Pleased for you Robin, sounds like things have worked out pretty much perfectly 
This conversation comes at a quite apt time for me. Just last week me and my girlfriend celebrated our seventh anniversary. Iām 29 now and she is 32. When we got together there was talk of ābecause Iām a bit older Iāll want kids at some point in the not too distant futureā, but when youāre 22 and your girlfriend is 25 thatās basically a million miles away.
But from the start I did know that we might reach a point where she is ready before me, but because cause we were both agreed that we absolutely want to have a family and all that, I felt this wouldnāt be a big issue.
I still donāt think itāll be a big issue, because if you think youāve found the one and you both want the same thing ultimately, Iām not going to jeopardise that for the sake of whether I get to have a child precisely when I want one, as opposed to maybe getting on with it a couple years ahead of my own schedule.
But the conversations are starting to crop up more regularly than Iād like. Iām 29 now, Iām just two years into my full time career, making good progress in my career given its such early days still, just bought a flat with my gf by the coast, and Iād just like to enjoy this period of our lives for a bit before moving on to the next chapter.
But with my gf being a little bit older, nearly all her friends are married and some are even moving on to their second kid now. So I absolutely get why it is on her mind so much, and why she wants to talk about it more than she used to, and why those conversations seem to be less generic and a lot more specific. I feel like weāre on the cusp of that conversation where it will soon start to become about dates and specific schedules, and quite frankly I feel slightly terrified, like the weight of expectation is really starting to build.
Whenever she seems to want to discuss it I can feel myself clamming up before the convo even really begins. But I just need to get over it and have the convo, we might not see things the same way immediately, and might have a bit of an argument or tricky conversation where it becomes clear we have different time frames, but we want the same thing so it wonāt make or break us.
I just worry so much about whatās the right thing to do. Because of her health my gf canāt work full time, so weāre basically gonna be doing this off the back of my salary, so thatās a factor. Iād like to be about three years further into my career and maybe 5-8k better off a year before starting a family, in order to compensate for making ends meet with one salary. Also due to health reasons, I wonder about how horrible pregnancy and labour would be for her, and just how difficult then looking after the child would be and the impact it would have on her health. The world also feels pretty fucked right now too, and that weighs heavily. But as weāve always both wanted a family, despite some good reasons to consider not having a family at all, Iām almost certain we would massively regret that decision once its too late.
Being an adult is hard man, no wonder I tried to cling to being an irresponsible child for so much of my twenties 
