I am 31 years old, I have a beautiful daughter but a very childish husband. When I was 26, my husband and I decided to start a family and 6 months later we got pregnant with my little girl. I knew I wasn’t ready for a child, but I went along with it anyway. I figured if not now while I’m young it will only get harder. While I was pregnant, I felt very ambivilant about the whole thing. My daughter was born and we had a very rough adjustment period, both my husband and I had post partum depression. It wasn’t love at first sight, like you hear other mothers talk about. This person was seperate from me, she was her own identity even when she was born, but I’ve slowly fallen head over heels in love with her. She is not the center of my whole universe but she is the best part about it. Now my husband wants to have another child and I’m worried about disturbing our wonderful little family. I do all the cleaning and the appointments and the responsible stuff. My husband gets to be the entertainer. I know this is selfish of me but having another child is not going to add more work for him. It’s just as easy to entertain 2 kids as it is for 1 but I’ll have to clean up after him, my daughter and another baby. I get her up in the morning at 6am, take her to daycare, call off work when she’s sick, put her to bed at night and all my husband does is watch tv with her and then kiss her goodnight before she goes to sleep. Plus I work 40+ hours a week. I feel like a single mom. This is very one sided but as of now we’ve come to a happy medium and I’m picking my battles. I’ve heard once you have 2 kids family members stop offering to babysit for you. You become immersed in domesticity and I don’t know if I want to be chained to my home life more than I already am. I would love to have another child like my daughter because I’ve been strict with her and at 3 1/2 she is more polite and well behaved than most elementary school kids. I’m terrible at providing structure so being a stay at home mom is not an option for me. I’m not looking forward to paying for a 2nd daycare bill either, this may be a battle worth fighting, let him pay the daycare bill. So I guess the point of this confession is that we’ve been trying for 7 months to get pregnant with a 2nd child and I feel like my doubts, fears and worries are preventing my body from conceiving (I know this isn’t physically true but we can just add this to the long list of worries) and I’m relieved everytime I get my period. I do everything that I’m supposed to do, not drink or smoke, take a multi-vitamin but my heart is not in it. Then again, I wasn’t in it the first time and my daughter has gone above and beyond every expectation that I could ever hope for. However, I don’t want to stop trying altogether because I’m 31 and I want to be done by 35. If we have another girl, then I’m looking at a 3rd pregnancy. I guess we’ll wait and see if it was meant to be or not.
If you are “relieved every time you get your period” then you obviously do not want to have another kid. You are NOT selfish! Knowing yourself, your limits, what you want are not selfish. Is it selfish to want to be happy and enjoy life?!?!?!?!
It gets much, much harder with 2 kids. You are constantly balancing their many and diffrent needs. Everything get so much more difficult. And it is not just as easy to play with 2 as it is 1. They will be at very different stages and not really be able to play together for a long time…..and then when they do play together-there is the fighting!!!
Of course your husband wants to have another if all he does is park his lazy butt in front of the TV and then kiss his child good night! Why must you clean up after your daughter and him too??? He is a big boy now and he can pick up his own crap, and even help clean up after his child and care for his home! Why do you allow yourself to be used/abused like that?
You already said that you went through with the 1st even though you did not yet want to. Do you, the woman who has to go through the whole pregnancy & birth, (and in your case, all the childcare!) get a vote on having a 2nd??? YOUR vote is the ONLY one that matters!!!
You clearly have some issues to work out togther. You both need to be on the same page about this and work as a team.
And I know of a family with 4 girls…what then, you have a 5th? I do sincerely wish you well and hope you have a happy, fulfilling life.
I agree with the first poster, it is YOUR vote that counts. You are the one steering the ship here. It will be YOU carrying the baby, giving birth, recovering from birth while taking care of not one but 2 kids and it gets much harder, especially if your husband is not much help. If you don’t already, you will really start to resent him when you are carrying the load to 2 children. Do not cave to the pressure of other people’s wants, this is your life!!
Damn I feel like I wrote this about my life. Except I’m not married. And I truly am a single mother. (Her dad and I are together though) if u don’t want a baby don’t do it. Its ur body, ur life. Don’t feel like u have to fill some rediculou quotto placed on married women. Do u. Take care of ur baby and that childish hubby of urs and do you. Go back to school instead, get ur masters, docterate, whatver. But don’t have a baby for any other reason but love and a desire.