Two or Three

I thought I was going bald when Eliot was four months old.  All of my hair started falling out.  I didn't realize that it was my hormones evening out--I didn't know it was completely normal as my luscious "pregnancy hair" was simply returning to "normal person hair".  Around that time, too, I started to "feel" like I was pregnant again.  I didn't have any signs at all, but I just... felt like it, yet I knew I wasn't.  Well, I wasn't pregnant, and I blamed it on my hormones returning to normal.  However, my mind was swirling with thoughts of having a second baby.  Not quite yet, but just trying to imagine what it'd be like to have two.

I have been packing up Jack's three-month clothes and organizing his six-month sleepers.  I fold up the out-grown outfits, fawn over the memories with both boys as newborns, and box them up with plans to give the clothes to someone in need.  It breaks my heart.  And again, with Jack at three months, my mind is going back to babies.  I've always said I wanted "two or three" kids, but Chris and I kind of agreed that Jack would likely be our last.  Yet here I am going back and forth with myself almost every day about whether or not we are truly "done".  As I argue with myself, I come back to the conclusion that we will likely stop with two.

I hate to think of this being the last time we'll have a baby in the house.  Jack is so sweet and happy.  I love seeing Eliot interact with him.  I always liked the idea of having two boys and a girl, and if we were to have three boys, that would be pretty awesome too.  For some reason when I look around and tally how everyone is doing, I find myself looking for our third kid, but we only have two.  Is that weird?  Yes.  Yes, it is.

We will likely stop at two, though, because we want to be able to pay for college, and it is already getting crazy expensive.  And this sounds really silly, but our house is set up so that the boys each have a room and then there is the room over the garage, which will be their playroom and I'm sure eventually a video game room of some kind.  If we had a third, that plan gets thrown off some, which isn't the worst thing ever (and barely worth mentioning), but just something.  I love our Jack as a baby, but it would be nice to move on out of the baby stage and into more "big boy" things with the two of them.  And while I enjoyed being pregnant, man, it went on forever and grew very uncomfortable at the end--and not to mention difficult with a toddler.  (I don't mean to scare anyone--it is totally worth it in the end, but we kind of feel ready to move on).  I do not miss being pregnant at all.  It took us a year and a half from when we started trying, lost one, and then had Jack, so it makes sense that it felt like a very, very long time.  With two boys, I think they will be more likely to be friends more often.  An odd number of kids (like three, I mean) always has the threat of someone feeling left out.  So, maybe two is better for us.  Maybe.

Pregnancy can be very emotionally draining with all of the worrying.  I'm sure everyone worries, but after experiencing a loss, my pregnancy with Jack was all the more terrifying.  Everything went completely fine and smooth (other than the cord being around his neck at birth...), which I am so thankful for, yet the paralyzing worry of loss or of something going wrong would be ever-present yet again.

I love our family of four.  We have struck a nice balance, I think.  Sometimes I hope for a third baby, but I generally come back to what we have now and appreciate us together all the more.  So, for now I'll say it will probably just be the four of us, but you never know what's to come all the way.  And at 27 and 28, Chris and I still have time to change our minds.