This must be what it’s like in Mrs. Duggar’s brain.
I was pretty confident all during my pregnancy with AndyZ that, even though we were going to wait until 2011 to decide for sure whether or not to have more kids, we probably would not plan to have anymore. I just felt very in tune with my own load-bearing abilities and didn’t think I could handle more than 2 kids needing me at a time. (LilZ, obviously, doesn’t require too much care.) After AndyZ arrived, I started feeling FOR SURE we’d have no more. I mean, so many things have slacked in our lives since he joined our family. My showers, cleaning the tubs, cooking actual meals that don’t go straight from the freezer to the oven to the table…if we added another kid there’s nothing left to cut out.
So, I started just embracing the concept of our family being done. While my Spontaneous Aborter condition never made trying to procreate easy, it also (obviously) didn’t make it impossible. I’ve been seriously looking at our family as COMPLETE. I guess to brace myself for 2011 when we finally make the decision official. And I’ve been okay with that. Okay with not dealing with failed months or failed pregnancies. But also not dealing with newborn feedings and sleepless nights.
But y’all? HAVE YOU SEEN THIS FACE RECENTLY?
How in the WORLD can I be done with that? I mean…SERIOUSLY? The idea of never watching another kid develop those chubby cheeks again? TORTURE. The grins! The giggles! The humiliating costumes! I must do it again! AND AGAIN! AND AGAIN!
It’s a good thing we’re waiting until 2011 to make our decision. That was smart of us to set that in stone some time BEFORE we were blinded by the intoxicating cuteness of this infant. In 2011? We’ll be dealing with AndyZ’s Terrible Twos and Threes. I think by then? We’ll be able to think rationally again.
MAYBE.
Check at Brit’s later today where I’ll be guest blogging about one of my Never Before Revealed Embarrassing Moments. You don’t want to miss it!
Mrs. Duggar has a brain? (oh, slap my wrist). After 18 kids, I’m sure she has lost her damn mind.
When and if to have another baby is such a hard decision. Spontaneous aborter here (four tries and one baby), and we know we want another. How close would we like them? Are we insane to even try to plan? What if we wait three more years and then I keep losing babies and losing babies perhaps never get blessed with another baby again? What if our baby is waiting for us RIGHT NOW?
The crazy thoughts continue, and it is so hard to focus on reality. 2011 isn’t that far, and by then? You may have forgotten that newborns wake up at night. (and I promise, AndyZ will still be heartbreakingly adorable).
I seriously thought you were going to say you were preggers again. seriously.
OMG. I am so sorry for misleading you! EEK. Not pregnant! No way! EEK.
My kids were all that size when I told Hubby I wanted another. Our third was 4 weeks old when Hubby had his procedure done. He didn’t want to run the risk of my talking him into a fourth. And I would’ve too. They’re so sweet!
Although my hubby will say he doesn’t want another one (“I don’t want to be forty when you have your second child!” and some other blithering nonsense), I will agree with him on one point: we will not have another one until this one is AT LEAST in pre-K (that hopefully is state-funded).
I don’t know how any parents (including yourself!) handle having two kids in daycare. It must take a self-restraint I do not have. I just need Starbucks and new shoes too much.
I seriously can’t get enough of those pictures. lol, I had to show MrB them this morning and he awwed as much as I did. makes me want to run out and buy a costume! (we were going to cut it this year due to $$)
we’re moving soon and I went through pictures and old baby clothes and thought to myself, my baby was never this little!
I’m excited for our next, due in May
yup, I always get the feeling i want another somewhere around the one year mark. My youngest is 14 months right now (my oldest is 5 and we have 3yr old twins) and the thought is all consuming! Now only to get my husband on board. Smart of you to wait to make your decision!
by the way, that is the cutest pepper EVER!
Honestly, if I don’t stop reading the sites with all the adorable babies, I’m not even going to have my wedding planned before I decide I must have a baby right now! But they’re just so cute…
I had my tubes tied on Saturday. Best thing I ever did. I am sore as hell but can’t wait to move on to the business of being a mom and not being pregnant, and nursing forever.
I have 4 kids: 9 years old, 6 years old, 2.5 years old and a 10 month old.
Good luck with your decision. I wish you the best of luck and support on your decision. The support part is usually the hardest to come by. I pissed off alot of people by doing what I did. But I did it for me. And I love my children and wouldn’t change a thing.
I have just gotten the itch again and Emmie is only 9.5 months old! I want a third, hoping to space it like the first two, so they would all be two years apart. It’s crazy, but I tell myself that A. All clothes would be size/seasonally-appropriate to reuse that way, B. No. 1 would be in all-day school when No. 3 came along, essentially leaving me to parent three kids all at once for only a few hours each day and C. No. 1 and No. 2 will be able to play together and entertain each other while No. 3 is in the newborn nurse-all-the-time stage.
Now if my husband would just get on board and stop being wishy-washy about it…
And I think AndyZ is cute enough to eat! It’s a good thing you have your plan in place.
Whoa…I’m with Stacey…I totally thought you were expecting again!
Hubby and I think about having another one, but we want to try and go by the Chinese calendar so that we can have a boy (we have 2 girls, 22 months apart). I didn’t have the “itch” after my first, but definitely have it now. Of course, we want to wait a little bit. Maybe next year?
When I read the “waiting until 2011″ post originally last spring, it was just another fun post from you. Today however? I LOVED it. But not because I’m in the same place you are.
Last month we started trying to conceive, and it was the first time in my life I went around thinking “I might be pregnant.” (For the record, I didn’t conceive that first month.) But it was kind of a strange new reality to have maybe-being-pregnant govern the choices I made.
So, while there’s the time lapse of months, I’m feeling what you felt in reverse. Altering a way of life I’ve held for years. Be it stopping trying to get pregnant, or newly trying to get pregnant, it’s a pretty big change.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, what you wrote really hit home to me, just in an opposite way. (And I get this post too. As I’m embracing (hopefully) starting a life with kids, infrequently I also flash back and miss what I likely (hopefully) won’t have again.)
Hope this makes sense! And thanks for putting my feelings into words for me.
You know what made me know our family was complete? Thinking of the possibility of twins the next time around.
Plus with the birth of my little one in May, I had serious complications and she almost did from coming nearly 3 weeks early. It was a scary time and if that would’ve happened the first time around, I’d have an only child – I’m sure of it.
Seriously though, I understand the feeling. Children are such a joy and it is a lot of fun to watch them grow and learn things. You will figure it out in time I’m sure, and that decision will be what is best for your family.
We were helping my grandparents move house and I swear my Grandma wants to be a Great-Grandma like asap. (well either that or she’s decided that I’m going to be childless until she pops it!)
My Dad was helping move stuff and found the box of photo albums and there are so many of me! I was such a chubby baby then a skinny child and now I’m cuddly again lol.
I’m ok with the childless thing at the moment (well 80% ok with it)- I keep adopting other peoples kids for the afternoon or evening then returning them when they cry or it’s time for me or them to go home! lol
Mrs. Duggar is insane. I think three kids is a good amount. Of course, I’m wondering if I’m not going to just stick with one, but man, I’m going to miss the baby days when they’re gone.