Those w/ large families...

[7kiddosmom]

and of course anyone else.

I told my sister today that we are pg again. She makes me so mad everytime I tell her we are expecting she asks "What are you going to do?". It really pisses me off. Her and her dh are just beginning to TTC and she always talks about how they waited until the "perfect" time. I love my little sister but she is clueless at times. Can't she just say congratulation

Kasey

[a_work_in_progress]

I'm pregnant with #4, and I've had several people insinuate I should abort because that's too many kids! WTF?! I think when I tell my parents, I'll say "I'm pregnant, and the correct response is 'congratulations'."

Beat 'em to it, y'know?

[ibusymomto5]

Sorry you have to put up with that from your own sister. Unfortunately most of the world doesn't understand the joy that comes from a large family. We live in a very self-centered, all about me society. Career first, material possession collection, time alone with spouse, and then kids at the "perfect time". That's the trend for a lot of people. I've been there myself with that way of thinking. Thankfully, God had other plans for us and blessed us with our first at His "perfect time" and not ours. Sadly, a lot of people who wait years to TTC end up having fertility trouble. Hopefully your sister won't be one of them, and if she's able to become a parent herself maybe she'll grow as a person and see things in a different light. I'm so very thankful that God interrupted "my" plans and blessed us with children when He did. I LOVE my big family, and if I was just now having my first I wouldn't be able to have this many probably. As for your sister... I think until you've carried a baby inside your womb, given birth, and get a chance to bond with that child that you really can't possibly see the full extent of tremendous joy and the depth of blessing of having children. And... with each additional child(aka big families) the joys and blessings multiply exponentially, but I almost think you have to live through it to truly understand the full extent of that just like before you've ever had one child and not understanding that deep love. Ya know?

[ekblad9]

Well, dh's mom is passive aggressive and just sends him ads from magazines for vasectamies! We haven't told her or any of his family yet. His brother is into the "only replace yourself" thing and his sister is single, probably won't ever marry, and refers to our family as "the herd". Haven't seen any of them in years and don't plan to so I don't even see where it's their business. They don't KNOW our life. Our life is hard at times, yes, but it's wonderful. Just as it's not my business to say to someone with two children "why did you stop at two?" It's not their business to ask me if I'm "finished" or if I'm "out of my mind". A neighbor told my oldest child when I was pg last time that she "felt sorry for him b/c we robbed him of his childhood". What kind of a person says that to a child?

[ibusymomto5]

Originally Posted by ekblad8

What kind of a person says that to a child?

An ignorant one! - Honestly some people are truly ignorant. Like you said, they don't KNOW how wonderful a large family can be.

[7kiddosmom]

You know, I have yet to meet an older person that said "I wish I didn't have so many kids" I always hear "I wish I would have had more children"

My sister just doesn't get it. But it makes me so sad. She was present at my first homebirth, held my leg in fact so had a front row view. After the birth she didn't see any beauty or amazement in it all she said was "they better knock me out when I have a baby." UGH, I invited her to the birth so that she would see how wonderful a natural birth could be and how a woman CAN do it.

I think I am just frustrated with her. I think my mom must have dropped her on her head when she was a baby or something.

Thanks for understanding.

Kasey

[ibusymomto5]

Originally Posted by 7kiddosmom

You know, I have yet to meet an older person that said "I wish I didn't have so many kids" I always hear "I wish I would have had more children"

My sister just doesn't get it. But it makes me so sad. She was present at my first homebirth, held my leg in fact so had a front row view. After the birth she didn't see any beauty or amazement in it all she said was "they better knock me out when I have a baby." UGH, I invited her to the birth so that she would see how wonderful a natural birth could be and how a woman CAN do it.

I think I am just frustrated with her. I think my mom must have dropped her on her head when she was a baby or something.

Thanks for understanding.


Kasey

I do get puzzled as to why some women never desire natural childbirth. I often wonder if they really do desire it deep down but are too afraid to face it.

[tls]

People always have something to say about a pregnancy, and unfortunately I've noticed its usually a more negative comment than positive. I can't tell you how many people said "you're pregnant already?" to me when I was pregnant with my 2nd. The kids are over 2 years apart too . I'm bracing myself for all the comments I will receive with this pregnancy especially since this is unplanned and everytime someone asked if we were going to have more kids I always said "not sure". Sorry about the stress your sister caused. Its really sucky when people just can't be happy for you.

[yonit]

We had this problem with our 3rd pregnancy as well. For some reason our having a 3rd baby seemed to give everyone the right to tell us we were wrong! Strangers I could basically ignore. But when my dad said to my husband "What, you missed your vasectomy appointment?" I had a little talk with him.

I basically said to him "Are we good parents? Are our children loved and well cared for? Have we ever asked you for money? Are we living off the state?" After he answered all that I said "So, what does it matter to you how many children we have? All it does is give you more grandchildren to love" I don't think I was quite that rude, but I may have been. You don't mess with a hormonal pregnant woman! LOL

Anyway, after that he was fine and I think he spread the word because people seemed to leave us alone after that But it has been 5 years and I have no doubt in my mind that we are going to get a lot of flack for this baby- no matter how excited we are. Dh and I discussed last night when to tell everyone, and he wants to wait for a few months. Which is fine, but I think he is just putting off the inevitable, and they will be even madder that we didn't tell them sooner. His feeling is that they will be upset throughout the pregnancy and will be fine when the baby is born. So the less time that they know about it, the less we have to listen to it. LOL I did spend the day yesterday with my FIL and SIL and her kids and managed not to tell. I won't be seeing anyone again for about 6 weeks- at which point I may be showing (I am short and always look huge and show early -even with a small overall weight gain) so we will have to see how long we can let this go.

[HeatherKae]

Originally Posted by ibusymomto5

Sorry you have to put up with that from your own sister. Unfortunately most of the world doesn't understand the joy that comes from a large family. We live in a very self-centered, all about me society. Career first, material possession collection, time alone with spouse, and then kids at the "perfect time". That's the trend for a lot of people. I've been there myself with that way of thinking. Thankfully, God had other plans for us and blessed us with our first at His "perfect time" and not ours. Sadly, a lot of people who wait years to TTC end up having fertility trouble. Hopefully your sister won't be one of them, and if she's able to become a parent herself maybe she'll grow as a person and see things in a different light. I'm so very thankful that God interrupted "my" plans and blessed us with children when He did. I LOVE my big family, and if I was just now having my first I wouldn't be able to have this many probably. As for your sister... I think until you've carried a baby inside your womb, given birth, and get a chance to bond with that child that you really can't possibly see the full extent of tremendous joy and the depth of blessing of having children. And... with each additional child(aka big families) the joys and blessings multiply exponentially, but I almost think you have to live through it to truly understand the full extent of that just like before you've ever had one child and not understanding that deep love. Ya know?

I just want to say that I hope you realize that it isn't self centeredness that keeps all of us from wanting a large family or waiting till a more "perfect" time. I would have had kids at 23 if we would have had a means of supporting them. I didn't want to have to be on welfare or living with my parents. We waited until I was 30 and we were in a position for me to quit my job and stay home to care for our children. We haven't had fertility problems.

I'm pg with my third and last child. Having a third was a long thought out decision having little to nothing to do with selfishness. I just want you to know that.

And I am totally braced for the rude comments that I am going to get with having a third. I have a boy and a girl and people will be shocked that we are adding one more.

[ekblad9]

Certainly no one should question why you don't have more than three children. It's NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS! And that's the point here. No one ever says to someone with one or two kids "hey, what's up, are you infertile or something?" Of course not, that would be rude. But everywhere I go with my kids I get rude comments like "are you done yet", "don't you know what causes that?", "you have HOW many kids?" Like I'm a freak show or something. I like "did you plan this?" Um, since when is my sex life your business? I guess it just gets old and until you've heard them all a hundred times and tried to be polite about actually wanting and enjoying having many kids it's hard to understand.

I don't think the OP was insinuating that all people that have one or two or three kids are self centered. Maybe just thinking of her experiences? Or maybe even just her sister? Family size should remain that family's business. Rude comments are hurtful, period.

[7kiddosmom]

I am happy for anyone if they are happy with their family size. If you have 2 or 12 it shouldn't be looked down upon. I am just frustrated that people think that you can't possibly be happy having number 8, and don't think to congratulate you

And my response to the "Don't you know what causes that" comment is "Yeah, we don't have cable TV."

I actually had a woman tell me that I should stop having children to give someone else a chance. I guess I am using up all the little children on myself. ba ha ha

[ibusymomto5]

Originally Posted by HeatherKae

I just want to say that I hope you realize that it isn't self centeredness that keeps all of us from wanting a large family or waiting till a more "perfect" time. I would have had kids at 23 if we would have had a means of supporting them. I didn't want to have to be on welfare or living with my parents. We waited until I was 30 and we were in a position for me to quit my job and stay home to care for our children. We haven't had fertility problems.

I'm pg with my third and last child. Having a third was a long thought out decision having little to nothing to do with selfishness. I just want you to know that.

And I am totally braced for the rude comments that I am going to get with having a third. I have a boy and a girl and people will be shocked that we are adding one more.

I said that it was a trend for "a lot" of people, not "all". I just think the whole order thing.. career first, material collection/traveling/etc years alone with spouse, then kids at the "perfect time" is a trend, it's socially popular and accepted. Starting a family early in marriage, and then(gasp!) having more than 2 kids isn't so popular these days. I see it all around me and on tv. We've received our fair share of snide comments over the years as proof. It does get very old. I think family planning is a personal decision, and no one needs to justify to me or anyone else their why's and when's. At the same time, I shouldn't have to justify to them either. I was merely trying to offer the original poster some support and help her see where her sister "might be" coming from, since she mentioned her sister waiting till the "perfect time". Her sister's comment of "what are you going to do?" kind of implies that she doesn't think it's necessarily perfect timing for the original poster... "maybe" because it doesn't fit her or society's idea of "perfect timing" or the "perfect number of kids".

[Mama2 '05'06]

Not in your due date club but had to post! Congrats on the big families. I always said I wanted 8 girls and 8 boys and everyone said I was crazy. I may be in this day when it is soo expensive. Anyway, I would love to have 8 kids. I have 7 sisters and 1 brother so there were 9 of us. Dh comes from a family of 6. We have 1 dd and we are expecting our son in a few weeks. They will be 14 months apart and I think I'd like to wait a little longer between the next one.

[MCKMN]

Here has what we have gotten so far! I am PG with #4

Are you sure he is getting a Vasectomy, he really needs too get one..

Are you serious, you two need help :

Another one * the whole shock and awe thing, with a smidge of rudeness:

My fave.. No more kids, we have no more wall room for anymore grandbabies! How is that for hurtful

O......... and your kidding me AGAIN:

It is more hurtfull too me, then making me angry I guess.

[kayjayjay]

Well, we haven't told anyone yet and I'm just enjoying keeping it to myself right now, but I'm bracing myself for the comments. I'm pg with #4, and after #3 my MIL started a campaign to convince us that we can't afford any more. She says things like "sure, they're cheap when they're little, it's when they're teenagers that they start to get expensive."

I expect my parents to be surprised but polite, and most of our friends too, I hope, but the IL's should be interesting. My sister will say rude things as well, but she'll say them to my mom and then my mom will tell me about it, so that's not quite as bad.

I told DH that when I get the inevitable "were you trying to get pg?" question this time I'm just going to say "that's a very personal question!" and nothing more.

[ekblad9]

I was thinking about this today and was wondering : if you come at people with "I'm pregnant and isn't it great!" They won't have a chance to be rude? Maybe that's just wishful thinking, LOL.

[HeatherKae]

Originally Posted by ekblad8

I was thinking about this today and was wondering : if you come at people with "I'm pregnant and isn't it great!" They won't have a chance to be rude? Maybe that's just wishful thinking, LOL.

Yeah, I think that's wishful thinking. You'll open it up for them to make a comment like, "I guess," or "No." I think saying, "And the proper response is congratulations" is great.

I'm only on number three and I've already gotten some negative comments. Like, "You can't handle the two you've got. What are you going to do with a third?" This was from my dad before I was pg when I had mentioned we might have a bio third rather than adopt (which was our original plan).

But I had a very enlightening conversation with a friend yesterday. I told him I was pg and his response was "I thought you said just two and that's it."

No, we always planned on having three.

"Oh, really. Huh. Well, I know we couldn't handle more than two. We have our hands full. Three would be... we couldn't do it."

And that's when I realized I think people are just projecting their own fears and misgivings onto others. Quite frankly the thought of having 5 or 6 or 7 kids terrifies me. I could never do it, intentionally. I think that is why people make the comments they do. I think that is why I, even just at #3 will have negative comments. They are really talking about themselves.

Although, there are families like my one brother who have 5 children and cannot afford them or take care of them. The kids weren't properly cared for when there was just 2 of them. So when they kept adding to the family, yeah, there were very rude comments made regarding birth control and second jobs and things like that. They now have 5 and my parents must send them money from their retirement to help pay for things like glasses and winter coats. I buy the kids their school supplies and some clothes. It's a sad, sad situation. When my parents asked if the pg was intentionally, personally, I think they were well within their rights since another baby meant more retirement money leaving their household.

[Gray's Mommy]

We don't have a large family. I love being around them though. I think large families just have something that small families don't have. Congratulations!!

[Lizzo]

I don't have a large family wither- just baking #2, but I got a lot of flack when we told my family and Dp's family was pretty rude too. His dad said "When you're done with your tool, you wrap it up and put it away" : We don't get along with Dp's family much- so they aren't involved...Dp just wants them to care about him and us for once!
My parents were like "How many kids are you going to have?!" And DP was like "5 or 6" and I was like "Well...we're taking it one at a time for now!" Real quick as not to freak them out too much.
Very lame.
Sorry to all you mamas! I love big families!