Do You Have a Number

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My whole life I knew I was going to grow up, get married, and have babies. 

Its just something I knew was going to happen. I don’t remember ever being that girl who had pretend weddings, had a list of what my perfect spouse would be like, or even a number of kids I wanted to have. I just had this picture of having babies with my husband, regardless of the number, I was going to be a mom. 

I grew up, moved away from home and everything I knew, I got married to a military man. 

We got married pretty young and spent nearly the first year of marriage apart due to his deployment. Everyone swore up and down we would get pregnant the moment he returned home. Our plan however was to wait. We were young and still didn’t really know what being married was like. We were married six years before having our first babe.

 Our Plan worked perfectly and we had our baby boy. Although being a new parent came with many struggles and sleepless nights, we still knew one day we’d give him a sibling. There was no question about it, yet neither my husband nor I had our “number”. I feel like so many people prior to having kids have a number, their ideal amount of children they would have or like to have. We just played it by ear and when our first born turned one we started talking about when would be a good time to add another to the mix. 

Sure enough with my type A personality, we planned our next babe perfectly. Our sweet little miss came nearly two years after her big brother, and boy did that throw us through a loop. Going from 1-2 kids felt like crazy town to me. When we found out we were having a girl we thought, a boy and a girl, perfect family of four. Were done. After her birth and with all the struggles of now two children, I even more so knew- “I am done!” Sometimes I thought how do people do this! This parenting thing is no joke. 

Life got a little easier as they started to grow, or we just got better at juggling it. Little miss grew and right when she was the age big brother was when we started trying for her, we thought, hmmm are we done? It was such a hard question (still is) for us because we never had that number. I never knew how many kids I wanted. I loved being pregnant, going through that stage, fresh new born babies, watching them grow and learn. I mean who doesn’t love babies? But did I want to go through the lack of sleep again, could we afford another? 

There seemed to be so many things that logically could sway that decision. Number one probably being living away from most family, lack of that “village” helping to raise our kids. Did we want to push ourselves over the edge, would we? Or would it be the best decision ever made. Could the desires of our heart far out weigh all the logic and reasoning in the world. We could be very happy with the two we have, we’ve been so very blessed with the sweetest babes. Yet, I don’t know that I’m ready to be past that stage of life, it breaks my heart to think I would never be pregnant again. I mean, does that feeling ever go away? Will I always have baby fever? Regret? 

I’ve heard one way of telling if you’re done having kids is to look past the baby stage, as us moms know all too well, that time is fleeting. Look years down the road when your kids are all grown, what do you see sitting around your dinner table? While it might be a tad crazy town adding another, and we may not have the answers exactly as before, and that can be so very frightening, theres also some excitement in the unknown. 

The door doesn’t have to be closed.

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