I’m saying ‘we’ but probably mean me really. Had ds 2020, it was lockdown, it wasn’t the pregnancy or maternity leave I had hoped for and while I realise it may not have been anyway, I did really want to experience it all ‘properly.’ So two years later found out dc2 was on the way. Much nicer experience of pregnancy and birth, got some of the experiences that I know aren’t important but I felt missed first time.
So nearly three years on and it’s kind of haunting me a bit. I love dc2; I really do. But in some ways they aren’t an easy character. Very, very demanding and controlling, which combined with the needs of dc1 is increasingly hard to manage. I found having them both together pretty miserable for a long time tbh, but for a period it was dc1 who was the tricky one and sometimes my brain would do this idle question of ‘what if you only had dc2’ and I’d feel awful but it was very persistent, and in darker moments I would admit to myself that life would just be so much nicer and easier.
Now it’s dc2 who is the tricky character and that voice is still there but this time wishing I only had dc1, who after a long terrible twos and horrific threenager finally mellowed at about three and three quarters into a really lovely child … I’m hoping the same will happen with dc2
But I just feel guilty all the time, like I’m not meeting their needs well. And it isn’t them who are the problem; it’s me. I just haven’t got enough in me in terms of energy, time, money, to give them both.