Gimme More

I just have to get this off of my chest while I’m thinking about it: No one can tell you how many children to have. There is no “right” answer. No, for some people one isn’t enough. Yes, for others, it is. For still more people? Seven isn’t enough.

It struck me after I miscarried how many people — even people I love and trust — had the attitude of, well, at least you have Sam! Which is true. In many ways, having a miscarriage or infertility after already conceiving a child on your own is … well, at least a little different, and I know from both sides. This time, I didn’t have to wonder what direction my life would go: would I EVER be a mom? Would I ever know what giving birth feels like? Well, yes, now I do, and I don’t have to wonder if I have to fill my life with other things to create meaning in an empty hole I wanted fill with something else.

But I still want another one, and no, I wouldn’t be okay if I couldn’t have one. Sam is enough — on a thousand levels, she is enough. She is the sun, moon and the stars; she is everything. Of course she is.

(And of course she’s better than your kid. Of all kids, really. SHE IS THE KID TO END ALL KIDS.)

(That was a joke.)

But having her doesn’t make wanting another one any less aching, you know? There’s a thousand reasons I want another baby, and giving Sam a sibling is a huge part of it, and that, actually, makes it even harder than I ever expected. So much of what I want for my child includes having someone to grow up with; someone to bear witness to her childhood in a way I didn’t really have, despite my vast number of blended-family siblings, both biological and not. (It’s complicated. Lovely, but complicated.)

In some ways, it’s harder than it was before I had Sam, in that I know precisely what I’m missing, and though I know a second child would be different than she is, I know, at least, exactly how much I will love that kid, how much I love being a mom and how much I’ll revel in their own little personality. So yes, you know, I want another baby, and no, having one baby already doesn’t necessarily make it easier on me, at least if it turns out to be hard, and I know that’s a complicated concept to write out, but that’s the best way I can put it.

It’s hard and heart-wrenching and difficult and someone who wants a THIRD baby and is struggling is suffering just as much as someone who doesn’t yet have any babies at all. This isn’t the pain olympics. Everyone suffers. Everyone wants the family they always dreamed of, and everyone deserves it, but not everyone gets it. It’s just the way it is, and it sucks, but everyone deserves to try, and everyone deserves to be upset when their dreams didn’t work out or are hard to come by.

On the flip side, my friends who DO have one child and ARE happy with it, it’s … well, it’s almost as bad to hear what they go through from other people. I don’t know why it’s considered rude to comment on another person’s parenting when it involves things like breastfeeding and discipline (and it IS rude), but it’s perfectly acceptable to tell someone who has or wants an only child that they will grow up deprived and self-centered. Oh hey, thanks for telling someone that they’re screwing up their kid because they’re SELFISH. It’s … kind of amazing, and I firmly believe it isn’t true.

We — the people building the families — get to decide what we want, what we will try for, what to be upset about. Everyone is different. There is no sliding pain scale. Nobody wins. Like I said, if you have five kids, and desperately want a sixth, but it’s not coming easily? You get to be upset, and you get to be just as upset at someone who’s never had kids. No, you don’t get to be talked into any, “Well, at LEAST you have ONE. I don’t have ANY! Therefore YOU cannot be UPSET!” bullshit.

Well, now that’s out there. Happy Friday to you.

*Britney Spears. Not the classiest title I’ve ever come up with, eh?

60 comments April 28th, 2011