“I didn’t know how babies were made until I was pregnant with my fourth child.” ~Loretta Lynn

When we had our third child, we made the decision not to have anymore. And we decided to make it permanent. Snoring Daddy and I both have extremely strong impulsive instincts and we enable each other in our impulsiveness. About the time my first child was becoming mobile–a toddler, not an infant anymore–I had an overwhelming hunger for another newborn, and Snoring Daddy was happy to accomodate me. It happened again when my second was close to reaching her first birthday and was further complicated by the grief that I was experiencing after so recently losing my dad.

It was this impulsiveness that partially influenced the close spacing of our children. Yes, I consciously reasoned that it would be good for the children to be close together in ages so that they could develop a close friendship bond. I’d heard from friends who had siblings close to their own age that they loved it. They were best friends. That is what I wanted for my children, especially having grown up an only child, lonely, who had difficulty coming out of her shell to make friends. So, I thought, this would insure that my children would not experience the lonely childhood that I did.

However, by the time the birth of my third rolled around, we had our hands full with a recently turned 3 year old and a 19 month old and we were wondering what in the hell we had been thinking! How were we going to handle adding a third to this already chaotic household? Therefore we made the decision there would not be a fourth.

We have our hands full with three–as so many strangers are so intent on pointing out to us in public. In addition to the logistics of raising multiple preschoolers, was the fact that I don’t do pregnancy well. I was miserable and exhausted and the children weren’t exactly letting me sleep either. Hence the tagline for this blog: If sleep deprivtion is an effective form of torture, than the CIA should seriously consider employing my children.

We made a good, responsible decision. We both knew–logically–that we cannot handle anymore children. Our house is full, and we like it that way. But there is much screaming and pulling of the hair and gnashing of the teeth on a daily basis–and I’m not just talking about the children either. Snoring Daddy and I both know our nerves would not handle anymore children–no matter how much we both hunger for that ever-so-sweet-something that is a newborn in your arms. Had we not decided to make it permanent, Snoring Daddy and I have discussed, that we are both so weak and impulsive that we would have allowed our reproductive insincts to overpower us, and we would probably have had the fourth child and be on our way to having the fifth, by now. We are nothing, if not self-aware. And that is why we decided to make it permanent, because otherwise I am quite sure I would also be well down the road to the looney-bin by now.

So we will have to get our baby-fix from now on by holding other people’s babies, and if they are neices and nephews than so much the better. Today, we should get that opportunity. I have never been quite this anxious for a niece or nephew to be born before. I’ve always had my own arms full or about to be filled with my own babies. Today, my best friend since the 9th grade (20 years this fall!)–my husband’s oldest sister–will have her third child today. She’s at the hospital as I type this and I am on call to come retrieve her oldest two children should they need me to get them out of that labor and delivery room for a while.

I hope I don’t have to though. It’s important to my sisterinlaw and brotherinlaw that the children be there for the birth. Besides that, I’m on my own today, as Snoring Daddy is in Dallas working on an article and won’t be back home until late this evening. I can barely handle my three young children alone in public, let alone adding two more little ones to the equation. Hence the decision to make it impossible for me to have any more children.

P.S. There is a reason I majored in secondary education and not early childhood or elementary. I can handle a gaggle of preteens and teens. It’s the under 10 crowd that frightens the bejeezus out of me.

P.P.S. Someone remind me I said that when my children are in middle school, mm-kay?

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