NC.
DH and I have had a bit of a funny old year. He’s had a lot of work instability - had basically had the threat of redundancy hanging over his head for almost all of 2026 and lots of 2025. We have two DC age 6 and 4 and I have a fairly demanding job - there’s lots of flex around hours, but at the end of the day it’s a corporate job with high expectations around output. I’m 37, DH just turned 40.
I got pregnant unexpectedly in March. We had left the question of baby 3 on the table after our youngest but it was a genuine contraceptive failure. We were so back and forth about it for a week but had started to get quietly excited - despite the fact it was ostensibly a terrible idea. We do have the space at a push, but we were already stretched thin financially and time wise (we don’t have any other help) and DH was on his first redundancy consultation. I’m not woo by any means but thought it might be a ‘sign’ that it had happened despite trying to prevent.
I miscarried about a week after we had said ‘ok sod it; let’s do this, even if it’s a terrible idea’. In the somewhat chaotic bundle of emotions afterwards we decided to try - I’m aware that this will look awful - later that month we went ‘hang on, this was an emotional reaction to the loss; this wasn’t decided sensibly with all the other shit we have on’. A couple of weeks later… two lines. We had a big conversation, agreed we had to stop mucking about with this and make a call. We agreed that I would love another baby but was the strongest advocate for ‘but it doesn’t make sense practically’. DH was less pro baby but less scared by the practical implications of what would happen if we went forward.
We eventually concluded that none of this sounded like we were really fighting for it and if we weren’t fighting for it then it wasn’t right to carry on. I had an early abortion at 6w. DH got a vasectomy. That was in early June and, honestly; I’ve been fairly pragmatic about it since and comfortable with the sticking at 2 thing. There are moments when I feel a pang, but it’s manageable (and DH’s vasectomy helps hugely with the finality. Truth be told I’m grateful to him for making the decisive call I’d never have been able to, living in limbo was awful).
Last night I had the most vivid dream. I’m not kidding it was insane. I was in labour with the baby we miscarried (would have been due in December so not far off now). I genuinely in the dream was feeling labour pains and getting that grumpy ‘why aren’t things progressing / it’s been erratic for hours’ feeling. I didn’t have the baby in the dream/meet it but it felt so bloody real. I woke up this morning feeling totally blindsided. I know I know I know that door is closed - firstly because of the vasectomy, but secondly because I made that call. But I hear about people saying ‘I just knew I was done’ and ‘I just knew I needed another’ and neither feels right to me. It’s way more ‘shades of grey’.
I guess what I’m asking is - can someone just tell me this is hormones so I can chalk it up to stupid biology? Am I going to have this feeling again? I hate it, I know my heart wanted one more but my life couldn’t have accommodated it, if I’d had a third it would have been utterly selfish and cost my existing wonderful DCs so much. It is on all counts the right thing that I didn’t have a final baby and the only ‘loser’ is my heart (my head and all other factors are definitely ‘two and done’)
Sorry, that was a ramble. I’m not really making sense. I just feel weird today after that dream.