When I was 6 days postpartum, someone said to me “Oh, you’ve got to start planning to give Joshua a little brother or sister. They’ll be best friends.”
Six days.
SIX.
Six days after my insides had literally been removed from my body to facilitate the exit of my firstborn and then carefully (I hope) placed back inside. Inch by inch. And here is someone telling—not asking—telling me I need to start planning for another one.
I can still see myself standing in my kitchen listening to this and wanting with everything to shout “are you facking kidding??” But because I’m a good Southern girl, I didn’t. I said…well, come to think of it, I don’t think I said anything at all.
And then this year rolled around and I said “I think I want to have another baby.”
And then I got an offer to take over the yearbook at school which would require one year of learning the job before my first year as advisor. So I thought “Well, I can’t go on maternity leave in the middle of the year with the yearbook incomplete. If we don’t do this soon, we’re looking at another two years before we can even try.”
So that settled if. If we were going to do this, we were going to do this. Done deal.
And then the irregular periods came back and I started sort of panicking about how if this didn’t happen in the three month window we were out of the game for two years and OMG.ENDOFTHEWORLD.DOOMANDGLOOM.
At my last doctor’s appointment, I walked out with a scrip for Clomid in my hand and instructions to call on day 3 for bloodwork and to schedule monitoring appointments.
Then I had a quasi-change of heart about this whole Baby Human 2 thing.
I don’t know if I’m ready. I don’t know when I’ll BE ready.I don’t know if WE are ready.
I don’t know if bringing another baby into this family in the next year would be even remotely fair to Joshua. He needs me—us—so much.
How do I tell him “No, you can’t sit in my lap right now. I’m holding the baby”?
He IS my baby. Having another baby means no more time for it to be just us. No more time for one-on-one with him.
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How do I tell him to wait and make him watch as I tend to the other child’s needs?
How do I explain anything to a 3 year old and expect him to understand?
Will I sacrifice the relationship I am building with my son post-PPD if I bring another baby into the mix now? When I’m so newly whole again?
And then that got me thinking about how people plan their families. We have no idea how to plan this family other than to look at our finances and go “Well, we could swing this now, but we could swing it better if we wait. But now’s totally good, too…flip a coin!”
In our case, I’m 7 years older than my brother. Dan is 5 years younger than his sister. Neither of us really grew up with those super-close sibling relationships people talk about.
The more I thought about this notion that it’s my responsibility to give Joshua a best friend, I thought “I’m not growing my child’s peer group, here. This isn’t the Duggar family.”
Is that why people decide they want to have their children closer together? So they can be “built-in best friends?”
Or are they just trying to get the sleepless nights and diapers over with more quickly?
Yesterday I read this post by Amber at Beyond Postpartum, which she’d written as a result of this post by Katherine at Postpartum Progress.
And to that discussion I add, do PPD moms sometimes get so caught up in what their “plan” is that they go for another even to the detriment of their own mental health just because that’s the way they’d envisioned it before PPD was a blip on the radar? And if that sometimes occurs, is it to my advantage that I didn’t have a plan? That I still don’t? That I can come up with just as many valid reasons for NOT having a baby right now as I can TO have a baby right now?
::sigh::
Lots of questions. Nearly zero answers.
But?
I know enough to know that if I have this many questions? Now is probably not the time.
I LOVE THIS POST. Hallelujah and A-flippin-men. I feel like we are pushed to have kids so close, that everyone says to us, “Well, now the first one’s out – just two more to go!”
I have 0 plans to have another child for a “friend” or to ensure that we “get it over with”. I’ll have another kid when I’m ready. Whether it’s 9 months from now or 7 years.
Or maybe we’ll have none. Maybe Bella might be an only child. That’s ok with me too.
Now that he’s two, I have an endless stream of people saying “Oh, so when are you going to have another??” Part of me, for spite, wants to say “Never.” (Because really, there’s never going to be another HIM, so I’m technically correct.)
I know in my heart that our family isn’t complete, but I just don’t know if NOW is the right time.
And if Joshua became an only child because 10 years from now I still wasn’t ready, or was still hoping to be struck by that magic bolt of baby-wanting lightning and it hadn’t happened yet? Joshua’s pretty awesome.
Sometimes I wish I would just get pregnant so I don’t have to make a decision about when is the right time to have a child. We are “planning” on starting to try for our first next spring.. and although I’m dying of impatience, I know that next spring we’ll be no closer to reaching the goals we had in place (mostly financially) to reach before we have children. Will I be strong enough to put it off longer? I don’t know.. But, I do know, this decision – hardest one I’ve ever had to make.
I understand that. Part of me feels that way right now. But it’s more out of a sense of having the decision taken out of my hands than it is because I’m impatient.
And you’re totally right. This decision? Super hard.
I’m laughing because I took over mid-year for two different yearbook advisers at two different schools. Of course you can go on maternity leave mid-year even if you take yearbook. Yeah, the yearbook is important but no as important as you and your family.
So do whatever you feel ready to do, mama. If you want another baby now, do what you need to do. Joshua will still love you and will have the baby to love too. If you guys don’t feel ready? Then wait. Don’t let the haters or the pushers or even your beloved students (who I know you love and want to do best for) pressure you one way or the other.
I know that I could leave in the middle of a school year. Logically, I know that. But I also know what my job expects of me and what I expect of myself when it comes to having my name attached to creative endeavors like that. It’s not something I see myself being able to stop mid-production.
Yeah, I can completely understand that. I would want to see it through too. But at the same time it’s one of those “there will never be an exactly perfect moment” kinds of things, kwim? And if you train the kids right, your editors should be able to mostly run the show and check in with you by email.
Which is not to say, of course, that you have to go this way. Just that there’s always a way around things.
I know there’s never a perfect moment, but there are some that are almost perfect, right?
I’m trying to come up with an answer to that. Maybe? I guess there’s just a moment when the desire to go forward is bigger than the obstacles. So, if it doesn’t feel that way now, maybe it will later. You might have the same obstacles but more push, and then it will be okay. I think. I have no idea, honestly. I’m just making this up.
Right. And I don’t think my desire to go forward is bigger than my obstacles yet. Or maybe I’m just paralyzed by “what ifs.”
I liked the idea of having my children close(ish) in age, partly because it WAS nice to have a built-in friend growing up. My father was in the military so we moved around a lot, so my sister (who is 2.5 years younger) was always my first friend in a new place – and then we could make friends with kids in the neighborhoods together. It was much easier to say “Hi, can WE play with you?” than approach kids on my own. Since my husband is also in the military, I thought it would be nice for Little Evan to have a close in age sibling.
But let me tell you, the day after I got my 2nd baby positive pregnancy test I FREAKED out. Majorly. A sort of terrifying amount. I was sure I had made a terrible mistake and I was ruining my life.
Now that I’ve been doing this mom-of-2 thing for almost 6 months, I can look back and think that freak out was silly. Except for today in the Aquarium parking lot, when I was wearing the baby and my toddler threw himself on the ground in the middle of the road screaming. Or last night when I tried to go for a run and came home to a hysterical infant because my husband was putting the toddler to bed. Or the TWENTY TIMES A DAY that I am being climbed on by a 2 year old while I’m trying to nurse Caroline.
I think what I’m saying is, it’s hard to say you are 100% ready even if you ARE ready.
p.s. (as if this isn’t long enough already) I know people who are having 2nd kids when their older child is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 and EVERY SINGLE ONE has said how much the older child loves the baby. There is no magic age that makes it better or worse.
Not having that relationship with a sibling is definitely a factor in this decision. i don’t know what that’s like. Even now that we’re older, my little brother and I aren’t close. (It also doesn’t help that we’re RADICALLY different people, probably.)
And I understand the “it’s hard to say if you’re ready even if you ARE ready” sentiment. Because I feel that. But I guess I just don’t know if I’m ready.
It’s funny because I was hospitalized after my son’s birth with PPD and people assumed that I wouldn’t want more children because my pregnancy/labor/postpartum was so difficult and then there was the hospital stay… but it made me want more. I think that initially it was so that I could make up for the months of me not being me for my son, but it eventually became just that I was ready for another.
In the end, I’ve only been Mama x2 for 2 months, but I’m glad I did it when I did. My son only recently decided that his sister isn’t the spawn of Satan, but he’s still suspicious of her. 21 months didn’t really make a big difference, but I doubt any months would have done the trick. Either way, it’s hard some days to balance between the two, but I love them both so much, it doesn’t matter! Good luck with all those people and their free advice! 🙂
I know that I definitely want more children (or at least one more) despite the PPD. The question for me is when. There is very little “mom-nesia” happening here in regards to what that early life with a newborn was like. To think about doing that all over again with a toddler is absolutely harrowing.
Hmm. Well. I kind of get the feeling that a glimpse into my world yesterday didn’t help things. And I have to admit that reading this made me tear up a little wondering if you thought my family is a bad thing (and I know you love us…but, you know what I mean…or maybe you don’t since I’m irrational).
There I sat on a bench nursing a baby, while my two other kids sat beside me and waited or ran around and played. I didn’t have my 3 year old in my lap–she was patting my leg while she sat next to me and her sister complained that she was ready for lunch.
I promise that I did not set out to grow a peer group, though I’m sure that’s what people looking in on use from the outside might think. But you know why they think that? Because my two girls really are best friends, and both of them are including their baby brother in activities more and more the older he gets. I didn’t need to create it for my oldest child, but she sure is happy I did.
I promise that this was not my plan that I felt I had to stick to. In fact, my plan was not to have a single child until I was at least 30, and here I am with three at age 28.
That being said, only the first one was a surprise and the other two were charted and planned and prayed about and fully wanted. Do I have any reason why? No. I just KNEW.
That didn’t stop me from freaking out during my second pregnancy. I felt the same way about Julia as you feel about Joshua. That was my baby. What was I doing to her? How was it my place to choose this for her? I can tell you that no matter what anyone says, you truly will never understand how your love grows for more than one baby until you have more than one baby. People always told me, “Just wait. You’ll see that you can love both of them just as much, and you’ll find ways to spend just as much time with them.” And I rolled my eyes (and then cried) and didn’t believe them. Until I held Brynn. And then Sawyer. And even through depression and anxiety, my love multiplied, not divided. I understood it so well after having Brynn that having Sawyer was a no-brainer to me–I now knew that splitting love was not an issue. And my kids? Have their own time with me all the time, and they have a blast when their time is all of us together.
Don’t get me wrong–I’m not saying you need to jump on this multiple kid bandwagon if it’s not what you want, or what you want right now. What I’m saying is that everybody has these same fears. You are not alone in that. Now it’s up to you to decide if the fears are enough to make you want to stop procreating or ::ahem:: plow on. Do you KNOW this is something you don’t want, just like I KNEW it was something I did? Then halt the plans with a swiftness. And if you decide later you do want this, then do it. Those fears will still be there, though–until baby 2 arrives.
Believe me, Jenn. This has been a conversation happening in our house for WEEKS. And no, I absolutely do not in any way think of your family as a bad thing. At all. I love your family and I’m thankful for friends here who “get it.” (Um, bird shat on my door and you don’t care. YAY!)
And I don’t even know that it’s so much about my love multiplying as much as it’s about ME multiplying. I know that I am only able to stretch so far and I wonder if I (me personally, not everyone) will be able to be as great a mother as I WANT to be with more. Will I be able to give to all of them equally of myself and my resources? Will one grow up resenting the other the way I, at times, resented my brother?
I’m not saying I DON’T want this. I’m just saying I don’t know if I want this right now. So I guess my biggest obstacle is just the how to make that decision.
Like Suzanne, we truly planned a 2nd child, but I absolutely bawled (which is way not normal for me) the entire day I got the positive pregnancy test result. And while I do worry about splitting the love, how much #1 will accept #2, and how I’m going to handle it all, I KNOW that these fears are just fear of change. I LOVE my life right now, and want to share that with another child. I want to see the happiness in mine and my daughter’s faces at the end of a good day reflected back at me in another little face. I want 3 smiling girls for my husband to come home to. My girls will be almost 3 years apart, and I hope that it’s close enough for them to be friends for life. I want that because my brother and I were 3 years 7 months apart and we were friends young, but then barely tolerant of each other until he graduated from high school. That might have to do as much with gender as age, but still, it was something I considered when we planned for #2.
In short, no one ever seems 100% sure until the test is positive.
I know I don’t deal well with change. I know that especially after having Joshua because, while I was prepared for my life to change, I don’t think there was any way for anyone to prepare me for how MUCH my life would change. And the thought of how drastically it might change again scares me. It won’t lie and say it doesn’t.
It drives me nuts how often we’ve been asked about having number two. Our comments started around 3 months old and are really non-stop since he turned a year old.
My brother and I were five years apart and were best of friends. My best friend and her brother were two years apart and fought like cats and dogs non-stop. I don’t think the spacing matters a whole lot as far as friendships go.
I don’t think it does either, but I also don’t know if that’s the sole reason to have two children right now.
I can think of plenty of ways Joshua would benefit from having a sibling, and plenty of ways that he would benefit from being an only child. No matter what you decide and when you decide it, you and Dan are wonderful parents. But 6 days? That’s insane. What’s wrong with people?
I know, right? I couldn’t even stand up straight or drive myself anywhere. (This person was actually over to drive us to a weight check for Joshua since I couldn’t do it myself…)
And thanks. Knowing there’s so many positives on both sides of the decision just makes this that much harder.
We are kind of in the same boat! Do we do it now? Wait another year? What if finances aren’t better? Will Christopher ever have a sibling? So many questions!
I don’t think 5-7 years is a huge difference between siblings. I am 6 years older than my little brother and we were actually very close growing up. And when I do see him (which is rare) its like old times – close again. I think (my personal opinion) that when kids are too close together it creates a sense of rivalry. They are fighting for attention.
BUT…when kids are so far apart, it might make it harder on the older kiddo because they have been the only child getting all the attention for so long.
Sorry…that didn’t really help!
If we wait, we wait 2 years. That gives me a year to figure out what I’m doing with yearbook and a year to put one out on my own. I can’t risk going on maternity leave before the book is finished.
And I totally get it on the age gap between kids. Being 7 years older, we were never close, but we’re also not even remotely the same except we share a mother and we’re both intelligent. I see that rivalry, but I also see situations where the siblings are close in age and there’s none of that. There’s so many variables that deciding what’s right for us is ridiculous because HOW CAN WE KNOW?! AAAHHH!!
I have no idea Miranda!!! Someone just needs to tell me. It’s so weird how deciding to have #2 is a harder decision than having #1. Lol.
PS – Why is my Gravatar an ugly monster? I thought I uploaded a picture. BoO!
LOL. I don’t know. But I like that the blue one seems to match your frustration in having to ask that question!
And deciding to have #2? WAY HARDER than #1. Way.
We are planning to have #2. My husband told me last night that he’d like one like, right now. LOL. We had decided way early on that the ideal age gap (in our minds) was 2-3 years at most. Because in our respective families, that’s how it is and what we’re comfortable with.
Monkey is 17.5 months old now. Which means, we gotta get on it now. I’m still nursing, no periods. We’ve had such a hard time with weaning and getting him to sleep without the boob and sleeping through the night that we just haven’t really tried hard enough.
Today, we tried. Dad puts him down for daily nap. NO DRAMAS without the boob. None. It took 20 minutes? Night time will be the true test.
The reason I’m writing this? Because we know we are so ready for #2. SOOO ready.
And when the time comes for you? You WILL know.
I think if Dan and I had different age gaps between ourselves and our siblings, we might have an easier time with the decision to have another now. But since we’re looking at 5 and 7 year gaps, it’s hard to imagine two kids closer together than that.
I hope I know.
You don’t have to sacrifice anything with Joshua for another child. Two is fun, especially when the youngest gets mobile. 🙂
I know it may not seem like a sacrifice, and it may not BE a sacrifice, but it feels like it.
I grapple with this. Obviously I’m not in the right frame of mind. But I love my son. If I could five him a sibling I would. But at the same time I cringe with fear. Having being diagnosed with bipolar I’m not sure. Sucks my friend.
I hate that people’s notions of second children can sometimes be that they are just playmates for the first. What about having a second child to nurture his or her individuality, you know? Why does it have to be that I’m having a second FOR the first?
It does suck. And I’m scared.
My son was 2.5 when his sister was born. I thought about all of these valid points and questions you just posted about. For DH, it was a “he needs a friend and let’s get this over with” kind of thing. For me, it was baby fever. My son was weaned and potty trained and I wanted another little tiny baby. You can’t plan these things though, you take it one day at a time. Two kids isn’t as overwhelming as I thought it would be. It was tough for the first year, comforting 2 crying bebs at the same time, but we managed. My son is sitting right up against my arm as I type this (he is 4.5 now) and we still cuddle. My daughter adores her big brother, follows him around, copies everything he says and does. Yes, they argue over toys or who gets their bath first, etc. but they love each other so very much and I am glad I had them close together! Good luck on whatever happens for you. You are blessed either way!
See? I don’t so much have baby fever. I mean, the thought of never being pregnant again makes me sad, and I get all heart-fluttery when I hold babies, but nope. No fever for me.
And I know that things would likely be way less insane than I envision them being. Dan calls me a “hail-stones and hurricanes” planner. It’s always the worst possible outcome in my head when in reality, things are usually not that dramatic.
I think there are positives and negatives to both sides of the coin and you just have to figure out what’s best for your family dynamic. Personally, I never had those feelings that that I was taking attention away from Gabe by giving him a baby brother. But that is probably because my sister is 18 months younger than me. I don’t remember a time when she wasn’t around. Now that Isaac is here, I still don’t feel like Gabe loses my attention. Does he cry to be picked up when I’m holding Isaac? Yes, but he does that when I’m cooking dinner too. But don’t forget the same will be true if Gabe were seven. He might not throw a tantrum on the floor, but he’s going to be upset when Mommy can’t make it to every single soccer game because it conflicts with naptime.
Honestly, whatever you decide, it’s going to feel right for your family. Joshua is going to love his sibling, regardless. You are going to love the second, regardless. You’re going to have times that you feel completely overwhelmed and pulled in two different directions, regardless. Then you’ll have moments where you watch the two of them together and think “I’m so glad we did/didn’t wait”. Regardless.
Good luck in whatever you decide (or don’t decide).
I know there are positives and negatives to both sides. I can honestly write all of this down on a pro and con list and the sides are pretty equal. It’s just a really difficult decision to make.
I’ve always wanted 4 kids. Isla may be an only child. I loved being pregnant.. LOVED IT. But labor? Sucked.. obviously.. and now that she is here? I remember that I am sooo much more a kid person than a baby person. I don’t think/know I can do the baby thing 3 more times.
i’m late to this post, getting caught up after finally being home…
these words soo need to be said, screamed, sung from the hilltops!! I hate the pressure to have more kids in general. It’s such a personal decision that everyone seems to think is their business. For a long time I wasn’t sure we would have another child at all. It just seemed to crazy and too scary. S and the new babe will be 3 years, 3 months apart… and know what? that will be perfect. FOR US. We were ready. And if we weren’t trust me I would not be pregnant right now.
Don’t be pressured into it… follow your gut…