Recently I wrote about parental 'do-overs'—what you would do differently with another child. Several readers wrote that one thing they would change is waiting so long to have children.

　　As one commenter wrote: 'The only regret I have is not starting sooner to have kids because I had no idea I'd love being a mom as much as I do and I would have definitely had a third if not a fourth. [My husband] and I were so focused on establishing ourselves career-wise and waited, as it turns out, a little too long.' Another wrote: 'I too wish I had started sooner. Being in my mid-thirties and having my first makes me wish [my husband] and I hadn't dragged our feet so long to start our family. I'm loving being a mommy!'

　　These comments hit close to home. Like a number of readers, my husband and I waited a while before we chose to have kids in our mid-30s. Now that I have my first son I love being a mom so much that I occasionally regret not starting my family a little sooner. I'd like to have three kids (I grew up in a family of three children and loved it) but because I got a 'later' start, that might not be so feasible as my body gets older and my fertility and energy-level wane.

　　On the plus side, my husband and I who will be married five years this week but who have been together for eight years waited until we were sure that we really wanted and were ready to have children; we were rather indifferent about having children early on in our relationship, so we wanted to make sure that we really wanted to be parents. My husband is a child of divorce, so we also wanted to be confident that our marriage was on sound footing before we brought a child into the world. We also wanted to be reasonably settled financially and professionally.

　　What's more, being older parents and having a bunch of nephews and a niece, as well as a ton of friends who already had young children, meant that we had a lot of models for parenthood and we didn't feel overwhelmed or particularly anxious about being parents once our son was born. And as a couple who loves to travel, we were able to take some incredible trips—to South Africa, Turkey, Costa Rica, Italy, Mexico—that would be more challenging and expensive once kids were here.

　　But being older parents has its drawbacks, too. While I had no trouble getting pregnant with my son, I'm well aware that fertility drops precipitously for many women as they hit their late 30s and 40s. It's not just an issue for women; as the Juggle and the the New York Times have reported, dads have biological clocks, too. French researchers reported last year that the chance of a couple's conceiving begins to fall when the man is older than 35 and falls sharply if he is older than 40, according to the Times.

　　At the Juggle, we've written before about how women, on average, are now opting to have babies younger; the average age at which women give birth for the first time, 25 years old, posted the first decline since the government began tracking the data in 1968, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Readers, did any of you wait a while to have children or did you start your families when young? How do you feel about your decision?liuxuepaper.com