The Right Time

Is there a Right Time to have a baby?
For us, it was when my hormones kicked in at age 29 and I was suddenly desperate for a child. It was entirely physical, like a little alarm bell had gone off inside me and suddenly all the babies in the world looked like heaven.
Rob, on the other hand, is what I call an Instant Father. I think he's been ready to be a Dad his whole adult life.
When Ari was born I was 30 and Rob 31. Compared to our parents, we're practically elderly to be having our first kid.
But by today's standards, we're spring chickens.
I look around at the parents in my area and they're all older than me. In our swimming class we'd have be the youngest parents there.
Spend any time in trendy inner suburbs like Fitzroy and Clifton Hill and you're not sure whether the people pushing the pram are Mum and Dad or Nan and Pop. Seriously.
People are waiting longer and longer to have kids for lots of reasons. We're settling down and getting married later and later. Finding a husband/wife is bloody hard. We want to buy a house/travel/achieve career goals before we have babies.
But there's a cost to all this. My friend Aljit is looking at having another baby very soon because she is 38, despite the fact her son is barely a toddler.
For this reason I'm relieved that we had Ari when we did. And for lots of others - we won't be 65 when he's 21. We'll be young and fit enough to keep up with him.
But having kids at 30 comes at a cost. My career has been interrupted in a huge way. We don't have many close friends with kids, so it's hard work to maintain a social life. Our pre-baby freedoms are gone.
So I reckon there's no Right Time to have a child. It's whenever it feels right.