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.

還有一個好處是，作為一對晚育父母，我們周圍已經有一大堆親戚朋友生了孩子，可以向他們學習很多知識，不至于在自己為人父母時感到手足無措或者焦慮不安。作為一對喜歡到處玩的夫妻，我們有時間去一些很棒的地方旅行，比如南非、土耳其、哥斯達黎加、意大利、墨西哥等；而如果有孩子，出去旅行將顯得既困難，又花錢。

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.

然而，晚生孩子也有缺點。雖然懷第一個孩子沒問題，但我很清楚，很多女人的生育能力到三四十歲時會突然下降。而且，并非只有女人才這樣。本專欄和《紐約時報》(New York Times)都報導過，男人也有類似的生物鐘。《時代雜志》(Times) 2008年的一篇報導說，法國研究人員發現，男人過35歲后，夫妻之間的懷孕成功率開始下降，到40歲后，成功率會急劇降低。

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?

在此前的專欄文章中，我們曾經報導過，現在大多數女性都希望早點要孩子。根據美國國家衛生統計中心(National Center for Health Statistics)的數據，女性生頭胎時的平均年齡為25歲，這是政府自1968年跟蹤這方面數據以來第一次出現年齡下降。各位讀者朋友，你是結婚后等一段時間再要孩子，還是趁著年輕就讓二人世界更進一步？你對自己做出的決定有何感想？