s/o: how long were you married or together before you had children?

[AnnieW625]

ETA: in the poll I voted based on married time (2 to 3 yrs), but we had our first date in Sept., 1997 and were together 5/1/2 yrs. before getting married, so we were technically together a few months shy of 9 yrs. before DD1 was born.

Golden Pig's post got me thinking about this. DH and I were married for 2/1/2 yrs. before I got pregnant with DD1, so we were married just over 3 yrs. once she was born. Neither of us really had a timeline of when we wanted to have kids prior to getting married, but since DH had been laid off three months before we got married and spent the first 18 mos. of our marriage out of engineering work once he was employed again and 30 yrs. old we thought we should start trying once we were settled in our house, so a month after moving in I got pregnant with DD1. Sometimes I wish we would've traveled more, but honestly I don't regret when we had DD1 and both DH and I are happy that we had our kids when we did (we had been married for just over 7 yrs. when we had DD2).

[g-mama]

We'd been married 3 1/2 years by the time our first ds was born.

[mommylamb]

DH and I met and started dating in 1999, got married in 2000, and had DS in 2007, so we had lots of together time pre-kid.

[carolinamama]

DH and I were together 5 years before marriage and then married almost 5 years before we had kids. But we started dating while we were in college so had we been older, I'm sure there wouldn't have been as much time dating and waiting for kids. We just had our educations to finish, careers to start, and some growing up to do.

[boolady]

DH and I started dating in 9/99, got married in 10/02, and had DD in 10/06, so together a total of seven years, married for four years (and one day) when she was born.

[Kaylee31]

12 years here! I never wanted to get married or have children until I was 30. And I didn't. But I met DH when I was 18 and home on break from college. And we've pretty much been inseparable since. (although we've had a lot ups & downs!) But I'm glad we waited. The timing for having DS was right for us.

[egoldber]

We had our first date in 12/89, got married in 05/92 and had our first child in 08/01. So we were together for 12 years and married for 9.

But we got married as babies.

[BillK]

Married in '94 - adopted Zach in '05.

[ged]

a couple weeks shy of 5 years before DD1 arrived. I like the timing overall, but in hindsight, maybe we should have started earlier? I was 31 when DD1 was born. She was conceived with no problems at all, but we had more struggles and losses before DD2 was born 5+ years later. but otoh, i didn't want babies right away...it wasn't every my dream to get married and have babies. it took some time for me to want to have a baby. most people i know have babies about 2 -3 years after marriage.

the funny(?) thing is that i found out after the fact that all my relatives (and probably others) thought i was having a hard time conceiving b/c we waited 5 years.

[Indianamom2]

We were married 4-5 years before having DD. It was nice to have that couple time to get to know each other. I don't regret it. That being said, we were young when we married...well, me in particular...I was 20 and Dh was 24. We've been married for almost 11 years now.