Ah-ha! I am finally getting my shit together over here to share one of the more personal choices we've made regarding parenting: growing our family. For context; BC (before children) I always thought that I'd have 4 kids. That idea quickly dissolved during my first pregnancy (spoiler I hated it) and subsequent first year of parenting. There is so much reality that hits you the first year of parenting; it forces you to sit with what you actually want. That being said; I knew we definitely wanted a sibling for our daughter so jumping from 1 -2 in terms of life choices was actually a no brainer for me. I was anxious about surviving pregnancy again but I pushed it out of my mind because it was just a road to be travelled to get to the destination.
I definitely was a troll though. Sorry to my husband for that 9 months of hell.
(AND SORRY AGAIN FOR THE LAST 6 MONTHS AS WE NAVIGATE THE FINAL ROLLER-RIDE).
The tougher choice regarding 1 -2 was actually when to try again. Fast forward; I was pregnant for the second time at 15 month pp & after my son arrived it really hit me that we actually might not have any more kids at all. I found the jump from 1 -2 incredibly hard so my entire thought process about having more kids after that was riddled with q's. Which brings us to the last 1.5 years & the decision to go for a third.
Also, a disclaimer - I feel very privileged that expanding my family is a choice in the first place. I understand even getting one human earth-side is a gift so if you are struggling to conceive or can't for whatever reason have more kids when you want too; you might want to skip the remainder of this read since I'll sound like an insensitive rat given the flippant nature with which I discuss getting pregnant/adding kids to one's mix.
For more context; I really started thinking about if we were having THE THIRD a few short weeks after the birth of my second (crazy; right?) but the rationale was.... "is this going to be my "last" with my son?" If so, then I was going to try and reframe everything because sadly that's just what most of us do. We savour only when we know it's nearing the end. I wasn't ready to commit to the end but I did view moments of my time with my second as having a kind of "last one" bliss because a) I thought being present was just a good thing in general & b) nothing is ever, ever guaranteed.
At around 10 months pp however I started to get real with myself. Did I want one more baby? I decided I'd wait until my son turned one; and before I knew it that timeline quickly extended to "let's wait till he's one and a half". No matter what I wanted a bigger age gap than exactly 2 years because I was attributing that timeline to the difficulty of the transition from 1 - 2 (spoiler again... there is no easy or right time for family planning; I honestly think it's all hard for different reasons). But anyways.... around the Fall of last year I started to get really anxious about this topic. It consumed all my thoughts. I asked all the parents I knew of 3 "What's it like? What made you take the jump?". Honestly all the answers I got only made it more confusing. It was the hardest choice I'd have to make thus far in life. Compounded also by a marital struggle since my husband was actually more than okay if we stopped at 2 kids. So now if we do have a third and it sucks.... will my marriage survive? Will I be to blame if I hate parts of it? Is vocalizing the desire to have another child unfair when I still am not 100% certain myself?
No matter what I write here - obviously this is a deeply personal choice, and there isn't really a correct answer.
That said here's a list of thoughts & questions that helped guide us; and a particular moment Mike and I shared where our mindset shifted and we kinda knew... okay, yeah, this is the choice for us.
My immediate reaction when someone would tell me they are having a third was jealousy (so I spent time unpacking what this meant)
Asking myself what the financial and structural changes we'd need to make for this change & can we handle them? (car, house, lifelong commitment to $$$ support a whole other human, how more children simply take up more mental and emotional capacity in your wheelhouse)
Figuring out why I wanted a third (not just to enjoy the baby stage, because all babies grow up, but what exactly was drawing me to this desire)
Weighed what my life would be like in both scenarios & how I'd feel at the end of the day - in other words (a good pro / con list) & a good gut check on what really mattered to me.
Honestly, the tipping point for both my husband and I was actually pretty simple. It was a moment when we were at a dinner party with two other couples who both also had two kids and in discussing this exact topic one of the husbands said:
"there was a study done on this. looking at parents who had weighed this exact decision: the parents who didn't have the third admitted they lived to regret it. none of the parents who had the third ever looked back"
He said it so succinctly and I'll actually never forget the silence we all shared. It was a "well duhhhhh" moment but it also was just so right. So somewhere along the next few months we decided we didn't want to live with any regret; and since we can with great privilege make the choice.... we simply did.
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