At six months postpartum, I’m technically in the clear to try to conceive Dubya’s sibling. However … do we want to?
When I say “Do we want to,” I’m not simply speaking of going through another newborn stage. No, my husband and I are thinking deeper than that: do want to go through another round of TTC; do we want to live month to month with hope and disappointment; do we want to go through another pregnancy that could complicate itself at the end again?
Frankly, it’s hard to know the answers to those questions. But as we drank our champagne and celebrated six years of marriage on Saturday night, I asked my husband his thoughts on the matter.
Like me, he hasn’t decided. He knows that having a second would necessitate a complete lifestyle overhaul — we’d have to move, we’d have to decide whether or not I would continue working, we’d have to decide if we’d stay in DC. The logistics of having a second are much more complicated than one baby — and even having her has turned the ease of getting anywhere upside down. It would be a major effort on that front.
But he did express something that hit me as the right thing to do: he hopes that we’d leave it up to the fates, as it were, for Baby Writer 2.0. Sure, we’d take the vitamins and Pregnitude that my OB suggested, but we wouldn’t seek help from a fertility clinic (which we never ended up using and which alienated me). We wouldn’t live month to month with hope and disappointment. We’d try, but we wouldn’t pin our entire lives around the idea of a second baby.
And I’d love to do that. I think, given how happy I am with Dubya, that I could. I’ve pictured two kids in my mind, but I wanted them both for their mutual benefit, not mine. I love being a mother, but I love being a sister, too: having siblings has been one of the greatest sources of joy in my life. I know my husband would say the same. I would hope to give Dubya that joy, but I know she’d grow up just as fabulous if she were an only child.
So the deal is this: we talk about it again around Dubya’s one-year birthday. For now, we’re not preventing, but we’re not trying, either. My body gives me enough clues about ovulation to avoid sex around that time since I’m not ready to be pregnant again (if it were even that easy; I bet it’s not).
For right now, we’re more or less undecided. Given how long it took us to decide on Dubya, it’s a space I’m comfortable occupying. It’s a space I’m enjoying, because it gives me the space to enjoy Dubya.
So let’s file this away for now and come back to it in about six months.