Procreation: A thought process

First, a note: I am on a mission to catch up on the ridiculous amount of posts I have started ... I find that in the little time after I put Elle to bed, if I'm near the computer I'm usually answering e-mails, paying bills, etc. And when I start mentally composing posts, I lose steam by the time I can start to type it out. But I suffered a near deathly stomach virus this week (well, I certainly thought I was near death) and had some time to think. I realized that it really bothers me to have these nearly finished, unpublished posts, even if they are no longer as timely as they were when I started them, and I have vowed to myself to try to just finish them off and start with a clean slate. So if you feel like I'm slamming you with a lot of heavy/stupid/rambling posts, let's blame the sickness and move on, all righty? 

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Around the time that Elle turned one (you know, almost A YEAR AGO), *the* question was asked frequently - some form of "So, when are you going to have another?"

Depending on who asks, I sometimes feel violated, like they've crossed a line. I mean, they assume we want more kids (we do). And they assume I feel comfortable talking to them about it (I usually don't).

These things seem to follow a natural progression - it's the follow up to "When are you going to have kids?" which is the sequel to "When are you going to get married?" The questions never stop.

If my mom friends ask, it's OK with me. It's like they're peeking in to a shared little secret chamber of life plans and timelines. Sometimes we have similar plans, other times we don't. There are the mom friends who have a kid Elle's age ... and have another or are pregnant with their second child already. Or the mom friends who have a kid Elle's age ... and are waiting for a few months or years to have another. Some have the similar reasoning - sibling spacing, finances, career concerns, space issues, etc. Others have different considerations - they want a lot of kids, or they're considered to be of advanced maternal age, or they just want their kids to be close in age.

When I imagined my life as an adult, I figured I would be married for a few kids, then have 3-4 kids, 2-3 years apart. But then I actually started to live my life as an adult. And being an adult is expensive. And my husband is almost 13 years old than me. So these factors made me reconsider. Perhaps 2-3 kids, 1-2 years apart?

I didn't want to wait and delay a family too much, so we started trying to conceive after being married just shy of two years. We were fortunate to get pregnant rather quickly, and thus our journey began. I read a lot when I was pregnant with Elle and in her first year of life. One of the things that I read involved "optimal spacing of pregnancies." I've also heard that it takes a woman's body 2-3 years to fully recover from a pregnancy, from healing to replenishing nutrients vital to both a placenta/fetus and the mother. There is also the whole I-didn't-really-feel-ready-physically-or-mentally thing, which bottom line, is my biggest consideration.

I thought I'd want to try to get pregnant soon after Elle turned 1. But I didn't. I feel like we've got enough going on and are still treasuring Elle's early years and trying to figure everything out - how would another kidlet affect the unbalanced balance we've got going on? If we got pregnant today, we'd be ecstatic - but we're not trying. And the longer we wait, the more I feel like two kids might be our magic number. I reserve the right to revisit that decision (and I think Tim could go either way on it, too), but I'm feeling less torn by my internal debate of "should we have two kids? or three?"

Over the last few months, I've definitely gotten more comfortable with and excited and nostalgic about the idea of another pregnancy, another baby. Going through Elle's baby clothes definitely made my biological clock tick a bit louder. The pregnancy announcements of several friends has given me a bit of baby fever. The arrival of new babies born to friends makes me remember the first few weeks of Elle's life. My brother just welcomed his second child - his first son - in to his family, and I love that Elle has little cousins (although they are on the other side of the country) that she can grow up "with."

Tim and I often talk about how we were lucky to get an easy baby for our first ... but it also makes me a) hope we're lucky again and b) terrified we won't be. Elle slept well pretty much from the beginning. We didn't have any trouble breastfeeding. She didn't have colic or any health issues. She's very rarely has a diaper rash, eats like a champ, hasn't had to go to the doctor aside from well baby visits. We've been extremely blessed. Our biggest stress has been childcare, and whether we had two or five more kids, that would still be just as much or as little of a problem as it would be with just Elle. But while I know we could handle the challenges of a baby who has food allergies, refuses to sleep at night, etc., I have to admit it scares me a bit. 

The emotions, the anticipation, the journey of another pregnancy - I'm looking forward to it. (The morning sickness and exhaustion, not so much, but whatever.) I look forward to feeling baby flips, kicks and hiccups again. To telling friends and family. To seeing our baby grow and develop via doctor's appointments and ultrasound(s). To seeing Elle around a little brother or sister (and for a toddler who doesn't like baby dolls and has only recently started to show any interest in human infants, that one could go either way).

Tim and I have thought 2.5-3.5 years apart would be good spacing for our kids. I've been told that the longer we wait, the harder it will be for Elle to adapt to another sibling. I've also heard people argue the other side - that having kids close together is optimal. Really, I think a case could be argued either way, and we have our reasons for our thought process.

My siblings with Tim and I on our wedding day.

My sister and I are four years apart, and I don't think she harbors any long-standing animosity toward me for ruining her "only child" world. One of my brothers is 23 months younger than me, and while we definitely had rough patches growing up, it wasn't always awful. While he might not agree, I like the fact that being two grades apart yielded similar activities and some overlapping groups of friends - we were in band together, he played baseball for the team I was a statistician for, etc. The surprise sibling in my family is 17 years younger than me - and even that gap has pros and cons.

Young Tim and Todd :)

Tim and his brother are about two years apart. Tim had a built-in teammate and thinks the fact that he had competition - in sports, academics, etc. - was a good thing.

For all of the good and not so good (again, morning sickness dread), I definitely hope that we're graced with the chance to experience it all at least one more time. I feel like once we get pregnant, it's going to go super fast. There won't be the time to dream of how to decorate a nursery, plans for a baby registry, etc. This isn't our first time at the rodeo - but that's why it will be all the more fun, exciting and challenging, with knowing what to expect but not knowing what to expect at the same time. 

We're not jumping on the baby train just yet, but I do sometimes find myself thinking of the future in terms of "If I was pregnant ..." or "If we had two kids ..." A year ago, I would not have been ready to even contemplate having another. And there are days when I can't imagine where the energy will come from to take care of two kids. There are moments when I realize how much stuff we have in our small condo that belongs to Elle and realize that it will only increase with another kid. But I also keep in mind how much joy that little girl has brought to so many people. And I remember how magical the whole experience is, fatigue and nausea and labor included. I've managed to forget the pain of labor and only vaguely recall how difficult it is to function when I don't get good, consecutive sleep.

All this being said, I've got about four future kids named and about a half dozen fun ways to reveal a pregnancy just waiting for a need to be used :)