To ask why you have just one child?

[WeWillRockEwe]

I am asking for some traffic. No judgement. If you have one child - how come you didn’t have more?

Btw before I have to edit - I can imagine many reasons why people might have one child only but I’m here today to ask people rather than guess/assume ❤️

Expense

Struggled with change plus we don’t have a support network.

I don't want more.

One was enough and I could give it a good life and my attention.

Just never got the urge to have a second.

It never crossed my mind to have more. I had a child to see what it was like. Having two seemed unnecessary. To be honest, I often find it quite strange that so many people have more than one child.

I watched what my mum (3 siblings) went through when my gran died. All the work dumped on her (and me), no support, everyone else lived their lives and we are broken.

siblings are not guaranteed to get on.

Hated the baby bit, it's got better every year. I never got to the point where I could face starting again!

Also expense.

I had a traumatic experience before DD was born (late term stillbirth), then suffered horrendous PND/PNA and in all honesty, I’ve really struggled with parenting, especially as DD has SEN, my own mother was never maternal and even though I’ve forced myself to be better than that and I now have a wonderful relationship with DD, it didn’t come naturally or easily to me. So I don’t have the desire at all for more children, and it would just break me mentally, emotionally and physically I think.

I "just" have one because I was so lucky to even have one.

6 years and quite a lot of money to conceive

Was just grateful to get my one

Started TTC when we were 35, diagnosed with PCOS so I'm pretty lucky to have one. And she's enough.

Had my ovaries removed due to cysts. We froze 2 embryos before the second ovary was removed and implanted the first one a few months after the surgery which didn't take and the second one is now nearly 3. No more ovaries, no more eggs, no more babies.

Would love another but the expense of IVF with donor eggs is money spent without a guarantee of being able to grow our family so makes more sense to spend it on the kid and life we already have.

Ovaries removed due to BRCA gene aged 36 - still got breast cancer before they got round to removing those.

Similar to this.

My h was only willing to try for a second child if we coped well.

We didn't cope well.

I would still have tried, but he absolutely refused to within the short ish window available.

We were also close to sexless before the pregnancy, and became sexless after so ..

Because my labour was horrific.
Because the newborn tiredness gave me pnd.
Because it's a calm household.
Because we have more money to spend on one than we would multiple.

Never had an interest in another. I love my daughter so much. Plus, didn’t think I wanted to spend the next ten or so years being a referee. Our home life is literally blissful.

I struggled with infertility and loss, but even beyond that, I always wanted one. Our income is way above average, but we want to offer him a good, happy, exciting life with adventures and knowledge.

I am very moved by the responses. Thank you for sharing, I know it’s hugely emotive and personal.

On one level, because ex’D’H had an affair and we split up when DD was still a baby. On another, I didn’t really enjoy the baby phase so I’m not sure if I’d have been up for more anyway.

We only have 1 because it is so blooming awesome. Such a different experience to what friends with multiple kids seem to have, he slotted into our life so easily and we have so much fun as don’t have to work around multiple kids and their interests. Life is so much easier and our energy and money is just on one child and no worries about making anything fair. Currently at a festival having the most amazing time and it is so easy. The experiences we can give him because he is the our only are incredible and he absolutely loves being an only too.

Always wanted two.

Had horrendous morning sickness that nobody would listen to me about - started feeling nauseous before I was due to test and it escalated from there and didn't stop until gone 20 weeks. I went from size 12-14 to a size 10.

Developed pre-eclampsia and was induced. Found the whole thing traumatic, spent a year regularly reliving the whole labour and birth.

Was told in no uncertain terms (by three hcp's in two different health board areas) that I would not be allowed to choose a caesarian over induction if intervention were needed in a future pregnancy.

Then when I was considering the possibility anyway, I developed a health condition where I was strongly advised against pregnancy as an operation would have been necessary.

So second DC never happened. Probably for the best as DS is autistic, we've had difficult times with violent meltdowns and EBSA, things would have been even more of a struggle with another child to look after.

It does make me a little sad sometimes. I'd have loved two.

I see a gynaecologist who seems to opt for cystectomies (unless he had a worry about the cyst obviously), I think it's a pity/not right that they removed them.

(Presuming there were no serious concerns).

Also, I take it you had to take HRT too, whereas you wouldn't have had to if they'd left at least one.

Because my DC’s dad and I split and I didn’t want another enough to compromise on anything else in order to have more

It was the last one at the garden centre and was heavily discounted. They said they wouldn't be getting any more as they were going to concentrate on lawn care products.

Anyway, as a sort of tribute, we've called this one Grassmere.