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How did you decide whether you wanted more kids or whether you were ready to stop?

I have a loving, beautiful partner who has a 7 year old from his previous marriage.

I myself have two teens from former relationships. Ages 16 and 14, with the 16 year old about to make me a 35 year old grandma (major face palm) oy…

That aside, I had my two kids when I was 18 and 20. I single parented the both of them and never truly experienced what it was like to have a baby when you choose to have one in a loving relationship with stability in place. My scenario was very different. Very challenging.

On the one hand I would love to experience having a baby with someone I love when I choose to have a baby, and have us raise the child together. I would love knowing that I was able to give the child two loving present parents. It seems like such a beautiful experience compared to what I experienced when I had my two.

On the other hand, my two are almost out the door! I went from being a kid to being a single mom and no in between time to ever really cater and do for self or explore. I feel like my freedom is finally right around the corner!

And yes, I may be a grandmother soon (VERY prematurely) but hey, that’s different.

I’m sort of tired of fence sitting. And I’m also 35, so I do feel like my biological clock is ticking.

How did you make this decision?

I do think of climate change…

Starting over….

Putting my body through that again….

All the years after that I’ll have to raise baby and go through who knows what trials from there…

I also feel like it’ll be a loss of freedom…something I haven’t had….

[This message edited by maise at 6:26 PM, Friday, July 12th]

I saw a meme yesterday that said "If y’all wanna be 40 getting a kid dressed for kindergarten then that’s on y’all."

Does that help?

Tis true!

What does your partner think?

My kids aren't quite as spread as yours would be, but I also wasn't a teen mom. My youngest started kindergarten as my oldest graduated last year.

How involved will you be as grandma?

I had my only child at 37. I didn't want to have children. My husband didn't like that when we started dating, but he made peace with it. I changed my mind. and we had a child. I always say I have multiple children on here as a way to fake my identity. Meh, not true.

Both my husband and I come from large Catholic families. Mostly we have parents/aunts/uncles with large families. Not many of our siblings have chosen to have large families though.

We don't live near either family and never have. That means our child isn't close to extended family. As I get older, I feel a bit sad that our son doesn't have that family support. I like my siblings. They are important to me. I get family connection from some of my husband's family too.

I have not and will never be able to give that to our son. We have more money. That's a trade off I guess. I don't know though. I don't exactly regret anything.

I had my first child at 23, second at 25 and third at 32. There's a ton of difference on your body between 27 and 32. But you do miss the baby stuff. Don't feel bad...I've heard about a lady becoming a great-grandma at 34. (Yes, mom and grandma were parents at 12.)

Being a grandparent is so much better because you can love on them and spoil them, but the responsibility of raising them falls back on the parents. There are grandparents who have to take on the parental role.

My pregnancy at 32 showed me that I shouldn't have any more children. What I found out was that I could parent the friends of my boys. We have helped house 3 teenage boys who had difficulties at home. One boy's mom died of cirrhosis of the liver when he was a teen.

On the other hand, my niece got married at 30 and has had 2 children within the last 6 years.

You do you.

Oh honey. You got the greatest gift in the world coming and you are going to be needed a lot.
My kid made me a Gran at 51. I have him every other weekend from 4pm Friday until Sunday night or Monday am depending if my son and his partner are working days or nights. He turned 2 today. We had him for 5 days over the 4th weekend and we're camping. I was exhausted until Wed.
I love him so much and he is a great great baby. But he is a lot and the saying about having them young for a reason is very true from my experience.

That said it's a very personal choice. Whatever you decide will be the right decision for you. But starting over from scratch when your kids are teens is a brave move.

I started late. Actually so did my parents.

My twins just turned ten. I'll be 48 this year.

The only reasons I had my tubes tied were:

1. Having NICU babies is damn hard. And not knowing why I was having such small babies made me really worry it would happen again.

2. Doc said there was a high probability that my next pregnancy would be twins, or TRIPLETS...

I'm happy with my four. I always wanted girl/boy twins which I had always dreamed of. Perhaps if I had been younger I would have chanced it.

It also makes a huge difference to have a loving supportive partner.

I had my first child when I was nearly 25. It was almost another 8 years before I had my second (my first together with my current DH). After him we had 2 more boys. Then our youngest son died after 23 days, and I felt so empty. I had our last child when I was less than 2 months from turning 42. I will be 60 when she graduates. My grandchildren are just 8 years younger than my daughter. Haha! It's been interesting, but I would do the same thing all over again. I don't regret having her one little bit. And we're at a MUCH different stage in our lives than we were with all our other children. We've been able to afford a better education for her, and some other things we couldn't before. I absolutely love it, and all our boys (the 3 we still have on earth) love their little sister and would do anything for her. I doubt you'd regret having another. But I bet you'd possibly regret NOT having another. And your other kids are old enough to help with a baby!

Hi. I am certainly not going to pretend that I can assist you in determining whether or not you should have more children. But I can offer a perspective.

Some things in life are just so hugely important, like marriage and children, and I believe a decision for either is so very important. I actually believe that if you don’t absolutely feel that you just MUST get married… That you just don’t know how you could stand it not to… Then you shouldn’t. Because there is no way, as we all know, to predict what we will face in a marriage. And we should really really really want it if we’re going to do it.

And I feel the same way about children. I adore my children. They are grown men now, and I still adore them and I was in that place about having children… That I just didn’t think – even though my husband and I were ecstatically happy in our marriage at that time – I didn’t believe that I could live without children! He felt the same. So after a miscarriage and lots of fertility help from doctors, we adopted our three boys. And we have been blessed by them.

But some of the things that we faced with our kids… I strongly believe that it’s a good thing that I wanted them so badly. Because if I had wondered, "should we have kids or not?" I might not have been in the proper mental state to get through the hard times. And although I think we went through some particularly hard times with our boys due to their circumstances, I’m certain that all children bring with them challenges for their parents.

So if this was just a friendly communication about a decision that you’re making, I apologize for being so serious and perhaps blunt about my perspective.

If you are seriously wanting viewpoints to be expressed, I think that it would be a fabulous thing to have more children. But I certainly believe that a person should ABSOLUTELY be 100% "all in" about having them…

But I’m sure you already know this, because you have kids already. I’m sure you are an amazing mother. And I know you will make the right decision for you.

Good luck!

I wanted three kids. We planned on having three kids from engagement. (We wanted to have a SAHP. So it took 5 years of planning to be assured we could live on one income for the next 20+ years).

We could handle three kids...although #3 was rough going for the first almost 4 years of her life. She was up every two hours at night for 13 months. Had to be touching us/me to sleep. 3.5-3.75 was real fun. When she got really upset, she'd glare at you, drop her drawers, and pee on the floor. From 1-3, we had at least 3 fights daily getting her into the car seat. Sometimes, I had to physically restrain her while clipping her in. She was high needs/stubborn as all hell.

(Thankfully, she has grown out of much of it. She is quite a delightful 12 year old. She just got back from a week of scout camp, and the scoutmaster complemented us on her leadership skills. She also does martial arts and her teachers there totally love her).

I was 29, 32, and 36 when I had them.

We were absolutely done after #3.

And then, haha. We had our oops at 42. I was not happy about being pregnant. She was our old age, infertility and birth control fail. (Normally I don't ovulate unless I'm on meds. my third kid was an IUI+injectables kid). On top of it, I just found out my husband relapsed when I found out I was pregnant. Ending the pregnancy was a strong consideration. I couldn't do it, as my last statistically should not exist.

DH got snipped after #4.

My pregnancy at 42 wasn't awful. I mean. I wasn't in my 20s, but it wasn't like going through cancer treatment. I bounced back pretty quickly. It took me like 2 months to remember to bring along a diaper bag when we went out. The loss of freedom is temporary. My youngest is 6, and we definitely have more freedom now. And also we lost freedom because of Covid Lock-downs. So. there's that, too.

Being part of the sandwich generation is no joke. My 2021 was downright awful. We were deep in covid lockdown. Working full time, monitoring 3 kids doing online school with a 2/3 year old under foot. I lost a parent, and then 6 weeks later after my parent died, I was diagnosed and treated for breast cancer. That was *a lot* to handle at 45.

I'm still not fully recovered from all of that.

I don't worry about our impact on the climate. Our general footprint is small. I mean, I use one tank of gas a month. We're still using old hand-me down furniture in our house. I really have nothing of value other than my wedding ring and my 9 year old car. We have two tvs in the house. You get the idea.

Thank you all so very much for taking the time to share your insights and your stories. This was very helpful and exactly what I needed while noodling over my decision. I enjoy hearing how other people arrived to their choices and how it all played out, and such.

I had a random moment recently where I felt myself instantly think, "omgosh maise, do you want to single parent again? 'Cause the reality is that that could very well be the case if you go down this path...you'll have to do this again, by yourself....again. There are no guarantees you two make it and then what?" Self instantly said no. And so...I'm really thinking I'll enjoy my premature grandmother-hood and call it! I'm still struggling as a single parent with my current two as it is. Gosh when they are no longer school age children then I can have a little bit of ease here...their stinking schools have NEVER provided transportation. What a pain in the ass to have to deal with as a full time worker and single parent!

I'm so so sorry @secondtime for your cancer battle and all of what you shared, it really does sound like a lot. I cant even imagine.

Thank you ALL seriously for taking the time to post and listen and everything. hugs!

[This message edited by maise at 10:59 PM, Monday, July 29th]