The Complete Family
After you have your first baby, hearing people ask “so, when are you having the next one?”, whether it’s said as a joke or in seriousness, is annoying. Maybe you do plan to have another baby. Maybe you had a really tough pregnancy and the birth wasn’t what you imagined. You don’t have to answer their question and you don’t have to know today, tomorrow, or in my opinion ever if you’re “done” having kids.
The end of my second pregnancy was long! And then my labor: being monitored multiple times a week and being diagnosed with mild pre-eclampsia, being induced with Pitocin due to a placenta abruption at 37 weeks, two low BP scares for me and a failed epidural might sound like the synopsis of a story that ends in … “and so we’re done having children.”, but I’m not 100% sure it is.
Hear me out - I may not have another baby but I’m not ready to close the door on the possibility of another baby. I have been blessed with two amazing and wonderful little boys. Our family needed these two particular boys. The joy they possess is unmatched and lights up our lives. I’m not sure I’m ready to never have baby energy around the house! I love watching them blossom into little people. I love Luke in his toddlerhood! Discovering EVERYTHING. His observations are so pointed and so funny. Repeating EVERYTHING, to our delight and dismay!
I love that I can tell him the remote is under the TV and he understands and brings it to me! What?! He listens?! I can’t wait til Izzy can listen too. But I also love his “goos”. I love that his entire body lights up when he sees Tom or I. I love the way he’s studying Lucas. No, I do no love poop diapers, potty training, tantrums, or figuring out what the baby needs and why he is crying. I don’t like when everyone’s crying at the same time and I’m already a little tired of saying “please be gentle with your brother, the dog, my arm, etc.”. And yet, I’m still can’t close the door on having more children. My husband would genuinely love to have children around forever. He really did tell me he’d probably want about six kids. He loves being a dad and he is so perfectly-suited to be a dad, especially of young kids! He is such a loving pushover. Luke and Izzy get so excited to see him every day; it makes me so happy for all of them. Does my children’s love for their father make him a hundred times more attractive? Duh! But that does not mean we should or will have another baby.
We are constantly asked if we will “try” for a girl. Tom has been “trying” to have a girl since we had Lucas! So, if we have another baby and it is a boy, we will have three boys! Fantastic! But we have to get out of the baby making phase and into the baby raising phase at some point, right?!
Also, I couldn’t imagine caring until I had two boys and now I really love being the mom of two boys! If we do have more children, I’d be delighted to have a girl but I would definitely be nervous now because it’d be so new. Babies are babies but little boy energy is a particular kind. The point is, I’m not sure I feel as if my family is complete! And I can’t say for sure that I ever will! Maybe my body will tell me before my heart but we haven’t arrived at a consensus yet. What are your thoughts? Are you “trying” for a boy/girl? Do you have number of children in mind that would “complete” your family?