Oh for heavens sake, please remind me that two Inferiorettes is enough!

[motherinferior]

I am very, very bad at pregnancy - hate it from start to finish, not including the SPD. I am also appalling at dealing with small babies. They reduce me to a snivelling wreck on the constant brink of ringing Social Services. I find parenting a constant struggle which is only negotiated by dint of constant whingeing on-line and in person to everyone I know. Now that my younger daughter has turned two - and I indeed have turned 42 - I am finally reclaiming some sense of my life As It Was Known Before.

Please remind me that I don't want another baby and that my current broodiness is just a pre-menopausal blip of insanity!

Message withdrawn

Have to confess, do feel slightly as if I've pushed my luck with my two and would be quite scared of another. But I understand the yearning all right. Sigh.
Rosamund...what a lovely name...

Dh would NOT have it for dd this time Aloha. Almost worth taking a pin to the Durex packet to spite him except it would be boy triplets with my luck...

one of ds's little friends at nursery is one of four and she had to come to his party with her au pair because the parents had three other kids to ferry about to activities that day... sad i thought, but nevertheless understandable in the context of a big family...

I don't think I'm NORMAL - I loved having a baby, am entranced with DS, but do not never ever never-even-ever feel broody!

Like Batters says, my family feels complete.

If it doesn't, do it some more, I guess!

rosamund was on our shortlist too. i have so many great names to use! this can't be it!

I am much, much broodier now, after dd, than I was after ds. It's very strange and I have no idea why.
After ds I was so in love with him that for ages I couldn't imagine having another child.

Seriously, my lovely friends, I do not think this is one where I will ever come to a firm 'yes' or 'no' - although I very much take your point, Marina, and that is an issue very much worth considering. I think that I am one of those numerous women who simply have not reached their 'off' switch when it comes to broodiness - and therefore don't know whether they have one, or whether 'feeling broody' is just a given for them. Like KS, I think I need to stop and wallow, and just dither a bit from time to time. I know this is Lacking In Decision. But it's not, I think, a decision I can fully take one way or another.

(Which is how I ended up with DD1, of course, but that's another story )

bk that is a very valid point. A little fellow in ds' class comes from a lovely, bigger family of four and their parents just spend the whole weekend carting them all around SE London to various engagements (social, they are not a crazed pushy family).

aloha ..I felt exactly the same and believe its because after DS you knew (thought) you'd have another, but after DD you probably think you won't .. so everything you experience now is 'the last time ever' ..

My stepdaughter would be very upset if we had another child - she'd feel really marginalised. And that's another good reason not to have one.

Blu, not normal, maybe but excessively sensible and lucky in this context and others.
MI is so right about the off-switch not yet being flicked. Whenever I have even the most implausible "scare" these days I still find myself hoping I might be pregnant and that is not rational or wise

Twiglett, I suspect you are right...

Aarrrgghhh!!! Don't do it - it's madness, insanity!! Aren't you enjoying sleeping, eating meals at the right time (and possibly taking more than 30 seconds to enjoy them!), no pushchairs soon, more free time, almost starting to dream about things YOU could do on your own when the kids are at nursery/school??!!!

(Obviously am telling myself aswell - I'm a constant-waver-er myself! )

Playing devil's advocate to Marina for a moment, when I had DD, DH came along to the last appointment with the consultant and when she asked if there was anything else we wanted to know, he asked how many more babies I could have (bless him: just what you want to know when you are 38 weeks pregnant). I was 39 at the time, (had Ds at 37 and had planned C sections for both for dull but medically required reasons). Consultant didn't fall off her chair and suggest I might like to take up crochet or buy myself a pull along shopping bag - said she thought I was fine up to about 43: she said that it may take longer to get pregnant, risk of miscarriage goes up and she would recommend testing (had to have CVS) with DD but otherwise she said she was very relaxed. Said it would be ok but she would be a lot less relaxed for a couple of years after that.

I will have to check with her if there is any other way of getting pregnant these days other than having sex, as that sounds exhausting at my advanced age.

MI - according t'other thread, 3 is the new 2

MI FWIW, I recently went to stay with my BF who has 3 children (5,3 and 9 months) and wow, I was blown away by how knackered she looked, how she literally has no time to herself, ever and how her life seems to be constant running around, feeding, dropping off, collecting, etc etc but it was lovely and there is something so nice about a large family (I'm one of 4). I think you have to be a certain type of person though - very patient and fairly laid back.

The thing is, the only way you really know you've had enough babies, is when you find yourself with slightly more children than you can comfortably cope with.

I actually like families with three kids. My friends have them and they are nice - lively but nice. Ds loves big families. He' s not mad about large gatherings normally, but being co-opted into a big family (esp as youngest) is heaven for him, which is v odd. But I think money helps a LOT.

KR, you have just outlined exactly the sort of person I'm not.

Hmm, it's all coming together.

And the sex bit, obviously, too.

you obviously havent detoxed all that alcohol out of your system........

frogs