Deciding whether or not to have a child is always a complex decision, but even more so when you are approaching the idea slightly later in life. Oftentimes, older women have to weigh other serious issues, like career and family concerns, before they turn toward the mommy track. Read on for advice from women – and men – who have navigated the maze. 

Jeff Turrentine, 31, is a highly successful magazine editor in Los Angeles, and his wife, Leigh, is a third-year law student at UCLA. They've been talking about having a child a lot lately, and feeling the pressure, because it seems impossible to find the right time. "Leigh can't take time off once she's graduated law school and then expect to be able to just go back," he says. "And I'm working almost every weekend."

But they both really want to have a child, so they are considering huge changes in their lifestyle. "Once Leigh graduates, our joint income with no kids would catapult us into a very comfortable lifestyle," Turrentine says. "But if we're going to have a child, that won't happen. So we're thinking of moving to a smaller place, where we'd both take massive pay cuts, but where we'd have a quieter life with our child."

For Lezlie Cecchini, a 33-year-old teacher from Cheyenne, Wyo., the situation is much less drastic. "I've only been married two years, and Jeff and I have known from the beginning that we want children," she says. "I know there may be financial issues, but I'm planning to take a break from teaching and stay home. We've been trying to save, get our car paid off, get good health insurance, things like that, in time to beat the biological clock. I can't keep hitting the snooze button much longer!" She and her husband see parenting very much as a partnership, and they have both agreed that they don't want to grow old without children around.

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