how do you know when it is really time to ttc #2?

[sunbaby]

suddenly, i have super strong baby urges. i see new babies in the store and i long. i read other mdcers are expecting and i long. this is not usual for me. i tend to be like,'i am so glad i am not pregnant. i am so glad i am not up all hours with a wee one.' dd is about to be 3 and gearing up for preschool and i am finally facing some freedom and all i want is another baby. it doesnt seem rational. there seem to be many reasons not to have another right now. and then i ask myself, is it ever rational to have a baby? it always seems more like some biological imperative to me.

some of the stuff i am considering is worry about wether timing is right for dd. i am an only child and really want dd to have sibling, but am afraid of bringing one too soon, of robbing her of needed babying. also, the second one feels scarrier for me because when i was expecting dd, i really thought i had my $**t all figured out, that i knew just how i was gonna parent. : now, of course, i know how very far from perfect i am. and i always have to work on my temper w/ dd. it can only get worse when i am preg, right? plus, i am in a sticky emotional place right now, but then, i often am. if i wait to be free and clear of issues i will wait forever. i just dont want to bring some kid into the world to suffer because his momma is depressed. but geeze, i want a baby so bad and i dont have any good arguments, except, well, i want one. and i want to visit the midwife every month and enjoy watching myself grow fat and i even kinda look forward to labor and especially, especially to taking my brand new baby into my arms.
the feeling waxes and wanes through the day, but keeps me awake untill late late every night for two or three weeks.

how'd y'all decide? and did you fuss much about timing it so the baby will be born at aconvenient time of year? or is that messing with fate too much?

<- every time i see these on peoples sig lines i feel like shouting 'i want one too!'. ah, see, i just found reason number one for ttc, i want the cute emoticon. :

[USAmma]

I think you just know. I'm really tired and low energy. I didn't want 2 babies at the same time.

I knew I didn't want two very close together, but not so far apart that they couldn't play with each other and have some things in common. So I thought 3 years was a good age gap.

We are on a single income so we both agreed that we only can reasonably afford one more child without it making things really stressful.

I put all the baby stuff away in the garage and thought about when the right time would come. Then one day it just did. We had unprotected sex and were not scared the next morning about it. It took 6 mos. to actually conceive our baby but it still feels right. I guess you'll just know when you know.

Darshani

[oceanbaby]

I can relate to a lot of what you wrote, especially about it being scarier the 2nd time around. This is definitely true for me. Ds is 28 months, and we are planning on TTC really soon. Last year I had a moment where I thought I possibly could be pregnant, and I was so sad to think about my one on one time with ds coming to an end. He was still so much a baby, and I just really wasn't ready for a 2nd one yet. I think there are a lot of perks to having them close together, but I am not the kind of mom that is cut out for that.

But ds is all of a sudden becoming so independent, and I can just really see how another baby would fit into our family. Basically, when I really think about having another baby, not just about the fun stuff, I'm scared, but excited. Before I used to think about it and I would be scared and scared!

It kind of sounds to me like you are definitely on the road to having another baby. How does your dh feel about it?

I agree that there is no perfect time to wait until everything is sorted out (for us it was finances), but there is a time when certain major things are under control (for us it was dh making enough that I could stay home). If you have major depressive episodes that you are battling, then maybe it would be good to find ways to manage that before getting pregnant. But if you're just worried because you snap at your dd too much already, then I think that's just parenting stuff that you work out along the way. (If I let that stop me we'd never have another baby!)

I don't think you have to have a sound logical reason why you want another baby. If you feel that it is right for your family, and that the urge is staying with you, then it is probably the right time for you. That's how it's been for me at least.

[heatherevond]

Questions in my head

DH seems to be ready for #2 a bit more than I am. I think it is a mix of everything. I had to put DS in daycare at 11 months. I had to go through the Infertility roller coaster. I had a C-Section. All of these things bother me. I want to have the natural conception with a natural birth, and to have my babies at home with me.

I really am feeling the tug. But.. there is that voice in the back of my head as I schedule the appt with the RE. This appt has been looming for so long and I really do want #2, I just want perfection with it.

Am I asking for too much?:

[oceanbaby]

Heather - You're not asking for too much. I think it's perfectly finen to ask for and work towards the pregnancy and birth that you want. However, I think for anyone it is a good idea to kind of open up your expectations because you never know what's going to happen. Someone who gets pregnant easily may not end up having the birth they want, regardless of how hard they worked towards it - these babies sometimes have a mind of their own!

I had a specific vision in my head about how I wanted my pregnancy and birth to go, but at the wise suggestion of my Bradley teacher, I tried to hold myself open to the idea that different things may happen. I mainly worked on telling myself that regardless of what happened, I was educated and confident and would appreciate it for what it was - my birth experience, good or bad. And sure enough, we had a litte kink thrown into the works - when ds's head crowned, the cord was so tight around his neck that it had to be cut before his body could be born, and when he was born he was blue, limp, and not breathing, giving the Dr., nurses, and all of us a big scare. So after a millisecond on my chest, he was taken (with dh by his side) for oxygen and tubes down his throat and whatever else they did. It sure blew my idea out of the water - I wanted to wait for the cord to stop pulsing before cutting, I wanted him nowhere but on my chest for the first 1/2 hour or so. I wanted so badly for that to not be his very first experience at birth. And as much as I wish that that's not the way it had happened, I am glad that mentally I had been open to the idea that different things might happen that I can't control.

I'm not sure if I'm making any sense, and I know I'm getting off topic, but I'm really passionate about women being confident and knowledgeable about their bodies, and definitely having a vision of the kind of birth they want, but then accepting that many different things may happen, and not having their birth experience be a negative, disappointing one because it didn't go the way they expected. I'm not trying to be dismissive of women who have horrible birth experiences because of mismanaged medical intervention, but rather to try to express my feelings that whatever happens is your birth experience, so it is to be embraced and acknowledged for what it was - painful, easy, disappointing, exciting, sad, powerful, etc.

I guess this is my long way of saying, No, you're not asking for too much. Always shoot for the stars! But if it happens differently, it doesn't mean that you failed. In fact, you are that much more of the mother warrior, doing what needs to be done to birth your beautiful baby.