So You Think You Want One More Baby?

Sitting on the concrete basement floor packing away my youngest daughter’s outgrown toddler clothes, I spied the rose-and-ivory chenille sweater someone had knit for her, and heard the whisper. “There’s no one else to save this for.” I surveyed the hill of blankets, onesies and elastic-waist pants I was so neatly folding and packing in plastic bins, and began to consider why I was bothering with the effort. We had said two, now we had two.

Yet I continued my careful sorting and folding.

I let that whisper float in my heart for months, not daring to make my doubt real by voicing it to my husband. It just kind of lingered, while I waited to see whether it would intensify or fade.

We were good, the four of us, two adults, two kids. Why mess with that? Parenthood is the ultimate leap of faith. Nothing is guaranteed—not your health, not the child’s, and you don’t know who you’re going to get. So I should have been content with my lucky lot. But I just couldn’t shake the baby feeling. When I broached the subject of a third, my husband considered it for a few weeks before agreeing to “see what happens.”

About six in 10 Americans today believe the ideal family should max out at two children, according to Gallup, which has been polling Americans about “ideal family size” since the 1930s. Just 9 percent of American families have three or more children. The census actually lumps families with three kids in the same category as the Duggars.

I was nearing 35, the year when obstetric medical charts start sporting “Advanced Maternal Age” in bold ink. The health risks to both mother and fetus increase exponentially. Any dreams of ramping up my career would have to be put on hold. Choosing to try for a third child meant listening to my gut, not my head.

When the little blue plus sign appeared, I knew I would never see it again. Just as my heart told me our family needed one more, it also told me our family needed only one more. The bouts of nausea, the middle-of-the-night leg cramps, none of it fazed me because I knew it would be short-lived and never to be repeated. I accepted every ache, kick and hiccup as part of a swan song to my baby-making days. And in the recovery room after an emergency C-section, my doctor bent down and told me in a quiet voice that I could have lost my son to a uterine rupture and I should not have any more children. Well, that made it official.

Knowing when to close up shop is such a personal decision, yet it also seems like a luxurious one, considering there are women who can’t even consider another pregnancy because of age, fertility issues or medical issues. Or conversely, knowing that there are women in other parts of the world who are limited in their family planning options and don’t have the voice to declare they are done making babies.

There’s no perfect time to have a baby, and you can’t control everything. Maybe there’ll be a surprise pregnancy years from now. You never know. But if you’re on the fence about whether to go for the third or fourth, or more, here are some things to consider.

Emotional checks and balances: So much about parenthood is out of our control, and being outnumbered by children may leave you feeling more vulnerable. My kids tell me I’m strict, which I probably am, but that’s partly to preserve my own sanity. Bedtime is infinitely harder with another kid. So is making time for yourself. This is rule number one, right? Happy mom=happy family. Make sure you find ways to get there.

Can your body handle it? Here’s an unpleasant fact: Twenty percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage, and the rate increases with age. Of course, many women have healthy children well into their 30s and early 40s, but the risks increase, as do the tests and discussions. And if you even get pregnant again, do you really want to relive childbirth and its recovery? Don’t discount the amount of parental energy and stamina babies and toddlers require. Children supposedly keep us young, although the hair we haven’t pulled out has turned gray. How is it possible that we age and stay young simultaneously?

In questions of the heart and what’s right for your family, you’ve got to trust your instinct. Deep down you know your limits and capabilities.

Dollars and sense: What’s your work situation? Whether you have one kid or four, parents need flexible work schedules, period. The more children you have, the more you and your partner must reconfigure work around your family’s needs. Also, the cost of raising kids has increased 40 percent during the last 10 years. That’s just for basic care like housing, food and transportation. My home recently became diaper-free. Finally. After more than 11 uninterrupted years. I cringe to think of how much money we spent on diapers and pull-ups and wipes over all that time. Kids are expensive, no doubt.

How would adding another child to your family affect your home? Would siblings be bunking up, and are you OK with that? For us, a third child meant replacing our car with a minivan so we could fit all our offspring, their gear and their friends. It also meant our one-bathroom house had to go.

The intangibles: A friend of mine had two children quite close in age who were also close friends. When the youngest was about 5, she considered having a third, but rationalized that she’d then have to have a fourth because “it wouldn’t be fair to the third child to have older siblings close to each other and him or her not to have anyone.” Four was a line she wasn’t willing to cross. So she stopped at two.

Try this exercise: If you woke up tomorrow to a little blue plus sign, how would you react? Live with the idea for a day. In questions of the heart and what’s right for your family, you’ve got to trust your instinct. Deep down you know your limits and capabilities.

I love my three children dearly, but I do not want any more. Recently I met a 4-month-old at a synagogue event and begged to hold him. Oh, his warm, soft head stirred up that baby fever for a few faint seconds. Nothing in the world compares with rocking a baby to sleep or receiving those first gummy smiles. But I know I’m a sucker for that deliciousness and always will be. I got my baby fix and returned him to his mother.

Nostalgia for my children’s earliest years and wanting to start all over again with another one are not the same thing. Sure, there’s plenty of wonderful stuff while watching a miniature person awaken to the world around them. There’s also the sleep-starved nights, temper tantrums, potty training and uncertainty of it all.

My last baby will soon turn 5. These days, when I pack away his outgrown clothes to donate, I still hear the whisper reminding me that another child of mine won’t ever wear them. It makes me smile.