapchat
    • Twitter

Motherhood 13 Comments

How We Knew We Were Ready to Have a Baby

 

How we knew we were ready to start our family

I’ll never forget sitting around my kitchen table with a good friend several years ago and having a conversation about when is the best time to start a family. It may sound silly, but I remember feeling a little overwhelmed because the planner in me really wanted to have an idea for when to try and have a baby, but it seemed there was never going to be a good time.

Whether it was a new job, graduate school plans, a deployment, or an upcoming move, it seemed like every time Jamie and I talked about future family planning we mutually found reasons to push off having a baby. When would we ever be ready?

Because we weren’t sure when we would be ready to have a baby, we decided to come up with a short list of things we wanted to do together before we added a child to the mix. Our list consisted of big and small things, like travel abroad, find a church and join a life group, attend another Alabama football game, have a big night out in Nashville with our friends, host a few barbecues, and run another marathon (for Jamie) and half marathon (for me). We lost a lot of time together doing long distance for four years, so we wanted to make a few more memories together before we’d be “tied down” with a kid.

Fast forward a few months, and we’d accomplished everything on our list and more.

And we still didn’t feel quite ready to have a baby. Biting the bullet and actually trying made us very nervous, so we didn’t. We decided we’d reassess when to start a family after he returned from his upcoming deployment.

A few weeks later I took a positive pregnancy test, and I called Jamie (who’d just arrived in Afghanistan four days prior) to tell him the news.

“You’re going to be a Dad.”

“What? Did you just say I’m going to be a dad?”

“Yes.”

PregnancyJ

Looking back, that was the moment that Jamie & I both clearly identify where we felt we were 100% ready to start a family, and not a moment prior! Something about seeing that positive test changed every “perfect plan” we thought we had mapped out. We just wanted our baby. We were immediately captivated by the idea that there was a little mashup of the two of us growing inside me.

So when a few of my girlfriends who have been trying to decide when to get pregnant have asked me about when we knew we were ready, I always just smile and and tell them that I wish I had better advice for them; I can empathize with the “stress” of trying to make this decision. It’s a super tough one to make for a few reasons:

1.) The “right” age and stage of life varies for everyone. What’s right for one family may not be right for the next.

2.) When is there ever going to be the perfect time to make this kind of huge life transition? Life can change so fast that it’s hard to predict the ideal time.

3.) We don’t hold all of the power anyway; God is the ultimate planner and already knows about every single little life and when he or she will be born. There’s so much comfort in knowing that someone else already has the most perfect plan.

At the end of the day, we weren’t 100% ready until four pregnancy tests said positive. Everything we thought we wanted totally changed, and we both realized that starting a family is something we’d both wanted for a long time; We’d just been anxious to make it happen.

Erica
Erica

Hi! I’m Erica, and I absolutely adore sharing my life on this website with you! I come here almost daily to blab about all of the things related to being a regular wife and mother in today’s ever-evolving society. I share about our new home, what’s on our kitchen table, what we’re hanging in our closets, where we’re traveling to next, my crazy 5 a.m. work outs, how I make time for girlfriends, our faith, and much more. We always have a lot of balls in the air and somewhat thrive on the chaos. I believe in the power of story-telling as a form of inspiration and entertainment, so I’m here to do both! I was born and raised in north Alabama and recently re-planted roots here again after my husband transitioned out of the Army (he is now in the Reserve and it’s going so well!) I’m a super proud mom to three little girls (ages 7, 4, and 1) who seem to be the stars of the show around here (for good reason – they’re pretty great!) I’m so glad you found me and are here reading! I hope we can get to know each other here on the blog as well as Facebook and/or Instagram. xoxo

January 8, 2016

Previous Post: « Disciplining Children That Aren’t Yours: When is it Okay?
Next Post: Potty Training: Week Two (Days 7-12) »

Primary Sidebar

Meet Erica

Hi! I’m Erica, and I absolutely adore sharing my life on this website with you!

I come here almost daily to blab about all of the things related to being a regular wife and mother in today’s ever-evolving society. I share about our new home, what’s on our kitchen table, what we’re hanging in our closets, where we’re traveling to next, my crazy 5 a.m. work outs, how I make time for girlfriends, our faith, and much more. We always have a lot of balls in the air and somewhat thrive on the chaos.

I believe in the power of story-telling as a form of inspiration and entertainment, so I’m here to do both! I was born and raised in north Alabama and recently re-planted roots here again after my husband transitioned out of the Army (he is now in the Reserve and it’s going so well!) I’m a super proud mom to three little girls (ages 7, 5, and 1) who seem to be the stars of the show around here (for good reason – they’re pretty great!)

I’m so glad you found me and are here reading! I hope we can get to know each other here on the blog as well as Facebook and/or Instagram. xoxo

Everywhere

Footer

Instagram did not return a 200.

Follow On Instagram

Whimsical September © 2025 · Blog Design by Freeborboleta · Built On The Genesis Framework

[jetpack_subscription_form title=”SUBSCRIBE” subscribe_text=”Keep up with Erica & Whimsical September by receiving new post notifications in your inbox. This is the easiest way to never miss a new post! What they’re eating, what they’re doing, where they’re going… she shares it all!”]