My New Heartbeat – An Inconvenient Truth: No Perfect Pregnancy Time

Since announcing our third pregnancy, I’ve received mostly positive reactions filled with excitement. There has also been the occasional wide-eyed, slack-jawed response where someone says …

… “Wow. Aren’t you worried about …”

That fill-in-the-blank sentence has alluded to my son being too young, my daughter being too old, our finances being stretched and work projects being stressful.

I’m no stranger to “inconvenient” timing of babies.

When my daughter was born, my husband and I were just out of college (translation: young and broke.)

When we became pregnant with my son, I was working at a university, and our due date was the exact day the semester was scheduled to begin.

This time, I’m due shortly after our biggest work event of the year. And my daughter will be home for summer break, requiring my attention.

And my son will be only 20 months old, still in diapers and needing assistance with most everything. And Jupiter is not in alignment with Saturn so universal harmony will be in flux…

That last one I made up. But it’s as ridiculous as all the other claims about “bad timing.”

There is no perfect time to have a baby. There may be more financially stable times. There may be slower times to take a leave at work. But I don’t believe in a “perfect” pregnancy window.

There will always be work projects, deadlines, unexpected financial expenses and sibling age gap pros and cons.

If you find yourself pregnant in a less-than-ideal time, you are not alone. Most of us have something that will conflict with our pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum schedule.

I’m not saying you should disregard all the external factors in life when considering ditching your birth control. But if you are waiting for your calendar to clear up, your bank account to overflow or your other kids to magically seem “ready” for a sibling, you might wait forever.

So congratulations to me! I’m pretty excited for my next perfectly inconvenient baby.