Writings by me

My youngest is now three and a half and my eldest will be seven in April. Before having kids, I always saw myself as a mum of two. Having three seemed to tip over into a bit more chaos than I think I could handle.

After having Harry after a pregnancy much tougher than the first, it was easy to say objectively (and immediately after the pain of childbirth) that I was quite happy to stop at two. However, about six months ago, the familiar pangs started again (a wholly inconvenient time, given the marriage crisis, pandemic, becoming self-employed etc).

It’s funny how if I weigh up the pros and cons, the list of cons is so much longer and yet the decision is far from clear; the weight of the pros is so much heavier on me. And if I gave in to them, what stops me giving into them after three, after four, after a football team?

Pros

• Having kids before 30, does mean that I have time on my side, and especially seeing some of my closer friends who are approaching 40, having babies, is inspiration for that. Having Freddie at 26 was a totally different experience to having Harry at 29.  This could have been the second child thing, but I felt ready for motherhood with Harry in a way I did not when I had Freddie.
• I mentioned my friends having babies; being around this much baby-ness and smooshyness is not helpful with the broody feelings when you feel you could carry on with having babies forever.
• The sadness of having passed through the babies’ phase feels palpable. It went so fast as we were told it would. And though every phase has its special allure, the baby phase, especially the baby snuggles, will be extremely hard to let go of.
• When your kids tell you they want a baby, it’s the weirdest kind of peer pressure there is. Of course they don’t know how difficult it is so allowing them to decide for me would be taking permissive parenting a tad far.

Cons

• Unfortunately progress with balancing work and home life is still not ideal. It’s still really difficult to work and be a mum as well. Even when you’re self-employed and working solely from home, it’s difficult to embrace opportunities in a working world which struggles to accommodate the needs of parents. It’s taken me a long time to get to the position I’m in now and having my career take a backseat again would not be a good thing.
• Possibly the reason why I’m feeling so indecisive is the convenient forgetfulness that happens once those early days have passed. There are bits of motherhood that I really would not want to revisit. Struggling with breastfeeding, feeds in the night and navigating huge pushchairs in tiny spaces all make me feel very fortunate to have moved on from that phase.
• We are now in the enviable position of having 30 hours free childcare per week; being out of the childcare rat race is somewhat of a relief. Going back to an extortionate, inflexible childcare situation makes me feel extremely lucky to not be having more babies.
• Having struggled mentally with early motherhood with both Freddie and Harry, this is possibly the saddest con for me. Perhaps I might feel more at peace with my decision to stop now if it felt like a decision I was making freely. Instead it feels like something I am forced into because of my mental and general health. Getting pregnant again would mean risking a relapse into depression and another ectopic pregnancy.

When it comes down to it, choosing to stop having children cannot really be decided on the practical stuff of childcare and career; what makes it really hard, is that with the boys I’ve experienced love I never imagined possible and depression or not, has been the highlight of my life so far.

Saying no to more children means saying no to more of that and how can I do that?!