Why do people have a third child?

[clemette]

Today at toddler group I was talking about how broody I am feeling at the moment. One of the other mums piped up "everyone I know who has had three wishes they had stuck at two". I can't believe this is universally true!
But what motivates people to have a third child? What are the pros and cons??

I'm 12 weeks pg with a dc3 after having a boy and then a girl. Ours happened by accident . We'd been told we both had fertility issues after ttc dc1 for 18mnths and then got pg on Clomid. Got pg with dd after a year of vaguely trying. Because of the history, we thought we wouldn't be likely to get pg 'by accident' and was only the once that we took a risk! Love this thread, it makes me feel that it'll all be ok! I now know that it's what I wanted all along (not so dh but that's another story, and we're working on it...!) I was feeling really old and depressed at 35 and now realise it was actually because I was so sad at the baby stage being over. I was one step away from giving the cot away, a lot of the other baby stuff gone and not sure whether maternity clothes are lurking in the loft or not! All being well this time, ours will be 5 and 2.9 when the baby is born.

If I had started earlier I would have had 3. As it happens, I had one child at 34, one at 36 and I am now 40 and couldn't consider another (feel too old, especially since dh is 46). Sometimes wish I'd brought everything forward by a couple of years and then I would have squeezed another one in (or 'out'!)

A happy accident here, but if truth be told neither of us were that upset by it and we weren't trying really hard to prevent it. It was more a case of "oh bugger how will we manage?" than "this is the worst thing in the world that could've happened". I had two miscarriages between DS1 and DD, so it almost feels like DS2 was meant to be to complete our family, if that makes sense.

I wouldn't call three children a large family though.

Oh, and at least once a week when the oldest is being a tweenager and the littlies are both crying, or I'm trying to feed the baby and my toddler is trying to shove him off my lap screaming "row row" I certainly think I wish I'd stopped at none , especially as DS2 is only 3 months old and I'm 40 next week.

...but we have a good laugh and I'm looking forward to DS2 being older and joining in with the games.

I always wanted 4, have 3 and am starting to get broody again

But I did notice in hosp at check ups when they asked what you had at home and I said boy and girl, I got the imppression they thought I was rather greedy to have a third since I already had one of each