Honeymoon/starting a family

Is your honeymoon planned around your ovulation? If not, you won't conceive then. If you do, you're not under any obligation to inform a potential employer of your pregnancy and they're not legally allowed to turn you down for a job if you do decide to tell them.

We got married in October 2019. Bought a new house in January 2020. Sold our previous house around the same time. And are about to start "family planning" (I'm hoping to be pregnant in the fall). So, I guess you would say we are in the same boat. I see it as fun new adventures for us to be on as a married couple. So far, we haven't had any stress from it.

I think if these are all things you want to do and are goals for you and your future spouse, you can make them work. I wouldn't let getting pregnant sway you from finding new employment.

View Quoted Comment My ovulation so far is a week before our honeymoon and our original wedding date but it can change as I'm irregular (no current diagnose of POS, tested less than a yr ago). I know it may not happen right away but would like to be prepared for just in case.

We plan on starting a family soon after we marry, I'm going off my birth control in August to start getting ready for that. We are also looking at houses, but my thought right now is we live in a nice apartment that is decently priced. The plan is for me to go down to part time at my job for a bit after we have a baby which I realize is down the road, but we are going to look at financially where we stand and if it is realistic to move into a house after we are married or if we should stay in our apartment for a bit longer. I know both of us want out of the apartment too. So we just need to make sure we are living within our means.

I went off birth control in April but no baby yet. We also had to cancel our honeymoon bc of covid and now we want to reschedule but I don’t want to be super pregnant at the beach. But...my husband may be deployed soon and we may have to wait another year to keep trying. We also want to buy a house but aren’t 100% on where we want to live. Life is just unpredictable sometimes. As far as your job, I would just start your new job and if you get pregnant HR will help you figure it out. I’m sure you won’t be the first one at their company this has happened to.

I wouldn't consider getting pregnant and a new job a problem - this is totally not a new situation. Women can, and do, have it all, all the time. I fully intend to get pregnant when we're ready and my job won't be a concern.

With buying a house, it would be more of a monetary question than a timing question I guess. Buying/building a house and having a baby are both expensive things, so you'd have to make sure it'll all fit in the budget. I think the timing concerns are normal, but not too big of a deal.

My bff is getting married later this year and she's planning on trying to get pregnant on the honeymoon. she and her partner bought a house last year together. they don't have educational goals though but i would say that's pretty set.

my husband and i have accomplished all our educational goals and career goals and we have a home now but we aren't planning to have kids anyyyyyy time soon at all aha.

best wishes to you guys!

I focused a lot on my education and career before we even got married. I think my situation is a little different than yours because even though I don’t have a job now (thanks covid), I am established enough that I can jump into another company easily. We also already own a house, and have been discussing getting a more permanent home after I finish remodeling our starter home.


That being said, we were supposed to start trying this month and because of our good friend covid, we decided to postpone because we still don’t know the effects of covid from mom to baby. I’m in my 30s and I definitely feel the clock ticking, but I don’t want to risk myself or baby. If I were pregnant and starting out my career I know I wouldn’t be where I am today because I’d have to sacrifice some work needs for family. I think you need to think about what is important right now, the career or starting a family? Personally, cramming it all in at once sounds too overwhelming. Best of luck!

View Quoted Comment I would hope that this virus will not last past 2021. As of right now, I am currently working from home. I would find it a bit challenge to start appying for jobs right now due to COVID-19. We both are in the mental health field, so we have a stable job. We have both also achieved our goals of receiving a master's degree. The next goal is mental health licensing but that is a different situation that I am not too concerned about. I would like to do it all at once and I am just concerned on how possible it would be, especially transferring to a different state.

I’ve been married a year and a half.
I graduated college with my masters 4 months after getting married, got a job, and we tried to become foster parents all in the first year of marriage.
We have never been trying to not get pregnant but we are currently trying to. I worry about balancing a new baby and job. Many women have done it before me though. The last 2 months we’ve been getting our house ready to sell and house shopping. We will be closing in a month. Your goals to do it all are possible. I feel like we checked a lot off our list in a short time. I will say there were times when we (mostly I) were under a lot of stress with time lines and obligations/due dates on projects and such.

I started working in June 2017 (after I got my Bachelors), my husband in May 2018 (after he got his Masters), we bought our house in June 2018, got married in July 2019, and plan on ttc starting in December 2020. We just wanted more things in order (paying off a credit card, paying down student loans, having two reliable cars, having our house in order & completely renovated, getting in a healthy state physically for both of us) before we started trying so that's why we waited. My husband has 1 more test until he passes his CPA and I have some licensing for my career in October of this year. I'm 26 and my husband is 30. I have done things to prepare (reading two "before you are pregnant what to know" books, getting in healthy physical shape, I'm going off birth control this month and will take an at home Modern Fertility test in a few months, having my husband take an at home fertility test, we are both saving more money, etc.) but we just didn't want to throw in a bunch of things at once and have too much stress. I don't think there is ever a "perfect time" for anyone and it all depends how you handle stress too.

If you just finished your master's degree and are interested in finding work in your field, I would consider that prior to baby. I imagine starting a new job while pregnant would be challenging and employers could possibly (albeit illegally) discriminate against you if they felt you would take time off too soon or would not be a long term hire because you are pregnant, which would be more obvious when you are farther along. Plus moving and starting a new job leaves you with a small support system, and I feel like having a good support network (local friends and coworkers you have a good relationship with) would be super helpful while going through a pregnancy. Plus if you are unemployed that leaves the brunt of the income and access to health insurance on your hubby, which is a lot of pressure for him as well and puts all of your eggs in one basket. If you find a job, move, make friends, and put off baby for a year or so, then you'll have health insurance, a local network of people who care about you, and accrued vacation time/sick leave/maternity time, and if either you or your husband lose work/insurance you have the other person to fall back on. Also having a baby during a pandemic has its own challenges. That's just my 2 cents.

We had hoped to get pregnant on the honeymoon, because it ended up landing in the right part of my cycle.

It didn't happen. It CAN happen, but it usually takes about 6-12 months to get pregnant the old-fashioned way. You should start taking prenatals at least a month before you start TTC, and then know that the docs recommend you having sex every other day during your fertile period. (I use Clue to help track my cycle, there are a LOT of apps out there.)

Employers are not legally allowed to ask you if you are pregnant during an interview, and they cannot reject your application because of it. (...Hard to prove, though.)

It's really a matter of if you feel ready for a baby.

I definitely understand wanting to get things moving. I am 30 and my fiancé just turned 41. I mostly want to start a family because I don’t want him to be an ‘old dad’ - with no disrespect to anyone who is. My parents started at 18, and my mom had another child with my step dad at 35. Ive seen what a difference having a child younger vs older. His parents started in their late 30’s, so they’re in their 70’s now which makes me want to give them grandchildren sooner. Though we’re not married yet (5/8/21), I plan on trying for a baby pretty quickly. We’re both established in our jobs, own a house and have plenty of savings so we are very lucky (mostly thanks to him because he’s got 11 years on me!). My advice would be to try and wait. I hear you that it’s not easy, but wait until you’re in the best place for you and your husband to bring a baby into the world. And you’re both still at a great age! Enjoy sleeping in on weekends and being able to go to happy hour, and consciously recognize those moments as “enjoy while you can”! Also, I grew up in southern NH, highly recommended! happy to help on that front also.

As someone who has been struggling to conceive, I definitely don’t recommend putting it off if it is what you really want. When we first started trying I was all anxious about timing and like thinking certain months may be more convenient, maybe we should wait until after x thing happens, etc...... at this point, I no longer care about timing, I just want our baby and if we can ever manage to get one I know we’ll make it work.

My FH and I have already started. I’m 36 and he will be 49 in September. I have been on prenatal for almost 3 months. I’ve been tracking my ovulation so we’ve been trying. I hope to get pregnant on the honeymoon but if not hopefully within 6months to a year. My parents were older but they had issues trying to conceive, took 7yrs. My age does concern me because I am older and you start to lose more eggs after 35. I don’t believe there is ever a “right time” to have kids, if you want a family I say go for it. I currently am also trying to find a new job and my issue is if I start a new job and get pregnant right away, will they keep me? I say go for it and have a family, I am.

WOW!! We are in the same boat! We got married in September, was planning to go on the honeymoon in June but canceled due to covid. I also graduated with my masters degree and looking for a job but with the honeymoon postponed, would like to start planning for kids. Can’t wait for that to happen before babies- I’m 33. I’m unsure of how the job thing will work and if I’m able to be pregnant once I start working. We’re also planning to get our first home this year too. So much going on. I empathize.


Best of luck to you! I know everything will work out. Thanks for posting this question and sharing! It’s really gonna help out a lot of people and hopefully you’ll feel much better and have a better idea/perspective. Hugs to you!!

Wow congrats on your degree, my two cents if I were you I would find a job either in MA or NH settle into it, gather up pto, save some money and plan for your children. I feel having a secure place to live is important and having a job secured is another very important thing that is necessary before starting a family.

Sounds like you have a lot of plans! All good things. I’m the same way. Planning to get married, have a baby, get a dog, buy a house, possibly new job all in the same time frame. I figure life is short, why wait? I have found that Covid has affected our timeline a lot. Its like one thing gets affected, then so does everything else like a domino effect. Not sure if you had that happen to you but I say go for it if you can handle all these things at once!

Ok slow down and take things in stride. You and everyone there seems to be doing well as well can be