Me and DH always said we’d just have one child (for various reasons) but when our son hit about 15 months I so desperately wanted a second. I would frequently bring it up (in a semi serious manner) and he would laugh it off with a firm no!
However, as time passed my yearning only deepened and about a year after initially raiding it with him he agreed we could try for a second. He was approaching 34 years old at the time and he said that if I wasn’t pregnant by the time he was 35 then we would stop trying as in his eyes he didn’t want to be an “old new dad” and 35 was his cut off point.
Thankfully I fell pregnant 6 months before he hit 35.
When our second son was approaching a year old the yearning began again and I so desperately wanted a third. I was 35 at this point. I mentioned it to my husband a few times and he kept saying no. However, part of me thought, “He changed his mind about having a second so maybe I can change his mind about faving a third,” so I continued to raise the subject.
Eventually I called his bluff and said that if he genuinely didn’t want another then he should go and get a vasectomy! I didn’t think he would, I was just trying to make a point, but a few months later he had it done.
When he told me he was having it done (he told me a week before his appointment) I felt like crying, I was so upset.
However, as the months passed I realised I felt much better because I knew then that I was never going to get my third baby and I made peace with it. Prior to the vasectomy I just kept hoping and hoping that he’d change his mind and it was the clinging onto that hope that had been destroying me.
It’s been about 10 months now since he has his vasectomy and although I still wonder what it would have been like to have a third I don’t dwell on it because I know it can’t happen.
You have my sympathy OP, it’s so hard to want a baby so much and be denied it 