One and Done discussion

Parenting
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I have a 2 year old and am carrying #2. I think I had an abstract sense of 2 (my husband and I both have a sibling each and we like them a lot). But was not willing to really explore or think about it until Spore was out of the hardest baby days. Around the time Spore turned 1.5, it actually started to feel doable. My husband probably would have waited longer but I wanted them closer together due to my age (I’m 39 now, almost 40) and not wanting to stretch out the all-consuming toddler years too much.

Having a lot of great resources (my parents helping out a ton and loving it, wonderful daycare, friend community who had young kids at similar times, moneys) show up for #1 definitely helped make the prospect of #2 feel more exciting and less overwhelming. I know a lot of people raise more kids with less so I am very very grateful about it.

Work is weirdly going better for me with a toddler than before mat leave. That helped me feel like there were more options to scale back or take a break if 2 kids + 2 careers turned out to be too much, without closing doors to the future.

We had 3 tested embryos remaining, and didn’t talk about what would happen if none of them stuck. Definitely less fear in the process 2nd time around for me… if luck and science didn’t add up for us ever again, then we already had a great baby. I mean, he just learned the skidimarink song and always shouts the I LOVE YOU part at full volume. Do we really need more?

I think we’re open to fostering or otherwise helping out in a kid’s village in the future, but no firm plans yet.

Pretty sure I’m done after this though. This pregnancy is a lot tougher on me, maybe due to getting older or maybe pregnancy+toddler care is a big double whammy. Environmental impact is another consideration… kids generate so much stuff and needs; I don’t feel a strong pull for more than 2 so it’s not a difficult decision for us from that lens, and even for N.A. our household is kind of consumptive.

There might be more feelings, but I don’t think I’ll really be able to process too much more until #2 is born healthy. I’m probably more than a little affected by our first-time NICU stay.

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Kindness and support to everyone mulling over this complicated and very personal question.

I will contribute that if your heart is happy and satisfied with what you have, that is precious and no small thing.

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Just following along. I have several friends who are one and done, from financial to their own health to infertility. Hard stuff when its not of your choosing.

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Ok, child is in bed, spouse is back at work, house is…almost ready for the cleaner who is coming tomorrow in advance of hosting overnight guests for thanksgiving.

I don’t have a coherent thesis on this topic, just a lot of rambling thoughts that may very well offend someone. Sorry!

Spouse and I were both on the fence about kids in general, although I’ve always said I wanted 0, 1, or a full gaggle (4-5).

For me personally, two kids never felt like the right answer. I think it probably comes down to my own family systems, and seeing those around me. I’m the oldest of two, and my sister is extremely different than I am. It was pretty much impossible for there not to be comparisons in a way that was harmful to both of us. My parents were always good about verbally saying they didn’t have favorites, they loved us both the most, that every individual is special, etc. etc. But…there was no getting around the fact that I was the easy, rule-following, academically inclined kid and my sister had bigger emotions, more academic struggles, etc. I’ve never felt that I could have navigated the situation better as an adult than my parents did. They were trying to do the right things but it still turned out that way. As adults I’m friendly with my sister and happy to see her, but we still don’t ‘click’ in the way that some siblings feel close.

Obviously I’m just guessing, but for me it felt like with a gaggle there would be enough variety in personalities that there could be differences and similarities that were celebrated. This is probably also the case if the kids are much father apart in age that I was with my sister?

On the other hand, my spouse was an only child and had no negative emotions around it. Partially this is just his nature. He’s very go with the flow and can always find something interesting to entertain himself with. He didn’t have very involved parents so another kid in his situation could have been very lonely, but he was all for just one kid if we decided to have any.

Spouse also puts his entire self into everything he does and is stressed when he can’t give something his all. I see him struggling to keep up with work and family and sleep and the household and I think a second child would break him. Today he took the morning off to take Pipsqueak to the dr. then was planning to work through bedtime but missed us too much so he came home for an hour before bedtime and then went back to work afterwards because he has to get things done.

**CW for infertility and lots of pregnancy/birth issues below this point:**

And then of course there’s the infertility and pregnancy elephants in the room. Extremely early menopause runs in the family and I got the short straw. We spent too long debating the 0 vs 1 kid question and that took away any remaining options for extra kids. Pipsqueak was a miracle child who was conceived without assistance while we were debating whether to take the gamble on IVF (we were advised to plan for at least retrieval 3 cycles with a ~15% cumulative chance of success across three cycles). Three years ago when we were doing testing I had…pretty much no eggs left. So now the odds are even worse lol.

Add to all of that the fact that I have a huge amount of trauma around my pregnancy and birth. I found out I was pregnant one week before the 2020 lockdowns started, I had a suspected ectopic, multiple large bleeds from an SCH that could have been miscarriages. All of this during a time that I was actively afraid to go into an elevator, go into the doctors office, etc. because no one knew if we were masking, not masking, etc. Spouse came to my first appointment and then had to wait in the car. Needless to say I had ridiculously high anxiety throughout the pregnancy. I ended up giving birth via emergency c-section to a breach baby with a double nuchal chord and a first Apgar score of 2 during the height of the first really bad wave in LA (Oct’20). They kept me in triage for 3 hours (after my water broke and I was in active labor with a confirmed breech pregnancy), without my spouse (covid policy), no visit from an OB for the entire time, and no cell service so it took text messages 5-10 minutes to get through and I couldn’t actually call anyone for assistance. When they finally agreed to call my doctor after my 100th plea I was in surgery within 20 minutes because my doctor rushed over at 2am. Once we were in a room, we literally couldn’t leave it until we were discharged. Then we navigated the fourth trimester almost completely alone because covid cases were terrible and my family had to interact with the public for their jobs.

I just…can’t do that ever again even if I can get pregnant.

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Oh yeah on other thought on fostering being part of our family. One thing that I’ve always suspected that was confirmed for me in the 4-12 weeks after Pipsqueak was born is that I can provide love and care for a cranky baby regardless of whether or not it’s my own. I didn’t feel a strong maternal attachment to Pipsqueak for a very long time, and she had constipation and severe reflux from ~4 days old so she was…miserable and cranky a lot of the time. But, I loved her in a very “this is an infant who is struggling and needs love” detached sort of way and was always patient/kind/etc. which confirms for me that any additional love and care that I have to give to kids in the future does not need to be reciprocated in anyway and does not need to be my own child.

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This is one of my fears about having multiple children. I am not certain I could not have a favorite? Like when people say they don’t have a favorite child I have a hard time believing them.

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I actually believe it, I just don’t know how that could have been conveyed to me or my sister in a way that would have made sense.

Like, “I love you both unconditionally and you are different people and need different things from me, some of which are easier than others, and some that cause me more concern and heartache. But I still love you both the most.” is not an easy concept for an 8 year old. :woman_shrugging:t2:

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It’s true for me. I love them both as much as possible, a heart-explodingly enormous amount.

So when one beats up on the other, it hurts me just as much, no matter who is getting the beating. I guess that would be a theoretical upside to having a favourite. The non-favourites’ hurts hurt you less.

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I guess I should rephrase that I believe them, but I struggle to imagine the same for me. I mean, I have a favorite cat and I worry the other cat can tell.

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But the thing is, at any given time, your favorite is probably not the same kid. Sometimes it’s going to be the sweet baby and sometimes it’s going to be the interesting teenager and sometimes…

Having said that, I do think that my mom had an easier time overall with my little sister, but I’m still very fond of my little sister. She’s very likeable!

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This is the best! Currently my smallest changes the final word to whatever she’s feeling in the moment, so there’s a lot of I LOVE RAISINS, or I LOVE BOOK echoing through our house.

I have two kids that I like and love equally, and it’s nearly impossible to make commentary on someone’s existence after they exist (and it’s possible that opinions from parents of 2+ aren’t desired here - in which case I am happy to delete/spoiler). What I will say is that despite liking/loving both my kids, and liking/loving both of my adult sisters: I always wanted to be an only child, and in hindsight my child also would probably have been very happy as an only child. It’s possible that we’re both better people for having siblings in that way that adversity makes you a better human, but it’s also likely that some other adversity might have done the same.

Everything in life would have been different if we had stayed with one, and I’m not convinced that our happiness has been ‘doubled’ in exchange. I know that everyone is different, but for me the jump from one to two was exponentially harder than going from zero to one. I can’t imagine how impossible it would have felt if there had been any mental health, finance, or marital struggles on top if it.

As humans we have that survival tendency to justify the choices we make after we make them. As far as family building goes, I think we are right to do so. Whatever you have for whatever reason that choice is made, IS in fact, the right amount.

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On the siblings discussion, I’m an only child parenting an only child. When I was a kid I wanted a sibling because I wanted someone to play with. For my very extroverted kid I make a point of trying to do play dates periodically and I’m putting effort into cultivating neighborhood relationships with families who have similarly aged kids.

We also recently did a vacation with some friends of ours who have a three year old, Kiddo (seven years old) loved having another kid there to be buddies with even with the age/maturity gap but he was definitely less into it by the end of the trip, even with four parents around. :joy: The kids were still friendly at the end of the trip and were talking about each other to their respective parents after we separated, but I asked Kiddo if he might like a younger brother like [other kid] and he was firmly against the idea, lol.

I’m also excited to see my cousins at Thanksgiving, we have enough shared life experience to get some of that bond without having had to grow up together. Hmm, this is actually a really good conversation topic since they have kids of their own now! Some are one and done, some are two and done.

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This is one thing that makes me sad…my kid is the only grandchild on both in sides and doesn’t have siblings OR cousins currently. I hope my sister ends up having a kid so Pipsqueak has a cousin! But in the meantime we are trying to cultivate a community friendships with kids of different ages so she’s not just at home or in school. TBD if it works lol.

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Thank you for starting this discussion, @Bracken_Joy! I am one and apparently done (and pretty much good with it). For reference I’m 41, husband is 46, and our daughter is 11 (dang, when did we get so old? :rofl:).

Growing up, I completely expected to have multiple kids; I’m the oldest of four and my parents came from families of 5 and 12 kids respectively. My husband is the youngest of 6 (although only three lived to adulthood - thank you, farming accidents and poor rural healthcare).

I got pregnant immediately when we first tried when I was 28. I have dealt with anxiety and depression since college and went off my meds on my own (bad move, don’t do this). I developed extremely severe anxiety (looking back on it, I’m amazed that I was able to keep working) but thankfully found a good psychiatrist and was in a much better space by the end of the pregnancy and had zero issues post-partum.

I love babies (toddlers are a different matter, ha) and did the whole breastfeeding, co-sleeping, etc. thing even with going back to work FT at 3 months. However, my husband is both a light sleeper and does not deal with sleep deprivation well (even with being one of several kids, he grew up an only child in many ways because he was several years younger than his surviving siblings).

I’m also not one of those high energy superwomen who can have three kids and charge up the career ladder. And while I worked FT until my daughter was three, I definitely felt like I wanted to spend more time with her, so I downshifted to PT contract work until last year, when I upshifted back to FT. My husband has a pretty good job, but when I work FT I make more money and am more suited for scaling the career ladder.

I also have non-work, non-family, interests I like having the time and ability to pursue and I also would like to be able to retire by my late 40s, all of which are much easier with one kid.

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I’m in the unfortunate position of having had one sibling that died suddenly when we were teenagers, so that impacts how I feel about this. We have two kids and my heart wants a third, but my husband does not and I think we will stop at two.

Having a sibling to play with was great for me as a kid. And my kids play together, which frees me up from playing pretend constantly, which I don’t enjoy. It was hard having two when they were a baby and toddler but now that they’re 3 and 5 I think it’s actually less work to have two.

Being an only child as an adult has been a lot of pressure for me. So much attention on my successes, trials, and tribulations. And I see my parents aging and know that their future care, and decisions about it, will all be on me. I am fairly close friends with my cousins, but it’s nothing like what I had with my sibling. The shared history of growing up in the same nuclear family is one of the things I miss the most.

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This is so hard because parts of everything everyone is saying resonate with me, lol. I DO worry we’ll be the overly involved parents with just one. But frankly that’s inevitable even with more than one I think, just as a whiplash from the borderline neglect I experienced (especially from about 11 years old onward).

Although to be fair all of this might be a moot point because a second is in no way guaranteed for us especially. When I was infertile at 28, my numbers were that of a 41 year old. Now they’re that of a woman nearing menopause. So I do wonder if some of my considerations around giving up is me trying to control when the end of the road is for us.

Husband still wants two, he’s not feeling conflicted about it. But he’s respecting and happy to discuss with me one and done. The comment about non kid hobbies and retiring in 40s definitely applies to SirB though. I know he would love more time for BJJ and downshift to work cycling or part time with work eventually. (He loves his job, so he wouldn’t retire, but he’ll be set up to do less of it).

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I love that the human experience results in so many varied opinions and family structures and that’s totally ok! Each family is made in it’s own way and it results in a much fuller, diverse life than if every single family unit was made of the same components with one boy child and one girl child.

Our story, since it is long

Ry and I are both from families with 4 kids and being catholic we have extended families with many, many kids. He had some issues growing up with a much older father that skewed his thinking and when we started dating he already thought he was too old to be a good dad. We got married when I was 28 and he was 36 and we went into the marriage agreeing that we wouldn’t have any children. It was one of those situations where I hadn’t really thought about it at younger ages, I just assumed that eventually I would meet the right person, get married, and have kids. Once I was confronted with his opinion on the matter I decided that I loved him enough to not have kids. One thing that really bugged me was when people would refer to having your first child as “starting a family.” I hate that. Two married adults can be a family without having children and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

After a year-ish of marriage he saw me interact with so many babies, toddlers, and children and one night while making dinner he came out and said that he’d been thinking of it a lot and he thought I would be the most amazing mother and he wanted me to have that experience and he wanted to try and have a baby. I was floored, but totally in agreement so I had my birth control removed and started taking prenatals and we started trying. It took 6-ish months and then I got pregnant. We found out at out 20 week ultrasound that our daughter was missing a few pieces of her brain and would almost definitely be disabled in some form or another, with no knowledge of how severely disabled she would be. We decided that we would definitely be one and done so we could put all of our love and energy and finances toward her and the future unknowns.

But then she was born and she was healthy and she did all of the things that a newborn is supposed to do like breathe on her own and eat and poop and a lot of our immediate fears were relieved. We took her home and when she turned 3 months old we were visiting Ry’s family and we looked at each other one morning with her in bed between us and we were like, this has been so easy, we can totally do this again. We discussed it further over the next few months and decided that while we would be totally happy being one and done because of the benefits it would provide like more time, more money, etc, we also would be ok with another child. But, we wanted them to be close together so we could get through the baby and toddler and diaper phase all at once. We decided that whenever I got my cycle back we would not prevent another baby, but not exactly try either. We would just let nature take its course and if I wasn’t pregnant when she turned 1 I would get an IUD and we would be one and done and happy about it.

Well, nature did take it’s course and I got pregnant on my first cycle, without ever having a period. B was only 6 months old. Younger than we intended, but it definitely happened before she turned 1! Having baby #2 while #1 was under 2 was not like having one baby X2, it was like having one baby X10. It was so hard. Definitely the hardest period of my life. There was some serious regret at times, especially since I had a bit of PPD the second time around. However, we made it through and now things are finally getting easier. We are extremely happy that we were blessed with 2 (plus an angel baby this past year that is a whole other story) but would also have been very happy (and less stressed/sleep deprived/wealthier) if we had only had one.

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So, technically I have 3 children. But really I have 2 families, one with two boys who are back-to-back in age and one with a single girl. She’s 10 years/11 years younger than her brothers and has a different dad, so will have a very different upbringing.

As one of three and having my boys who are so close, it’s weird to me think of Cuckoo not having that. But, my feeling is that you can’t give everything to any one kid. Cuckoo has old parents and even older grandparents, but she also will get more stability and parental attention. She does have a first-cousin-once-removed who is almost exactly her age- she lives far away but we vacation with her.

My mom had a bunch of siblings but wound up doing a lot of heavy lifting for a sister who didn’t have kids and had dementia. It’s hard to be the competent one I guess. I always imagine that I will try to do that for my mom’s twin, who also doesn’t have children of her own (but I hope she will not have such a rough ride dementia-wise). My sister has to do all the boots-on-the-ground work because she’s local and I’m not.

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Oh! I forgot to say WHY Cuckoo won’t have a sibling. She was born through pretty extreme measures (donor embryo) that we don’t plan to go through again, and also our house is too small. We don’t use birth control so it’s not literally impossible that a spontaneous miracle will turn up, just very unlikely (I’m almost 42, the Boy has a super low sperm count, and 2 rounds of IVF with our genes were not successful for us). If one did, we would make room.

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Also having siblings doesn’t guarantee that they will help with your parents when needed. I was the only person of the 3 of us that helped my mom with my dad. After he died I moved across the country for my career.

Over a period of 12 years my mom battled cancer 3xs. Many times I used all my annual and sick leave to help. My 2 older siblings helped also. The last year of my mom’s life she needed the most help and they were both retired so helped a lot. My sister said she wished I lived there so I could help. If I had they both probably wouldn’t have done much. Both my parents were wonderful people and parents.

When I got divorced my youngest son told me to buy a 2 bedroom condo so if I needed help he would have a bedroom. Most people I know don’t have a close relationship with siblings no matter how many they have. Siblings can be very different.

I never had a favorite child and neither do my friends. It’s easy to love them all the same. Liking them at times during childhood can be a different story :joy:. I have dogs and always have a favorite but there’s no comparison to the love you feel.

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