Baby Steps: Timing

Get ready for a long, but hopefully explanatory, post!



We got married before Adam's junior year of college. We're expecting our first child just before his graduation. Some might say we're crazy. Some might say we march to the beat of our own drum. We like to think that we simply try our best to follow God's plan for us and the teachings of the Catholic Church.

We started dating when I was 16 and Adam was 15. When we'd been dating for about year, I had to start thinking about colleges. We loved spending time together and shared the same values, so the only issue we could really foresee leading to a break-up was going to different colleges. With Adam's blessing, I decided on Pitt and he followed me there a year later.

In the Catholic faith, we believe that everyone is called to serve God through a vocation, most often married or religious life. Once you figure out which vocation is for you, you get on it. So, although we loved being in college together, dating started to feel really old. As we entered our fifth year, we realized that we knew we were called to marriage and that there was nothing major holding us back from beginning our vocation. Adam proposed in October 2009, and after we managed to convince our parents that we weren't completely crazy, we were married in July 2010.

Now, the Catholic Church teaches that marriage has two primary purposes, to help each other get to heaven and to raise some good kids. Unless there is a grave reason not to, couples should ideally get started on the kid thing right away. While we were engaged, we talked to a few friendly priests and were assured that still being in college was a pretty good reason to wait. So, going into our marriage, we knew that our first year would be focused on me graduating and our second year would be focused on trying for a baby.

The question was, when exactly should we get started? As we saw it, we had two main options. The first option was to try for a baby born early next summer. We figured that the advantage would be that Adam would have plenty of free time to bond with the babe, but the disadvantage would be moving {potentially across the country} with a newborn. The second option was to try for a baby born late next fall. We figured the advantage would be moving baby-free, but the disadvantage would be that Adam would be swamped with schoolwork when our little one arrived.

We eventually decided to try for the first option, knowingly full well that things would most likely not work out as we'd envisioned. We like to say that Baby was 80% planned, 20% surprise. We just got so excited that we jumped the gun a little. Now we're expecting our family to officially grow in April, right before Adam's finals week.

After finishing undergrad, Adam plans to pursue his PhD. You're probably wondering, why was being a college student a good reason to wait, but being a grad student isn't a good reason? Well, that is because PhD candidates get paid to go to school, while undergrads have to pay to go to school.

Math grad students make the same average salary across the country. We made a very detailed budget to figure out if that salary would support all of our basic needs, since we both wanted me to stay at home. Turns out, if we avoided expensive areas like California and New England, it could just work. So, our plan was for me to work for a full year {between my graduation and Adam's graduation} to save up a sizable nest egg.

There is no way we would have waited through five years of grad school to have kids. If Adam wasn't able to support us on his salary, he would have foregone the PhD for a master's of some kind, like in engineering or computer science. Or if we really thought the PhD was essential, I would have worked as much as was necessary and figured out some kind of childcare. We would have found some way to have kids shortly after Adam finished undergrad.

The years of grad school lying ahead will be a challenge, that's for sure. But we are really happy that Adam will get to pursue his academic goals while supporting his family and that I will get to take care of the kids at home. We will definitely be poor, but we will be living our life's purpose.