Truthfully, C and I were not TRYING to get pregnant, but ever since the beginning of our relationship (and I am talking the VERY beginning of our relationship... more "beginning" than I would honestly like to admit to) we were taking zero measures in order to NOT get pregnant. Looking back, I would say we were being quite stupid and irresponsible. But I also truly thought I would never be able to get pregnant (for various reasons) and therefore thought the risk involved in having unprotected sex was incredibly minute.
C proposed in August of 2009, and after excitedly jumping up and down on the couch for a good three and a half days, I settled down and we set a wedding date for June 6, 2010. I have to say that in accepting C's proposal, I also felt quite guilty because I believed my fiance was making a lifetime commitment to someone who would NOT be able to provide him with any children. We talked about this on a number of occasions, and discussed the possibility of looking into adoption, etc. We were both "ok" with not being able to get pregnant, though I would also say neither of us were truly thrilled.
In early 2010 (after about 2 and a half years of quite regular, quite unprotected sex), with the wedding date only 5 months away, I woke up one morning with a severe gag-reflex at the thought of coffee. Huge... red... flag. Slowly other symptoms of pregnancy started surfacing - achy boobies, morning nausea... but I couldn't believe that I could actually be pregnant. I think I waited through about a week of very obvious pregnancy symptoms before I took the pee test on a lunch break at work. I was SO sure I would get that little minus sign. But woh - WHAT??!! I got a PLUS sign, and I was preggers.
To this day, I still look at Emmy and say to myself "did this actually happen?"
And now, with Emmy being 15 months going on 16 years old, and with other tick-tock timeline issues forcing me and C to make big decisions about whether or not we are going to expand our family of 3 to a family of 4, I find myself wondering "could this actually happen again???"
I've started talking to women about having a second child. There are two issues that generally come up:
1) A woman never gets her body back after her second child (I never got my body back after my first, so this is not a deal-breaker)
2) A woman has to want to have the baby for HERSELF, not so that her other child will have a companion.
Hmmm.. really? Because, honestly, though I am totally excited about the possibility of holding another newborn in my arms, and showering it with love and motherly attention, I would have to say that the MAIN reason I would want to have a second child is so that Emmy will have someone else in the house to talk to besides mama and dada. I mean, I remember growing up in my childhood house, and I can't even IMAGINE not having my older sister as a companion. There were many times when our folks acted bats%^& crazy and I am so thankful I had someone else to turn to for sanity-checks. On a more positive note, I want Emmy to have someone besides mama and dada with whom she can share a collective memory bank (because lets face it, mama and dada's memories are no longer at their peak), and a collective imagination while playing at home. And ok, maybe sometimes I kind of think to myself "having TWO children to support us in our old age and visit us and give us grandchildren would be better than just having ONE child bearing that burden".
Of course, whether my reasons are judged as good or bad, I think C and I have a tough road ahead of us in our pursuit of baby #2. It took us two and a half years to get pregnant the first time, and that was when we were young and drunk :) and had lots of free time on our hands. I am giving myself til June 2013 to get pregnant again. If it doesn't happen, who knows? Maybe we can foster parent, or look into adopting a baby, or maybe we will just find a really cute puppy.
All of the reasons for not having or having a second child are very objective. Take away the "what if's" and then what is there? I hear a very distinct message.
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