A year ago, I broached the topic of another baby with my husband. To be clear, we have three healthy kids, our lives feel very full, and we agreed several years ago that our third would be our last. I didn’t question it much in the beginning; I was knee deep in the throes of nap schedules, potty training, and absolutely zero personal space or time. A fourth baby seemed unfathomable.
So no one was more surprised than me when last Christmas I began to feel a sense that this may be possible for us. When I brought it up to my husband, he understandably laughed and said, “Are you serious?” I nervously said I was. My husband indulged me, heard me out, and asked a lot of follow-up questions, mostly trying to understand why I felt this way. For every rational point my husband made (“You like your free time, our kids are super high energy and need a lot from us, we’re just getting out of diapers, everyone is sleeping, we could never get away,” etc.), I nodded my head in agreement. He was exactly right. And still, I had this lingering urge that another baby may be on the horizon for us.
A year passed, and the feeling of another baby waxed and waned. As I said, our life is full of raising three young kids, and meeting their physical and emotional needs has us at maximum capacity most days. But as we approached the holidays, the desire to add to our family crept up on me again. I ran myself through all the rational arguments again. We’re getting older as parents; we’d miss out on our older kids’ activities, we’re moving into a season of more independence for all of us, people SLEEP. In some ways, it felt like absolute insanity, and in other ways, it felt like how could we not?!
I’ve spent most of the last year reflecting on why I’ve been feeling the desire to have another baby. I think there are several reasons, but for me specifically, being pregnant, nursing a baby, and raising toddlers has shown me the power of my own strength in ways nothing else has (also humbled me in BIG ways). I’m someone who struggles to stick to a goal at times, and witnessing the fruits of having and raising babies has proven to me that I can stay the course. Obviously, having another baby is never a totally known quantity, and it’s impossible to know if I would even become pregnant, but after doing it three times, I have a general sense of what those first couple of years would entail. In some ways, not having another baby feels scarier to me because it’s unknown. I do believe I have meaningful things to contribute to society, but after staying home for eight years, I’m not exactly sure what form or shape that will take. I’m excited for this next phase, but I’m also grieving the finality of no more babies.
I’ve heard many people share experiences of clarity surrounding their family planning; some share how confident they were when their family was complete, and others express a clear sense of alignment between partners for another baby. For us, it hasn’t been this binary. It’s been learning to live in the tension of holding it all — me wanting another baby, my husband feeling complete, and both of us feeling immense gratitude for the three healthy, thriving children we have. We will likely not have another baby, and that is probably a great choice for our family and for our marriage. But I’ll allow myself some time and space to grieve when I see a mom cuddling her tiny infant or chatting with her pudgy toddler in the Target cart. I’ll let the sadness wash over me as I look over at my three big kids who buckle themselves in the car, go to the bathroom independently, and articulate their unique opinions as they learn to navigate the world. The season of having babies has come to an end for us, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this next season may be even better.
