I Want a Second Baby. My Married man Doesn't.

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The jealousy peaked when the 2nd round of pregnancy announcements started to roll in. By then my daughter was 2 and I was 37, just neither my husband nor I had broached the subject of a second kid. Instead, my tactics were cheap, comments lobbed at inopportune moments: I mentioned my (old) age and boy names I liked, and reminded him that we had to "get it washed" before nosotros left Europe, our temporary (family-friendly) home. When I got salmonella poisoning from eating bad craven, I secretly hoped my symptoms meant I was pregnant. My husband prayed they didn't.

Our avoidance of the discussion, followed past our disability to concur on trying for another, was heartbreaking. It seemed to symbolize some fundamental rift in our union: Well-nigh anybody we knew had — or was trying for — more one child. Why couldn't we handle it, too?

A lot of what went on in my mind was projection, of course. 1 never knows what's behind a couple's decision (or lack thereof) to accept (or not have) some other infant. What mistakes have occurred, what deals they've brokered, what wounds they're licking, what hopes or fantasies they've pinned on this new inflow, what plan they're only sticking to. What disasters they're in for.

I've come to believe that there are ii singled-out groups of new parents: those for whom having a kid causes ripples through the matrimony — it triggers arguments and shuffles patterns and duties around, simply the marital house remains sound — and those for whom a baby is like a flop. I'thousand not sure how much these categories say almost the solidity of the marriage, the circumstances surrounding it, the baby herself, or the two item parties in the relationship, just my husband and I found ourselves in the latter group.

Although we were deeply in love, a true squad, nosotros barely knew each other when we got married a year afterwards we met. And we knew each other simply a fiddling better a yr after, when our girl was born. This isn't unusual in this day and age — meet, mate, multiply is de rigueur for 30-somethings trying to beat the clock — and I don't regret whatsoever of it. Simply appending a helpless, screaming third political party to a freshly shacked-up couple does bestow its own item set of complications.

At our hymeneals, my mother, who has been married to my male parent for nigh 50 years, offered this slice of advice: "Don't be surprised when you're surprised." I thought this was a joke. Obviously it wasn't — surprise is inevitable in whatsoever long-term relationship. It'southward a sometimes thrilling, sometimes bewildering office of marriage.

I've learned a lot about my husband in the three years our daughter has been around. He is a fiercely devoted dad, but parenting does not come naturally to him and he has express stamina for it. Adding another baby to the mix — another mouth to feed and heed to educate, more toys, more than spills, more than crying in the night, more than coin flight out of our banking concern account — is more than he can take, and he acknowledges this willingly. He is also exceedingly cautious when it comes to practical matters, so unless we find ourselves with higher paying, more secure jobs, he is reluctant to stretch our upkeep any further.

Neither of usa fully predictable how severely our waning fertility window would intersect with the realities of my husband's pre-tenure bookish life. The infamous mandate to publish or perish, specially in this grim task marketplace, keeps postdocs and banana professors shackled to their desks late into the nighttime, over weekends and on vacations, living in fearfulness that that they will never land (and then concord onto) one of the few steady gigs left.

Nor did we foresee how completely I'd be batty by new motherhood, how much trouble I'd have getting my nascent career off the footing once our girl arrived, and what a blow this would be to our wallets and my ego. Equally a longtime feminist, I was — naively — shocked past how much of the financial load landed on my married man'due south shoulders, and how much of the parenting landed on mine.

I never wanted merely i kid. I don't know what I'd exercise without my older sister and I always — forgive me — secretly pitied single children. Weren't they alone? How did they stand up under the weight of their parents' expectations, and so intendance for them alone in their former age?

I know this is largely an illusion — many siblings do not perform this function for one some other or for their parents. Many have destructive or unworkable relationships. Friends and spouses tin can hands and then frequently do fill up those voids.

In any case, having a 2nd child for the sake of our daughter doesn't seem like reason enough — or perchance information technology just seems too precarious a motive. As all parents know, you never make up one's mind on a second or third child because the first isn't enough. On the contrary, it is precisely because the first is entirely too magnificent for you to reject the adventure of doing it all over once again.

When I got pregnant with our daughter, my hubby and I wanted to create something cute out of our bond — and we did. That decision is now anchored in an inescapable, three-dimensional reality. Although you never know exactly who you lot will end up with — and a new babe never loses its sense of wonderment and magic — after the outset one, yous at least have an idea of what life with children will look like: that it volition be both heart-shatteringly joyful and, at times, its own circle of hell.

Like all parents, I'm no longer delusional about what information technology ways to have a baby.

So many women raise 2 (or more) kids on their own, or assisted simply past the father'south financial contribution. I wish that I could be one of those tough women who simply declared, "I want this and then much I'll take care of it!" — the sleepless nights, the endless child care, the career sidetracked for a second time. Only I am not. I know that ii children would shatter any sense of social club and remainder I've — finally, precariously — plant. Still, this doesn't stop me from fantasizing about a bigger family.

And all the same — perchance this is the bespeak — even if I were someone who was happy doing the hands-on parenting of 2 kids largely on my own, I would resent it. It is not the foundation on which I want to build our family unit. I have ever been the master parent, but I need him to be nowadays (happy, even?) to care for another, as well. Of this, I am sure.

My married man says that we don't disagree about the vision for our family — in theory, he'd similar another — simply about its execution. He can't reconcile where we'd find the time, money and energy; I feel like we'd figure it out, like we did with the first.

In either case, in that location'due south something sad about this stalemate. It is profoundly unlike, of form, from the destruction acquired by more complex, uncontrollable factors such every bit infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, or disabilities. But at that place is a tranquility sorrow in getting down on the ground and recognizing who you and your partner truly are — what y'all can and cannot do, what you lot will and won't compromise on, what circumstances you really notice yourselves in — and realizing that because yous both have limits, this picture might demand to change.

Since most of my cohorts' second babies have already arrived, my envy and longing have dampened somewhat. The difficulty of life with two modest kids is clearer. I run across the means these couples are suffering: lunatic-inducing slumber impecuniousness, mastitis, marital discord, working insane hours simply to pay the sitter, not a unmarried second to themselves, feeling forever frayed and fried. Fifty-fifty though I now know it all gives way to something much easier and more delightful, those early on months are notwithstanding — if I recall correctly — the worst, and the cost they accept tin be enormous.

It is only in the last few weeks that I've started inching toward the reality that our daughter might exist the just child we accept, and that this might be okay. Maybe the fight for another baby isn't i I desire to win considering, ultimately, what would information technology cost us?

Although maternity continues to have its occasional dark, drastic moments, I love the time I spend with our daughter. But I've been appreciating it even more now that I am no longer seeing her childhood through the lens of what nosotros don't have. I'm non trying to store up patience, slumber, gear, coin, stamina, or marital goodwill for another go-round. I'm just enjoying being with her, my baby, my glorious singleton — the one both her father and I wanted more than than annihilation.

I Want Another Child. My Husband Doesn't.