Now that my daughter is turning 1 and I’ve reached the big 3-0, my husband and I often hear “So when are you going to have another one?”, “You should start trying now”, “You don’t want to have an only child”, etc. Although I do find myself missing having a tiny newborn when I see one, like most couples, there is a lot to consider before we plan on having another child. The biggest thing for us, other than the obvious financial issues and other things most families need to sort through, is the pregnancy and birth.

Halfway through my pregnancy, they found that I had cervical funneling, which means that my cervix was a little opened and shorter than it was supposed to be. I was put on bedrest and eventually had to have a cerclage, a surgical procedure to sew the cervix shut in order to prevent pre-term labor. We were actually very lucky because most women don’t find out about it until they have had a second trimester miscarriage. But this means that in any future pregnancies, I will most likely need to have a cerclage done each time and probably earlier in the pregnancy. I was put on modified bedrest until they removed the stitches at 36 weeks. That meant NO driving, NO leaving the house unless I could be pushed around in a wheelchair, NO lifting, and NO hanky panky!

When they removed the stitches at 36 weeks, I had to deal with some bleeding and scar tissue that had formed around my cervix from the stitches. That was pretty painful! I was happy to not be on bedrest anymore, but since I sat on my butt doing nothing for more than 3 months, and I was HUGE, I found it a lot harder to get around. We expected for me to go into labor shortly after the stitches came out, but no matter what we tried, my baby just wouldn’t come out! The picture shown is me the night before I went in to get induced. After all the worry of going into pre-term labor, my daughter was born 5 days after my due date, only after my labor was induced. I also had a difficult birth, which caused me to have a longer recovery time, but that’s a story for another time…

With all of that being said, we really have to think about how me being pregnant again would affect our daughter. I would not be able to carry her or go out to any fun kids’ events like the zoo or museum with her. I would not be able to take care of her by myself. Before we had her, my husband and I wanted to have 4 children. Now, we really have to think long and hard before deciding to have a second.

But, is she really an only child? I know some people would argue with us, but here’s a great example of the “sibling” rivalry in our house:

When M is walking along the furniture, it doesn’t matter who or what is in her way when she decides to go somewhere. She will step on poor Rex, who is 3 times her size and laugh about it. Many of my weekend mornings are spent yelling “M, leave Rexy alone!” “Rex, stop licking your sister!” I work from home in the office in our basement, and all I hear for much of my day is M rolling around in walker above me cracking up and Rex’s paws scattering on the hardwood running away from her. M loves teasing the dog! Rex makes a good big brother too though. When he sees M doing something he knows she’s not supposed to, he’ll go up to her and lick her face or hands so she stops or get in her way and softly bark at her so that she can’t get to whatever she’s trying to get into.

So, for now, we’re happy with our family of 4. When someone mentions M being an only child, I always say that she’s not an only child since she has Rex. Of course, they usually laugh because they don’t think I’m serious.

I think I should make cards with the QR code to this post so I can hand it out every time someone bugs us about having another baby, lol.

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