Before kids?

Hmm, for me I was very lucky, we travelled to Europe and England before having kids, and also built (and sold) a house. 

 

The ONLY thing I wish for now, is that we had more time together before kids came along.  We were married 3 years and I was so very clucky, but now I wished we had a couple more years together before kids came along.

Saved money and bought a house! but oh well, the kids wanted to arrive first

^^ I like that

A scrapbook: the 6 months before IVF would be awesome to look back on, especially if times get touch.

I wish i'd settled in a decent career first, the one i'm in is pretty useless when it comes to having children. The hours are erratic and demanding and outside of childcare times.

Financially speaking i would have seen the dentist, eye-doctor, mechanic etc and got everything checked and settled so no nasty suprises came up mid pregnancy

Gone somewhere, anywhere overseas as i've never left NZ and now when i do i'll be taking a little one along. NOT that thats a bad thing, i just won't be partying through Europe like i'd thought!

Had an insanely expensive "me" day. Like a luxury spa, crazy shopping trip complete with uber expensive impractical shoes, fabulous over-priced dinner in a fancy restaurant and night in an exclusive hotel.

Oh, and i guess some kind of glorious couple day as well, the super romantic rose-petal in the bath with champagne and strawberry type of day that you'll never have again with a screaming child in the house.

There is nothing I wish I had done! Lived overseas, travelled, brought house, studied again, started business, got married, had baby ........ and did all of this with my lovely DH.

I wish I'd got my career sorted. Had DS 2 months after finishing my uni degree, and now I don't want to go back to full time work, but it's hard to get a career-orientated part time job. (Don't want to give up my time with DS for just a "meantime" job).
That and some travel, but I'll just have to wait a wee while and we can take DS with us!

I havent had my bubs yet but from my pregnancy experience so far:

Definitely save up as much cash as you possibly can. If you can live on one income then do it starting as soon as you can.

Read a bit about pregnancy before you actually start trying. The toughest thing I have found during the pregnancy is that i had a strong belief that because it was something I had wanted for so long I was ready and my body would cope with it really well, turns out it was the opposite and having unrealistic expectations about it have made life really difficult.

If you can do counselling or a couples course with dh, even if things are going really well for you. IVF/pregnancy/bubs is likely to bring up areas where you differ greatly and how to communicate them is important. Also making sure that dh knows how you feel and isnt listening to the mood swings.

Some travelling if there is anywhere you want to go and some DH and you time.

I do kind of wish I'd had a chance to travel more, but I'm married with a baby at 21, DH is from Europe and moved over when he was 8, and has been back a few times. It would have taken us a few years to save up to go over there anyways, so for now I'm happy the way things have gone.
We're still saving to go overseas, it just means we will probably have 2 kids in tow!!!

_SMS_ wrote: Also buying new nice things. Like couch, tv etc. We dont have the money to buy all these things but we did before kids. I just wish we had nicer things really.

I'm the opposite! We bought a house before we got married and bought new 'nice' furniture - now I wish we had of gone for cheaper stuff! The kids don't understand how much it cost

We travelled before we had kids, but I would like to have travelled more. While I could imagine travelling with 2 kids, I think 3 maybe too many. Also I'd liked to have saved more money.

I like the ideas about spending time working on your relationship and some pamper time.

All the best with your IVF journey

I wish I had travelled more with DH, did the whole OE thing but that was before DH.

The only thing I wish I'd done is more travelling. It is far easier without kids .... but in saying that our kids have been to Fiji, Vanuatu and Thailand ... so its possible, just a different holiday than if you went without them. And theres plenty more time to keep travelling when they're older . But we were a bit older (30's) when we had kids and had done so much partying, a bit of travel, got married, brought a house, studied and careers were established etc so not much else I would have done first. (and given the choice I'd still have the house and kids over travel).

But make sure you go to the movies and out for dinner lots!!! Its gets harder to do things like that when you have kids -- we dine at Cobb & Co now! lol. And a spontaneous weekend away ... sleep ins ... pampering (facials, pedicures etc) .....