blogs
Second Helpings
"Just wait till the second one," people keep saying to me, recently, or, "if you think it's hard with one, it's more than twice as hard with two," or, "it's good to have children who aren't too many years apart so they can be friends."
All of which would make sense if I had, you know, made a specific sort of announcement. Tori Spelling, for example (at least by my calculations), got pregnant with her second child when her first was the age Baby J is now.
If I'm being completely honest, I think that's crazy.
Even though (maybe because) I love Baby J more than anything else in the world, I'm not even sure I want to have another child.
Over Thanksgiving, we were making up joking names for our own families inspired by John & Kate Plus 8. Freckles came up with "One and Done" for us. I thought it would be cute someday, if we changed our minds, for it to coincide with the season finale. We could pique viewer interest in the promo by asking, "One and Done...?" Then people could wait till next season to find out if Baby J got a brother or sister.
The fact that I'm more interested in this as an imaginary television show than as a new chapterĀ in my life is pretty telling.
I know there are some people out there who have the first child and then immediately get started on baby #2. There are also people who want to have all their children really close in age, and people who just miss the little-baby phase.
I just don't fall into any of those categories.
I keep watching A Baby Story and Bringing Home Baby on TLC and seeing families who are having their second or third, or, you know, fifty-sixth child, and honestly being really happy that I'm not them. Even though they usually look really happy and even though I'm sure their families will be greatly enhanced by their new additions.
I'm not ready.
I love Baby J and I love playing with him and I love watching him grow. And I don't want to miss out on any of what's going on with him because my focus has shifted towards another baby. And I'm not one of those women who never felt more beautiful than when they were pregnant, either.
Theoretically, in the storyboard that I use loosely when I'm imagining my future life, there's another baby. But I'm really not ready for that other baby now. I don't know if I ever will be, or if there will be a convenient time. Truthfully, there is never a convenient time for a baby -- but now that I know how much work and time and emotional commitment goes into it, I'm scared to take that on again.
It's hard to explain that to people, though, especially people who have known all their lives that they wanted to have a certain number of babies -- or people who had a large number of babies and just assume that everyone does that.
We'll see. I can't promise anything -- besides that we're not ready for another one yet.

