This is probably going to be long as I have been stewing on it for some time, but I have got to a point where I need to snap myself out of how I am feeling. I hate feeling how I do. Can I just say before I start that I have chosen to write here as I need a safe place to talk- I do understand that there are plenty of people who would give anything to have just one child and this is not intended to be disrespectful to anybody in that position.
I have a DD who is four and a half. She is wonderful and followed big difficulties trying to conceive. Without going into too many details, I then had a traumatic pregnancy, extremely premature birth (at which point I was very ill too) then months of hospital with DD in the neonatal unit. Whilst DD was in hospital I prayed that she would survive and DH and I vowed that we would be satisfied with one child as the experience we had gone through was so traumatic.
Fast forward four and a half years. DD is a delight. She has a few ongoing issues stemming from her prematurity but these are very manageable. We see consultant on a fairly regular basis who has warned us over the years that any other DC we may have are likely to be born in a similar way, with possibly more severe symptoms for both the baby and myself. In essence, there is no way to prevent my particular problem. We listened, but didn't really take it in as our intention was not to have more children.
DH still feels the same- he is overjoyed to have DD, as am I, and dotes on her. He doesn't find parenthood 'easy' (who does? lol) and I can see that actually he would struggle with more than one- it wouldn't be what he really wanted. Rationally, I know that having another is probably not the best thing to do- for my health and for our marriage. I shudder at the thought of having to go through that experience again. BUT...
I am struggling. Not because I desperately want more, but because of other factors. It frightens me how quickly the years are going by. I keep counting in my head how many years I have left of DD's childhood- i.e how long it is until I lose my 'baby' and she may move out. I know it's silly but I guess I am thinking that if you have younger children at least you spread out the 'empty nest' syndrome. Yet if I put my sensible head on I know that someone could technically have 3 children (triplets) and yet they could all go off to uni at the same time for example.
There also seem to be babies everywhere around me. At the moment, this is not even an exaggeration. Family, friends, neighbours are all having babies within months of each other. The conversation is nothing but babies- exciting and wonderful for them but painful for me. I never got to the late stages of pregnancy and ache every time I see a large bump or hear talk of packing the hospital bag etc.
Lastly, there seems to be so much value placed on babies. I probably haven't explained this well (of course they're all valuable!) but even on mumsnet, if I stumble onto an 'am I pregnant?' thread there are so many replies along the lines of 'oh but just think, a scrummy, delicious baby' as though nothing else matters. Whereas it's not always that straightforward.
I just feel that myself and DD are becoming a bit invisible in our crowd of family and friends where babies are just multiplying! At a soft play place recently my friend plonked her just-walking baby into my arms as she ran off after her 3 year old and said "can you have him, you've only got one to keep an eye on!"
Anyway, enough rambling. Just wanted to get my thoughts out and hopefully get some wise replies.
Thanks.