What to do? 1 or 2 kids?

I remember when I got pregnant with Josh and I felt so guilty that I wouldn't have anytime for Andrew and he would be left out because of this new baby in the house. Once Josh was here Andrew actually got more time with me as Josh was sleeping more and I didn't have this huge bump in front of me.

The older child I think gets over the fact that there is someone else there that needs mummy. I know I did some horrible things to my younger sister when she came (pulling her around by the ears at 3 weeks old ) but its a learnig curve for them. Andrew did the same he pulled Josh up from his play mat to the chair while I was in the shower. I know I didn't want Andrew to be an only child as he is such a social person so maybe thing about how Caitlin would feel if she is an only child?

I also thing it is best just to forget about TTC sometimes and as you say your not looking at doing it till Kan next year so for the next 6 months maybe just temp every other day or maybe even give that up for a few months to give you a break fromdoing it.

well i can hardly talk here - but ....

STICK WITH ONE!!!!!!

oh ok that might be a bit harsh...but sometimes even now i wonder (or is that wish) about only having one child.

before i had toby i used to wonder how i could share my love and my time and that part has been easier than i thought, but the demands on me have been harder to deal with with 2 kids. and thats with me staying at home.

Kids are lovely but not all the time and not wanting her to be an only child would be a bad reason to have more kids, in my opinion.

i would prob stop the charting for a while and maybe just relax about it for a while and reassess your decision in a couple of months time so that by the time jan comes up you know for sure.

On the hubby front tho i will say that my hubby is a bit the same where he doesnt like (and cant cope) with changes to his routine or even how he plans things in his mind (makes spontaneity a bit hard ) so feel for you on that one too.

Aww chicka what a hard decision to make. I agree with Amy, only you know what is right for your family and you have the next 6mths to decided as you were wanting to ttc in Jan if wanting anyone one. A lot can happen in 6mths and you may have more of an idea by then.

I agree with everything Deb said!
Although my advice probably isn't worth anything as I'm really struggling with deciding whether or not to do it all again myself

Agree with Becks too, maybe giving yourself a break from the charting and thinking about it all and just see what your heart tells you in a few months time.

im with everyone... every family is different and you have to do whats best for your family.

after jade was born i decided i only wanted one child.... how could i possibly take any of my time away from my beautiful little girl??!!! i didnt know if i could love another baby the way i loved jade- i had never known love like i felt for jade, could it be shared??

i found myself pregnant with emma- it was a HUGE shock, i hadnt wanted it. the guilt continued- i wouldnt love this baby as much.... jade would feel sad...

well- emma was born, jade fell in love with her instantly, i fell in love with her... my love could be the same with both!!! in fact i think the love grew, if that was possible.

jade is coming up 5, emma 3.5 and of course kayla almost 1 year old. to me my little accident was the BEST thing that could of ever happened to me.

i watch all my girls playing happily, i watch them have friendships with each other... there is 3 lots of laughter in the house.... it is FANTASTIC! ok, it isnt always like chocolate and roses (yummy and pretty!!).... there are fights etc... but the good far outweighs any bad.

jade hasnt lost me or hubby she has gained 2 lifelong friends thats how i see it anyway. i could of just had jade and been better off financially but in my family, family is my first choice any day

no hurry for making decisions, you will know in your heart if your family feels complete or not... listen to it and know that if you do decide to have more caitlin wont miss out, she will gain a lifelong friend

all the best xxoo

I agree there is no hurry and things might settle down in many ways

DEb - you make me laugh out loud - i love it!!!

I have to say BSDH is not always the most supportive either and he has times when i want to kick him to the kurb, but that changes from day to day or month to month and i know he adores his little girl...and am sure your hubby does too - and probably has plenty of room in his heart for two bubbas.

I always wanted three but the way i do pregnancy im not even really sure i will make it to two...altho Ella deserves a sibling and im not too keen on an only child so will probably sacrfice 9 months and my health to get her one eventually....

its your call but make sure it is a call you make with hubby being ready too - BTW your little girl is so cute you guys must want another cutie eventually!

That is exactly how I feel (on the Pro side) Caitlin would gain so much from having a sibling. She's a very social child also but can be very demanding on our attention but what child isn't!?!?

And on the against side, I sometimes feels that the reasons DH & I aren't as good as before (since last trimester of PG) is my fault because I haven't got time for 2 relationships so concentrate all my efforts on Caitlin, so how could I love another child?!?!?
Even though he has his faults, I know a lot of it is me. I blame him having a cruddy paying job (inherted through family, so we're trapped into it) which has meant I had to go back to work when everything in my heart said I wasn't ready and shouldn't have gone back.

I know money isn't everything, but do you throw away everything you've worked for to make sure your family has a good life? I even suggested selling the house and down grading so that we could afford for me to stay home, but we bought 5 years ago when the market was good and we have (in our opinion) the perfect house & garden for a family. If we sold up, there is no way we could get anything more than a unit! So that's not an option at all.

I really don't know how you SAHMs do it and can afford to stay home?!?!?

As for DH's work situation, I said that I didn't want to have another baby the way things were with us as we never saw him and he was always putting work before family (in my opinion). He wants another baby because he's always wanted 2, that's all he has ever said on the matter "I want two children". So he met with his brother and their staff and made changes to make sure he could spend more time with me and Caitlin (nothing major, he just comes home and hour early 4 days a week.

We're not that young either. I'm 30 this month and DH is 38 in November. It took us 18mths to get pregnant this time so who knows with #2 after the CS (have heard that can affect things), so we haven't really got that long. I want to be young enough to have the energy to enjoy my children and totally agree with Nikki that it's nice to watch them grow into little people without watching through the haze of sleep deprivation etc.

The other thing which also "bothers" me is that I think Caitlin is as close to perfect as you can get (I allowed to say that, I'm her Mum!) but what if #2 is the demon spawn?!?! What if everything that is good about her is as bad about the other one? lol

I think the decision to have #2 is so much harder than the decision to have #1. With #1, you were told it was going to be life changing for the good and bad and you prepare as best you can etc. But with #2, you REALLY know what it's going to be like and assume it will be harder because they'll be two of them to deal with!
But on the pro side again, I look at that and think I've made it through the first year and I think I did it pretty well, sure there are things I would like to change (with working) and could have done better perhaps" so I have that and hindsight on my side.

But there is always a nagging reminder for me of when my friend got home from hospital with #2. Called me, sobbing down the phone "WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?!?!?"

Edited by Two Blondinis

aww hun you never know untill you try for me it would be a big gap between kids it i ever have another one and thats what i could handle i love wachting james grow up and dont want to miss this time with him its differnt for everyone listen to your heart it will tell you and hunny i,m 40 next year ther is still time we are not that old lol

We don't qualify for any benefits, apparently we have too much money?!?!?!

We have already changed as much as we can so that we can actually pay the bills. When budgeting for when I went on maternity leave my aim was to come back to work after 4mths PPL, 6mths maternity leave and 2 unpaid months (taking a whole year off) - we were over $1000 in arrears each month! So I compromised and took the 4mths PPL, and came back to work 3 days a week until last Xmas. Even that was really pinching our budget and we cleared out all savings, so now I'm working 4 days and working for Fuzzis :(

As for groceries, we fight about that one all the time! DH eats for 2 and always has (I hate how he stays skinny! grrr LOL) so food bills are huge even from Pak N Save.
We could do away with the internet at home but DH uses that to reduce his taxes and we're tied into another 6 months of it and I need it for my nappy sales job (My 3rd job!)

I think my DH is very set in his ways and can't get his head around how important it is to have family time on one of the weekend days! He always says he needs time to relax! So I yell back "just let me know when it's my turn!" :(
Don't get me wrong, even with all of my complaining he is a great Dad and adores Caitlin! It's just the old fashioned way he was brought up. His Dad and brother are much much worse!

The reason I'm temping is because if it does take us a long time again at least then I will have a decent amount of charts to show a specialist.

When we arrived in NZ (8 years ago) DH started working for his Dad answering phones until he got a proper job, he never really put that much effort in to finding another job and has stayed there. His brother is now back from overseas and has also bought into the business after their Dad retired last year, if DH quit then that would mean the workshop would close and his brother would also be without work! So DH is trapped. I know in the long term it's great that we have our own family business, but now when time counts it's awful and I've said many times that it's the worst thing that has ever happend to us! He hates his job, fights non-stop with brother over growing the company and all this stress really affects our relationship and there's nothing we can see that can be done about it as the business is making money but not enough to be able to make the changes they want/need.

Anyone got a spare wall I can bang my head on? Mine is worn out! :(

So with all that going on at his work, can you blame me for not wanting to have another baby now!

Toni, I can really relate to what you're saying, as I have many of the same feelings myself. Emma Rose was unplanned, so when I got over the shock of being pregnant, and then the shock of her birth, and then the shock of those first few months of sleep deprivation and "life as I knew it ending", I had pretty much decided that one was enough for me -- mainly because I couldn't see myself going through all of that again. Learning to be a parent has been very hard for me, and I know that I am not ready to learn to parent two children. I do feel clucky when I hold other people's babies, but I don't yet feel a strong pull toward having another one. My gut reaction is, "No, not yet, maybe not ever." Until that gut reaction changes, I'm going to stay on the birth control.

At the same time, my mother always said that loving another child was like lighting another candle -- you have twice the light. I don't necessarily think you have to be "certain" or "ready" to have a baby (or another baby), because if we all thought about it, who was REALLY in the "ideal" situation when they had their first child? I know I certainly wasn't. But even if I had been pregnant with my first child now, I still wouldn't be in the "ideal" situation. We're human, and we grow and adapt because we have to and because life demands it. Things never happen the way we plan for them to happen.

I think what the other ladies are saying is really valid -- you have to give yourself a break. Take the pressure off yourself. I don't know if giving yourself a deadline to decide whether to conceive is even the best thing to do, because you might feel the same ambivalence in January that you do now, and then you'd feel even MORE pressure to make a decision.

It also sounds like your husband's work situation is a big factor in your thought process, feeling like you never see him and feeling somewhat caught by his attitude toward the number of children he wants. Are you able to sit down with him and explore the possibilities? Find out WHY he's so set on having two kids? Is it a "white picket fence" dream where he feels like if he has two kids, he's fulfilling some sort of societal measurement of success? Why would be opposed to only having one child? Maybe if you can flesh these things out, without getting too emotional about it (because it is an emotional topic, but if you can keep it on the neutral side while you talk, you might learn more), that would give you some insights into his dreams and goals and ideals.

Big giant hugs, Toni, and by the way, this is all my opinion, so please don't be offended -- take what you want and leave the rest.