Pregnancy, children and hope

So, I now have two children. I’m glad to not be pregnant anymore. This pregnancy was pretty rough for me. I always envisioned myself having three children, but then Attachment Parenting number one and being pregnant with number two (and now taking care of number two as well), I just can’t see how I’d manage with three.

My two year old still needs lots of hands-on attention. It can be very draining while pregnant and with a newborn. There’s quite a lot of time that I end up sandwiched between two kids at night.

I started thinking about things just after I got pregnant with number two and figured out that part of the reason I always saw myself with three children was just a desire to “prove myself better” than all those people who only have two. Not a very good reason to add an extra child into the mix. In fact, just after I determined this I told my husband “I think two’s it for us” and it was like a huge weight being lifted off of me. I feel very content with the thought of not being pregnant again, not having a baby again…just raising our two children. I think it’ll work really well for all of us. I don’t do overly well as a pregnant person and it’s pretty hard to fight off the depression sometimes while pregnant and I’m excited to be able to give my kids 100% again and be able to have something for me too.

Now even though I’m exhausted most of the time, not getting much sleep and still trying to recover from being pregnant/giving birth, I have a certain amount of hope each day that things are getting better. The hope started about a week or so after the baby was born – when my older son first came over and gave me a hug even when I was holding the baby still. It’s taken time for him to adjust to all of this as well. Now I’m excited for the days when life will feel “normal”. It took about 18 months with my first, I’m hoping for a year or less with the next one. Here’s to a year filled with hope!