Grass is always greener for me but I often think if I could do it over I'd rather have children as early as possible instead of in my late 30s.
I think if I had known how young late 30s and 40s actually is it may have resonated. Like, I still do all of the hobbies and activities I did in my 20s and am arguably in the best shape of my life, pandemic bod not withstanding. I think I truly felt my youth was fleeting and I wanted to be able to "enjoy it".
The reality is I squandered it in some ways and I feel a bit of sadness that my children will have a dad in his 60s by the time they are out of the house. Should have given that youthful energy to them with something to spare as adults. In reality I probably won't have much left when they become adults.
Such is life!
EDIT: Someone down thread makes another point that applied to us. By the time we were "ready", we found we had "unexplained infertility". Science helped us out but it wasn't fun, it was stressful, and pushed our parenthood even later than planned.
RE "unexplained fertility" - exact same thing happened to us.
We waited until we were "ready" (are we ever "ready"? certainly didn't feel like it when the baby arrived!) but it took about 4 years to actually have the baby. Miscarriages, then just nothing apart from endless mechanical & unromantic sex day after day after day for years, with deeply upsetting emotional consequences when nothing happened.
Everything checks out medically and the doctors cheerily just say "keep trying!" but then write "unexplained infertility" on your report as you plod back home for more fruitless intercourse. No one can explain why it is not working as the usual battery of tests they do come back fine ... you begin to envy and resent people you see who are pregnant, you cant look at a cute puppy/kitten because you feel like you'll never have a baby, you simmer with inner rage when someone at work brings in their baby to show around the office, or someone mentions their kids etc ..."HoW cAn thEYy bE sO INSENSITIVE?!?!?!?!" you fume to yourself as you die a little inside. It is quite the existential torture.
To HNers reading this: If this sounds like you, please do yourself a favor and find a clinic that deals with immune-related infertility. During consultations for starting IVF, one clinic casually noted that my wife had "natural killer" CD16+ and CD56+ cells that might be causing the miscarriage and no natural pregnancies. We immediately found a clinic that specialised in treating that condition and 2 months later we had a natural pregnancy that went full term - our baby boy was born 1 year ago and he is thriving. After 4 hard years of sorrow and misery, it just took some basic immune-modulating drugs and we got pregnant naturally after just two months, and a totally textbook baby (straight down the middle on weight & size etc) was born naturally with no complications. It can happen - good luck.
I think if I had known how young late 30s and 40s actually is it may have resonated. Like, I still do all of the hobbies and activities I did in my 20s and am arguably in the best shape of my life, pandemic bod not withstanding. I think I truly felt my youth was fleeting and I wanted to be able to "enjoy it".
The reality is I squandered it in some ways and I feel a bit of sadness that my children will have a dad in his 60s by the time they are out of the house. Should have given that youthful energy to them with something to spare as adults. In reality I probably won't have much left when they become adults.
Such is life!
EDIT: Someone down thread makes another point that applied to us. By the time we were "ready", we found we had "unexplained infertility". Science helped us out but it wasn't fun, it was stressful, and pushed our parenthood even later than planned.