Such a difficult question! I was desperate to have kids - strong desire for years and it took us nearly five to get pregnant (naturally - bit of a surprise after all that time). I was obsessed with babies and not sure what would have happened if I hadn't got pregnant, although clearly I'd have had to draw the line at some point. So, I looked over the potential childfree life and didn't like the look of it.
But pregnancy was so physically and mentally difficult, without the support I'd thought there would be from family and from midwives. Pregnancy was high risk, birth was awful. I remember DD eventually exiting me and being put on my chest to breastfeed and she looked revolting, it felt really meh and I just wanted someone to take her away so I could have a rest! I hated the way I had to be with her the whole time without a break.
I really struggled with the first few years, especially the first which seemed to go on forever. I knew I'd been so desperate to have a baby but I didn't like mine at all and we didn't bond for months. It turns out I don't actually like babies or small children which made the first years relentless, boring and frustrating. The only things that kept me going were working part-time which I really enjoyed and my lovely DH!
I'm not sure if I'd do it again knowing what I know now. I thought there would be so much more support (my Mum was useless as a grandparent despite moaning for years about not being able to 'grandparent' my nephews as SIL's parents got priority). My extended family put me under pressure to parent like them (attachment parenting) which made me feel like crap but provided zero actual support. My church made a big thing about their 'family welcome' but no actual support emerged, despite them knowing I had severe PND and that we were really struggling. HVs were useless and just pressured me to carry on breastfeeding whilst refusing to provide support for PND, suggesting that I try church instead
. It was such a shock as when I did start going to toddler groups there seemed to be so many people with grandparents helping out with kids, people dropping meals off to newborn families, people from next county who had brilliant HV support.
DD now, 5yo, is lovely - funny, captivating, frequently adorable. I now enjoy spending time with her, but that's a fairly recent thing and I had to pretend for years to avoid letting her down. I still really appreciate my days at work! TBH knowing what I know now I wish we'd bought in help, especially in the first year, to fill in the gap of support we didn't have. I didn't know things like maternity nurses or mother's helps existed, and it didn't occur to me that we could use childcare to have a break!