To wonder if only having enough time left for one child means that we shouldn't have any?

[JessieMcJessie]

Something I'm wrestling with at the moment. I am already 40, very newly married and DH and I haven't really made up our minds yet about children. Last time we discussed it he casually threw in "of course, we'll only ever be able to have one". Even though in my head I only feel about 30, he's probably right. It got us thinking- he has 2 siblings, I have a brother and we both have very close bonds with them. For me in particular my brother has been a huge support during some awful times including the death of both our parents- he walked me down the aisle last month. It's phenomenally important to me that another person felt the same loss and shares the same memories.

But maybe that's just a bonus, and I'd have managed OK if I had never known any different.

Given that DH and I are a bit on the fence about DC full stop, is there any force in the argument that it's maybe not a good thing to deliberately have an only child?

saintlyjimjams it can't just happen unless DH agrees! I could never trick him into it. That's hugely unfair.

I'm not suggesting you trick him into it. I'm saying that if you think that both of you would be happy with you being pregnant tomorrow then you don't need to go round and round in circles discussing whether or not to have kids.

I don't really understand what you're even discussing. You don't know what it's like having children and until you have them you have no idea how you'll respond or what type of parent you'll be. You can't find out from others because everyone's experience is different.

If you're happy enough to have them and your dh is happy enough for you to be pregnant then you can just see what happens. Nothing may happen. If you just stop using contraceptives and don't bother with checking your fertile period chances are it will take a while to happen anyway (of course it might not, but it's likely to). I think when you've spent a lot of time trying not to get pregnant you don't always realise how it can take a while, especially if your life is already busy - it can be difficult getting pregnant. Trying and finding nothing happens might clarify for you how your feel anyway.

I come back to my first response which is that you are trying to control/plan something that cannot be controlled or planned.

I agree

All this unable to back up each others logic 100 percent will go on forever....

You said yourself he may feel happy to have the analysing and decision making put to one side....

I personally wouldn't wait much longer if you want to let nature take its course....

Jessie, I think you should sit for a few days with your feeling of 'do it'. Don't discuss with DH anymore. Convincing with logic is pointless as too much is unknown. If your feelings stay the same then say to him - I'd like to go for it, stop using contraception and see what happens, are you ok with that? If he says yes then great, because you say he likes having decisions taken out of his hands, would be ok with pregnancy etc.
The only issue would be if he actually is quite against it, and is banking on you deciding that too and would later resent you and the baby, particularly if problems arise. But from what you have said, it sounds unlikely. You probably know him well enough to judge that anyway, and make sure he is on board from the start.

Saintly - your words and this thread has me thinking about trying to control/plan what can't be controlled/planned in life generally. I have a horrible feeling I spend so long trying to control things I can't control that I don't have time or the focus to control the things I could improve!

ha temporary - sometimes you have to just say sod it and go for it (or sod it and not go for it!)

I live with a child who can react quite badly to things going wrong, so the details of my day can be quite planned (maybe not in a big way, but if, for example, we're driving and I have a choice of direction to take I have to run through how said child will respond to each route & whether I need to say anything in advance if we take route a or b etc etc). He's more flexible now but for many years he couldn't wait at all (I mean not for 3 seconds) so everything had to be timed to perfection as well if we didn't want some very difficult times. With increased understanding on his part it's not as crucial to pre-plan everything as it used to be and that side of my brain being busy and having to constantly be one step ahead is going (thank god) but it is still definitely a relief to recognise when things can't be planned and to just let them unfold.

I don't believe that deciding whether to have children or not can ever be a logical or intellectual decision though. It's not really what parenting is about imo.

We were in a similar situation OP. I was erring more toward let's give it a go, (but still tentatively so) while DH was more uncertain. But he had said if I was pregnant tomorrow he'd be happy, but that didn't mean he actively wanted me to be pregnant tomorrow.

I said well that wouldn't ever happen anyway as I'm on the pill. (theoretically). So we agreed that I would come off the pill and just see what happened. Conception is NOT a given, knowing the facts and stats its a wonder anyone conceives at all. Especially if you're not at it on the miniscule window of opportunity every month. We didn't over think it, it was one conversation, then not mooted again.

When I conceived on my third/fourth cycle we were both thrilled. Shitting ourselves and a bit WTF have we done, but thrilled nonetheless.

Interested to encounter other late fence-sitters like us. In our case, my partner was the more gung-ho, and I was more dubious, and he was the one who actually said 'Ok, are we doing this?' the first time we were about to have unprotected sex. In the end, after probably five years of inconclusive discussions, I conceived immediately at 39 - to our shock, having concluded that it would rake months or years if it ever happened at all -- and we have a two-year-old son, and life is completely different, much more difficult, and much better, in many ways.

I entirely get the fence-sitting, OP, because I too was that ambivalent fence-sitter. Neither choice is the 'wrong' decision. Does it help to think that it's choosing between different, equally valid kinds of life?

Me and DH are and have just had our first child. We always said we would only have one and we intend to stick to that

I have a sister who I love, love, love to pieces.

He has a brother who he hates.

Part of me has guilty twinges every now and then about only having one child and not giving him a sibling, but no part of me wants another and DH is the same.

If you're already 40 you're going to have to stop talking about it and get on with it, because you aren't going to have the option for much longer.

My mother has lifelong self esteem issues having been conceived as the declared 'playmate' for her older sister.

A sister who the grew up to be a raging emotionally abusie narcissist, who causes misery and upset to this day and is ruining my mother's old age.

Seriously OP, you don't even know if you can conceive.

There is an awful lot of hand wringing over issues that are completely out of your control and that so far down the line and subject to so many variables it's untrue...the only child thing is such a red herring!

No-one knows if they will be able to have kids, whether they will find parenthood enchanting or horrendous (but lemme tell you: it's both), whether they will have a boy or a girl or twins, an only child, an able bodied child or a disabled child, whether they will divorce or one of them will die.

Honestly, it's the same for everyone.

No-one is 100% sure they want children (well few people are) and they are certainly not sure how it will pan out...how can they be?

If I were you I would stop talking, start shagging with intent (take a punt and tell your dh it's your decision and you think it's the right one). It might not even happen then all of these months of wondering and worrying will be for no good reason.

I think trying to apply logic to the decision on whether or not to have made child is not a good idea. Logically who on earth would want more mess, less money, less freedom, and their lives taken over by a small creature that does nothing but scream sleep and poo. The benefits of having children are far more difficult to quantify, but, in my experience at least, more than worth it.

flexibility - you forgot to add drooling to their list of not very attractive qualities

Flexibilityisquay I'm struck that you listed the negatives very precisely but were a bit vague about the positives.....can you be more specific? Here are what I THINK they might be:

Experiencing the biological wonder of creating a new life
Bonding with your partner as you share your new responsibilities, make plans and watch the child grow under your joint care and influence
Putting other bits of life into perspective
Being a family unit, family in-jokes
Having another person to love/discovering a whole new capacity for love
Growing as a person as you take on a new role.
His parents will be delighted.

I can't think of any more. As for the discovering a whole new capacity for love, having met my DH so late in life after having frankly given up on ever finding real love, I am pretty much already experiencing that - don't really need a child to spread the love to just yet.

With my baby I focus on the now, I can't think ahead to how things will be when he's 1, 5, 10 or 18 - and the 'now' is just wonderful. I can't even begin to describe how much I love him when I look at him - it's so overwhelming. When I was pregnant other parents told me that I wouldn't believe how much I would love my baby but it's only when he arrived that I realised what they meant. It just can't be described. The love I have for my DH is a million miles away from the way I feel about DS. I obviously love my DH, some times more than others, but the love I feel for DS is on a whole different level.

Jessie

Re-experiencing things you enjoyed as child, or getting to experience things you never did. This might be linked to:
Opening your mind to rearing a different gender
Laughing a lot
Teaching
Learning from someone who comes from you but is most definitely not you

(I have teens)

I agree with flexibility. It is logical, and valid to not want children, and to not have them

I am an only child. I know my parents wanted more children, but they struggled with fertility, and so the siblings they wanted for me never happened.

I do not feel I missed out on a single thing for not having siblings. I had a very happy childhood with parents who loved me, I never wanted for a thing I needed, and they always encouraged me to form strong friendships. Our house was always open, everyone was welcome. They modelled that themselves with their friends (although both have many siblings, and they get on with them perfectly fine, my aunts and uncles do not live geographically close) so I grew up with the idea that we have both the family we're born into, and the family we choose.

I agree with whoever said above that the 'only child' thing is a red herring, because if you decide you do want to be parents, then to have an only child is no problem at all. But that decision is difficult, and I wish you good luck.

I'm an only child (now 30). I don't care that I don't have any siblings. Lots of my friends are either very close to their siblings or really not that interested in each other - you can't tell which way it is going to go.
The only "downsides" I experienced were sometimes loneliness as a child (as I didn't have a ready-made playmate at home), but that was partly down to my personality anyway, I think - and now as an adult, I feel I have sole responsibility for my parents: my father is terminally ill, and I am alone in supporting him and my mother through it, which can feel quite a tough load to bear sometimes.
On the other hand, I am incredibly close to my parents, it having been just the three of us for ever, and am far more so than my DH to his parents (he is one of 3 boys).
I had a brilliant childhood/teenage-hood, and benefitted from my parents being able to support me to do all sorts of things - dance, music, university without debt.
My feeling is that it would be far better to have an only than no child at all... We hope to have a 2nd DC, but if I couldn't, and DS was an only, that would be ok with me.

Great advice here. I know my own doubts are compounded by my guy being a bit older & set in his ways. He's scared of the change it would bring. So am I, but hey! I never thought I'd get married either & I'm doing that. He likes the idea of a kid, but the reality... I'm the same.
But, this thread has made me realise I've gotta start doing, not talking. If it happens then we'll both get used to the idea fairly quickly! As far as the one child thing is concerned, I'd be happy to have a small family. My Dad is an only child.

Only child of an only child here, and I have an only child. All of us were deliberately onlies.

I had my DS at 40 when DH was 43. DH and I met at 28/31 and neither of us wanted anything to do with children, ever . We married at 37/40 and a year or so later decided that we'd go for a "whatever will be" approach. If we got a DC given my age, brilliant, if we didn't, that was fine too and we weren't going to go through all the stress of ivf etc. We got DS, and we are very happy. But we always said we would stop at one as we could then afford to do things we wouldn't otherwise be able to.

Most of our friends don't have children, and it has meant we've lost a lot of social stuff as the going-away-for-weekends has ceased, can't just drop everything and go to the pub. But would I swap back? Not a chance. Would I like my house, my social life and my energy levels back? Yup. Not going to happen though, so we cry laugh and carry on.

Sleepwithbutterflies wrote: I think the main thing for me having an only is that we don't feel a real family. There doesn't seem any point doing special things that families do. We are a couple with a child - and a few people have described us as being that rather than a family

How dare people describe your family that way and how sad that you don't bother doing special things - you are really selling your DS short and I would ask you to try and make an effort.

We're a family of 3 and we have the best Christmasses and holidays and days out. DH and DD do sport/camping together. We have a happy home filled with love, laughter and lots of shared memories and jokes. Your DS deserves to feel part of a family and not an add on to a couple.

Goodness I wouldn't have a baby to bond with your partner. Quite possibly the opposite will happen.

Reading your list of potential positives Jessie it's clear they've been written by someone without children (I mean if someone put that in a novel say as advantages to having a child then I would know they weren't a parent). writerwannabe describes the baby stage very clearly I think & that never really goes away.

it's about being fully responsible for someone, and having a bond that is unlike any other. It's not something that can be measured or intellectualised.

There are easier ways to grow as a person or get some perspective on life.

For me the joy of being a parent is summed up as 'watching my children sleeping'. I think most people who are parents will understand what is meant by that. (And mine are 15, 12 and 9 now).