Saturday, July 23, 2011

Are we done yet?

This is a question that Henry and I have been trying to figure out with regard to children for more than the last year. Let me start by giving you a little history here. When Henry and I started dating, I had been married before and had two boys, then ages 3 and 15 mos ( about the age Kinsley is now). Before we got too seriously involved in a relationship with each other, we played what we jokingly called "the deal breaker game" whereby one of us would say "this is just how I am/things have to be" and if the other couldn't handle it, then we would seriously consider walking away from the relationship in the super early stages so that we could all escaped relatively unscathed. One of his requirements was that he wanted at least one child (maybe two) of his own. That was a big thing for me to commit to as I was perfectly happy with only having the two I already had, plus no woman in my family has given birth to more than 2 children. I agreed because he was such a sweet guy and I had sort of vaguely pondered having a third anyway, but then my marriage went down hill so it was an issue not even close to on the table. I did specify that I would only have an absolute maximum of 2 more, because 4 kids is bordering on an entire litter. Speed past 3 years, and we had Kinsley. Life was great and about 5 months later we started giving thought to having another. Just thought, don't get excited. We pondered it together, and decided that we wanted to wait a little while to "try on" having 3 kids before we committed to having another. We revisited the issue months later and decided it was still too early to decide on, so we agreed to wait longer and discuss it again. We find that the longer we wait, the more un-compelled we are to have another. This is an issue that we are still coming and going on. It's been great having a baby, and she's cute and fun, but when we think about all those future school functions and baseball games and family vacations and whatever else comes with kids that we haven't even experienced yet, well it's alot and we don't want to sacrifice quality for quantity. We know that if we had more,we'd adapt and it would be the new normal, but being where we are now and thinking about stepping into that is a little daunting. We think about the things we'd sacrifice/ put off if we had another baby. We think about who we are and where we're going and how that would be affected if we had another baby, not to mention that we don't know where we'd put another baby which brings up a whole new set of issues. It sounds like we've talked ourselves out of it, but really it's still on the table somewhere near the edge and in possible danger of being knocked off. I still save everything baby related "just in case", and have been giving some serious thought to that growing pile of stored items. I keep thinking about how much more room we'd have in the attic (and other random areas) if we got rid of it. I keep thinking about how I farm some of it out to my friends with babies so that I don't have to store it, but I don't have to get rid of it either. It's a good deal for all of us really, but I don't want to be a hoarder (because I so could never really be that way, this is a temporary thing for certain) and I don't want to be a baby item loaner location. We've even considered just biting the bullet and having one more so that we could know that we were done because like I said, four is my absolute max unless God feels compelled to test my patience in a most severe manner. I think part of my issue is having a life changing unknown out there. I'm a control freak and I like to have a plan way in advance of what normal people feel is adequate. We are still on the fence about this issue, and not ready to definitely get off in one pasture or the other. It's a tough call, and one that we will probably put off making until we wake up one day and realize that we have slid off the fence. Either way, we will be happy about whatever happens. -Kellie-

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