Tick tock, I heard it, my biological clock. I surrendered to the plague of pregnant friends and random women, both in Berlin and abroad. When I saw the little cute tiny faces and hands of their children, I found myself wondering how I would be as a mom.
Before I turned twenty, I actually had a so called "life plan". According to it, I should finish university with twenty-five (I did), marry the man of my dreams with twenty-six (that I managed, too), and have my first child with twenty-eight... Not! I've never been good at math, I actually hate it, so it was almost sure that that life plan wouldn't go accordingly.
One month after our civil wedding, I started a Masters Degree in Belgium and then it was about time to finally start working. So we moved to Berlin. After a very interesting but very intensive and time consuming job as a media relations advisor to the Russian government, I decided to take it easier with myself and go for the dream of working to enhance Colombia's reputation in Germany at a newly created foundation. I loved it but something was missing. I felt ready for a child (not to mention that my parents, especially my father giving some advice as a medician, were dying to welcome their first grandchild).
However, as a woman, when you live in a ("developed") country like Germany, and you have been working hard throughout your whole academic life in order to become a succesful professional woman, you find yourself facing a huge interpersonal conflict when trying to deal with the dilemma of having a child or opting for professional success. I wanted both. Hell, I still want both! On the other hand, when I Iooked around, I mostly saw women having their first child in their mid-thirties or older. That's not what I wanted for myself. I had always wanted to have children at a "young" age in order to be able to share their interests in a more credible way and for them to see me as a close friend rather than to be perceived as a distant old mom. And all that with enough energy. Do you know what I mean?
Well, let's say the human body is wise and it helped me to make the pro-baby decision by showing me how working life could damage my health. It was now or never! My husband and I had serious conversations about it and we finally agreed to give it a try. I started to do some research, bought a very American book about getting ready to make a baby (meanwhile I'm not very proud about it but it helped) and read Baby Center. We wanted a summer baby (for the sake of fun parties with good weather).
Until then, I didn't know that you need to do some equations in order to figure out when to give it a go, how often per month to try, depending on when your child should be born. Remember how deep I hate math? Well thank goodness Baby Center has every kind of baby-related calculator and we could
let the fun begin. I didn't really believe that it would't work out that fast and saw ourselves doing baby work until december. A week after our intensive work, I started to free-ride a roller coaster I didn't even ask for every afternoon during home office time due to something similar to sea sickness. Two weeks later I got an A in my best math performance ever!
It never crossed our minds that it would work out that well. So fast, I mean. We even started joking about how fertile we were and I sometimes called my husband "Tirofijo", which basically means that he got it at the first shot. But more than suprised and even proud, we felt very thankful, that we were not in the situation of waiting for the so wished for baby. We thought it would take months but did all in our power to prepare our bodies and minds for making a baby. At the end we were very lucky and very happy.
So if you are planning to have a baby, I can just recomend to hear your body and your heart in order to decide if you want to give it a go. I think there is no real "good time" to have a baby. Of course the financial situation should match the needs and caring a child needs. But you just need to feel prepared and make the decision. What I very much believe is that one needs to prepare the body, nourrishing it well, and, most of all, be as relaxed as possible. There is no need to stress or to put pressure. Enjoy the baby making together. At least this part of parenthood, of being a couple, should always remain the best and most fun part!