Quote:
Originally Posted by
Cecilia's MamaÂ
I posted this in another thread about child spacing, but this is the one thing that colors my views on having only one child: I listened to a tear-jerking, heart-wrenching story on NPR recently where a woman in her fifties was talking about growing up as an only child. For the most part, she was fine with that, but as it happened, both of her parents died very close to one another, like within the span of a couple of months. The one thing that she kept talking about was that she was the only person who had tons of memories of her parents throughout the bulk of their lives. She had no one to talk to about those memories, as cousins and aunts and uncles weren't as close to her parents as she had been. That was her big regret. She wanted to have someone to share her experiences with, and to commemorate her parents' lives, and she didn't have anyone to do that with. For that reason alone, I would be very hesitant to stop at just one child. I wouldn't want her to feel that isolated and lonely in the event that my husband and I passed.
This played heavily into the decision to have a second child. Frankly, it was THE reason. My mother died, and I have no one with any shared experiences. I have no one to talk with to share with, to have those "remember when" and "did you know" and shared sadness and happiness, and I am desparately sad about this - still, nearly 5 years later.
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She died when my son was 8 months old.  His infancy was incredibly difficult, and I had decided not to have another. There was just no way I could be a good parent to another, and I honestly wasn't sure I would come out of his infancy sane, alive, or still married, among other things.
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After she died, I totally made a completely emotional decision to have another child due to not wanting mine to go through the same thing when we die. The road to having another child was long, long, and so bittersweet; we lost our second child (a son) when i was 23 weeks pregnant. After reeling from that miserable, horrific time, we decided to try to have a baby again. It took a long time to get pregnant, and we needed clomid. It really made me think, wtf, maybe the universe has a different plan. But i still very strongly felt this emotional need for my children to have shared memories of us.Â
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The pregnancy was a difficult one, physically and emotionally, but this little miracle is now 9 months old. It has, again, been an incredibly challenging time, due to severe awful GERD and frankly I didn't hardly see my son for the first 4 months. But this time, ah, this time, the knowledge based on experience that it gets easier is there. Truly, knowing that it really really really WILL pass has made things so much more bearable. I used to hate it when people would say "this too shall pass," but now I know, and really, I don't think I can explain how that has made things so much better.Â
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My baby daughter is a delight. And, I no longer am worried about being able to do this. I realize now that I can handle it, I can be a good parent (most of the time) to both my little ones. And they have each other, for better or worse 
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. Give it time, your mind could change.
