being “done” 30 comments

I know we’ve talked about this here before–in fact, I’m pretty sure I have posted about this here myself, before…but–

How do you know when you’re done?

If you aren’t leaving your fertility up to God/higher power/nature, what criteria are you using to decide how many children to have?

We’ve used a “wing it and do what feels right” method so far. And now that we’re both in our thirties and have a houseful of kids, it seems like enough. As much as we love having a loud, boisterous brood, we would like to eventually be able to save for retirement and enjoy a little of that selfishness we’ve been putting off. And since we had kids young, we’d like to be relatively young when they’re out of the house, too.

But sometimes I wonder if I can really make the logical side of me–the side that says “Okay, this is enough”–win out.

Our newest baby, Clara, is here. After a wonderful birth and a subsequent rough couple of weeks, we are home from the hospital, settling in, and enjoying the heck out of her. Earlier today, my husband, mid-Clara-snuggle, said “Let’s have another!”

He was joking. Sort of. But the truth is that we love having babies in the house. I know it isn’t like this for every couple, but our relationship is never better than when we have a newborn.  I love watching all her brothers falling in love with her just as we are. I love the slowed-down, sleepy pace our family life takes on when there’s an itty-bitty baby in the house.

It’s addictive.

I know we can’t stay in this mode forever–sooner or later, we’re all going to have to come out of the house and get back to normal life, and oh, by the way, this snuggly baby is going to grow up into a wandering toddler and then a feisty two-year-old and later a strong-willed preschooler. We are in it for the long haul, not just the first few weeks; and for the most part, we love all those other phases too. But toddlerhood and preschoolerhood and big-kid-hood seem to last a lot longer than this fleeting tiny baby stage does, and I wonder how I’ll ever be able to make peace with the idea that there will be no more newborns in our house. Looking at her and knowing I’ve only got a few more weeks of this kind of baby-ness left just about breaks my heart…and yet, I have no desire to go through pregnancy and birth and all that again, and all the logical reasons for stopping here still stand. It’s just that logic sometimes sounds weak when considered alongside a milky, warm and sweet little bundle of baby.

Did you experience this kind of intense baby lust? Did it ever go away? And if you’ve decided how many children you’d like to have, how did you arrive at that number?

–Meagan is a mom of five and author of Table for Eight: Raising a Large Family in a Small-Family World. She blogs about her life, her work and her family at www.meaganfrancis.com/blog