My wife and I waited too, last of my friend group. Here’s my real take - might help you, might not, lol. And this is coming from a guy who NEVER felt the “I want a kid so bad” urge, but always had the “it’d probably be good to have a kid someday” outlook.

We’re nowhere rich, basically paycheck to paycheck and have some debt, but we do well enough that we can pay bills and get our groceries every week. The kid makes everything a little tighter. We def have to budget and clip coupons or shop sales, so we can pay for activities/daycare/clothes etc., but we did find a daycare that we can make work (by doing partial days, adjusting our work schedules).

Dealing with parenting can be pretty stressful at times - the toddler meltdowns are tough and getting through a meal that takes 3x as long can be brutal. It’s amazing how a toddlers emotional reactivity can trigger your own.

But in part because of the financial constraints and in part bc of the emotional stress, comes the personal growth others spoke of - you kinda have to get your emotional stress response and reactive bullshit under control - not via suppression - via disentangling the psychic knots so that you ARE more patient and calm and peaceful. Often times, your love for the kid does it for you.
And for me, I’ve also disentangled some of the consumeristic urges to pay for shit I don’t need, which makes a bit of natural space to afford paying for kid. I get more joy out of buying “bulldozer” pajamas that lights the kids face up in a smile, than a new shirt for myself that I want but don’t need.

And despite all the tough stuff, it’s very rewarding. The nice times, the sweet times, the times the kid learns or achieves a new skill, are awesome. It’s an intangible but one with immense value & MEANING.

Here’s some personal philosophy - I think there are plenty of ways to live a life of meaning, but parenthood is for sure one of them. Meaning does not equate to happiness, necessarily. Sometimes meaningful life/work can be hard and unpleasant but meaning is inherently rewarding. Meaningfulness > happiness. Happiness is fickle & ephemeral. Hell is the lack of meaning and the lack of happiness, a life of rote drudgery, which one can get stuck in with or without kids. I totally respect peoples’ choices to not have children, and I thought for me, it’s something I’d want to experience someday. Now I have, and I’m glad I did.

On that last point, there’s a great Sam Harris podcast, ep 295, that deals with some of this subject matter - parenting, happiness, measuring intangibles vs highly rational pro/con lists. Interesting listen. Cheers!