Growing up whenever I was asked how many children I wanted, I would say “3” without even thinking about it. To me, 3 was my magic number. No real rhyme or reason I guess, but even before I had children, it was what I felt would be ideal.
Well, now here I am with 2, and I’m tossing around the idea of a 3rd child. And I can’t keep on thinking that I must be insanely crazy to even consider it. Besides having my hands totally full with 2, I’ve gone through multiple roller coasters on my motherhood journey. From having trouble TTC #2, multiple miscarriages, 2 rounds of bed rest and having my youngest son over 12 weeks early resulting in a 101 day NICU stay…you would think I would totally have closed the door on the dream of three kids and be happy with the blessings that I do have.
While I am more than grateful for my 2 incredibly adorable and feisty boys, there is still a longing to have another child. Is it a chance to “redo” my 2nd pregnancy over since it was cut entirely too short? Is it that I’m longing to have a daughter? Or am I chasing an idealistic dream since my childhood where I felt like having 3 children was my ultimate dream?
Part of me just wants to stop while I’m ahead. I get worried about rolling the dice again and seeing what type of journey I will be on. Will it be months of trying to get pregnant followed by a miscarriage? Or what If I’m lucky enough to get pregnant without any problems but wind up on bed rest and have an early delivery? I find that my role as a mother is to also take care of my children, and I feel that if I do end up on bed rest or have a NICU stay ahead…am I taking away time from them when they need me? Trying to divide my time was hard enough with only 2 kids, how could I do it with 3?
On the other hand, I think of the relatively easy journey I had with my first son. We weren’t even trying to get pregnant, and I had a pretty uneventful pregnancy (with a few weeks of bed rest) that ended up with a picture perfect newborn. What if the dice rolls in that direction? And even though my second pregnancy was cut drastically short, I would do it all over again because Liam is worth it a million times over.
As far as what my husband thinks, he is just as conflicted as I am. We have jointly agreed that once our family is complete, we would opt for a more permanent choice of birth control. With that being said, my husband isn’t calling the urologist to set up an appointment just yet. Maybe if one of us was convinced one way or another we would have an easier time deciding which direction we would go in.
So what to do? Do I take a chance and roll the dice? Or close this chapter of my life? I guess only time will tell.
Another great article that makes me think that everything happens for a reasone. I always had 2 in my head, but after our daughter was born with special needs we both questioned the number we were set on. Here we are, about to have #2 and we have had a few bumps in the road, but I believe it was meant to be. You will know.
I don’t know if this will help but if you’re not taking permanent measures to prevent it, it probably means you won’t be satisfied until you leave the whole thing to chance. That’s kind of what we did and now we have 3. So I feel like that is what was “meant to be” for us and now we are complete and the longing went away. It’s a big decision but perhaps step back and let God (or fate) do His thing? It will all work out either way friend.
We got to the point that we were sure we were done(even though I wanted one more), gave away all our baby stuff, and planning a ‘permanent’ solution, when I got pregnant on birth control. My advice, pray, pray, pray, and God will give you peace about it. I hope that helps
I am right there with you Mary-After 2 NI babies I struggle with whether or not my family is complete. I do know that between #1 and #2 there was a moment when I just KNEW I was ready, something shifted inside of me and every part of me just KNEW I was ready to get back on the roller coaster. I do pray that one day I will get this same sense of peace, one day I will just KNOW if my family is complete. Until that day, I am just enjoying the two perfect blessings God has given me. Thanks for sharing, Mary!
I am totally with you. We have a 14 month-old who was a preemie and had a miscarriage before that. Somehow we are deciding to go for it. The other night we realized if I got pregnant by surprise, we’d be over the moon. And I also knew when my daughter wouldn’t share her toys today…she needs a little competition 🙂
When you are done having babies you KNOW you are unless of course there happens to be a medically or financial reason or some other circumstance out of your control that trumps your desire for more. I had my 1st child pretty young and thought that was it for me until I got unexpectedly pregnant for twins when he was 3. After them I thought for sure I was done but couldn’t bring myself to do anything permenant and bam! When they were 4 I ended up preggers again…..and as history has had it up to now I still can’t bring myself to permenantly close this shop! Haha! Im like you battling over weather this is the end of this chapter of my life and half of me desires it to be….BUT every person I know who is truly done has told me that when they were done they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were D.O.N.E. and have not regretted that decision. So that leads me to believe that since I dont know that for sure that maybe I’m not….I have no plans on having more and we do actively prevent but if by some chance God has other plans I dont want to take the option completely off the table to be blessed with another little miracle. Its OK to not know what to do and to just let nature take its course, is there ever really a PERFECT time to have a baby anyway?