Decision to be Mom of 3

I can remember the day I found out I was pregnant with my third baby. I was in the bathroom at 4 am double checking the faint pink lines of two different pregnancy tests. I was excited but oh so scared. Three children? Was I doing the right thing? Either way I was committed. We had tried, for the first time, that very month, and just like that the little embryo was growing away inside my comfy, well worn uterus. Although, leading up the that moment, I suspected I was pregnant, the confirmation hit me like a jolt. Our current children were only 1 and 2 years old. Our lives were intense. The needs of our sweet young toddlers, unrelenting. My mind raced across all the ways having THREE little ones would affect our lives. Plus there was the getting through the pregnancy part that loomed heavy in my mind. Somehow, I had had this wild idea to do it all over yet again. The feeling to do so was absolutely bigger than me, and I had submitted to it.

There in the bathroom, I'm not sure if I had ever felt so many competing emotions at once: fear, excitement, love, confusion, anxiety, triumph, doubt. After about a week of processing, I felt mostly confident that I could climb this mountain. I went on to have an uneventful pregnancy, an unmedicated birth, and now have had 18 months with Henry, my mellow little ray of sunshine. He breezed right into our raucous crew, and has fit perfectly into our family. Admittedly, raising all three children has yielded some of the most difficult and sweetest moments of my life. Furthermore, with every child, I can say that I've discovered parts of myself that I didn't even know existed. I have taken the opportunities offered by motherhood to learn and try to be a better parent. This, for me, has been the biggest benefit of having multiple children. I've mostly enjoyed the challenges thrown my way.

The decision to try for our third child came after only a couple of weeks of serious discussions between my husband and I. Prior to that, I had been tossing the idea around in my head for a couple months. There was this nagging feeling that I wasn't entirely done having children. But it had seemed more like a fun, jokey question until the idea had suddenly felt urgent. The feeling of completeness just wasn't there. Plus the challenge of adding a third child to the mix both intrigued and excited me. When I broached the topic with my husband, he resisted the idea. He believed we had our hands plenty full. Being parents of two young toddlers was demanding as ever. There were lots of signs that pointed to stopping while we were ahead. For example, both children were healthy, we also had one child of each gender, although it wasn't a goal, we had it. Logistically parenting was pretty manageable as we had one parent per child, not constantly, but often.

Thinking back to our pre-baby selves, my husband and I had originally planned to have two children. I remembered how I had previously felt: two children would be the perfect, manageable number; three children, however, would be unrelenting chaos. Also, judging from my own experience as the youngest of three, things were always a little too topsy turvy, from my perspective, in my childhood home. I had wanted order in my house, periods of calm throughout the day, predictability, the means and energy to put my kids whatever extracurricular activities they desired, simple travel experiences, more time and attention to focus on each kid, mental and emotional reserves, and finally me getting back to work as soon as the youngest was in kindergarten. Two seemed like the right number for a myriad of sensible reasons, and yet here I was longing for another child.

We tried to imagine what having three little ones would be like. Could we handle three children needing, wanting, crying, screaming, getting sick, being up in the middle of the night, etc., all at once? Plus how would we manage to divide our time among three children, with no extended family nearby to help? It was important to us that we give our kids the love and attention they needed and craved. Could we do that effectively by adding one more? It seemed risky. Oh the questions. Honestly, that all sounded daunting. There were times when it felt as though we were running threadbare with the two kids. We were completely spent at the end of the day. We had experienced the gauntlet of being sick while trying to take care of two sick kids. That was another level of misery. Also, I was 34 almost 35, and my husband, 40. We considered the health risk factors for babies which are well known to increase as couples age. To say the least, it was hard to contain our anxieties about all the unknowns.

A shift in my perspective had taken place somewhere between the journey of my second and third child. I had begun to pull back on my former ideas of perfection. My standards lowered a bit, my tolerance grew, and my values inevitably changed as I gained and varied my parental experiences. I knew that how we managed the day to day was far from perfect but we had a sort of order and predictability in place. Those were of major importance to my anxious self. I was good with my routines, which seemed to help everything flow. I exchanged time spent on my devices or doing another chore for moments to be present and mindful with my kids. My original goals of trying to aim for perfect order, cleanliness, and signing up for all the baby and toddler activities seemed unnecessary. Plus saying no to extraneous events became easy to do. I had my priorities which were keeping the kids alive and keeping myself sane. Things that used to matter, such as my idea of a perfect birthday party, became less of a priority and more like frivolity. I had concluded that children's needs were basic but crucial, they need love, security and a chance to explore, everything else was secondary.

I also learned the beauty of sibling relationships. Though I was (and still am) learning how to navigate the big feelings and squabbles of my first two children, they were also slowly learning to play together. What a thing it was to witness their blossoming friendship. Additionally the need to divide myself among the children was not ever present, it came and went throughout the day. I forgave myself for the times I could not be two parents at once, and did the best I could in those difficult moments. I noticed how I was becoming a stronger more present mom for my little ones. The culmination of growth and experiencing beautiful moments with my kids catapulted me into seriously thinking about expanding our family. It suddenly became this rich challenge that I couldn't deny.

The logistics of having three children gave me pause, yet I envisioned those tiny toes and feet and could almost feel those in utero kicks. I imagined birthing (yes I like that part) and holding that new baby for the first time, and smiled as I thought of the joyousness of sibling interactions. My new ideas set fire to my old ideas. I thought, yes, there would be insanely difficult moments with all three children but those moments would pass as they always do. I imagined scenes way into the future where someday there would be large holiday dinners or summer visits where my kids returned home with their families, and oh what fun that would be. All of that whimsy toppled my previous logic into a pile of smoldering rubble.

I tried my hardest to logic the purpose of three children. My first rational argument was that having three siblings would help the children further develop relational skills. To me, it seemed, that siblings from larger families would inevitably become better at negotiating space, toys and sharing time with parents. It would arguably foster a sense of responsibility and independence, in that mom and dad could not always be available for every waking need and want. They would hopefully come to have built in friends in each other. When friends aren't available, they would have each other. From a practical perspective, we were all set up for another baby. We definitely had all the baby gear, and I was familiar with all the baby phases and stages of development. I knew how to do the baby stuff as well as how to manage siblings. We had developed efficiency in our parenting style. Having two kids close in age seemed to do that.

I researched articles written by moms of three children, and I even casually interviewed a couple of moms of three to make my decision. The takeaway from my research was that having three children did increase the complexity and chaos of the household as well as the daily chores, but at the end of the day it was definitely doable and all the positives of three children made the hard work worth it. I concluded that I couldn't argue with my heart. I wanted a third child whatever that meant for us. I wasn't entirely sure how I was ever going to convince my husband to feel the same. We discussed the topic a few times, then my husband took a day to himself to go snowshoeing in the mountains. When he returned that afternoon, he said that he was ready to try for a third baby. I couldn't believe his change of heart, but he meant it. We tried just a couple of weeks later, and I fell pregnant right away.

The decision to have Henry was loaded with lots of doubts and questions. I didn't know if it would be the right decision, as it went against our previous plans and sound logic. In my heart, I longed for one more. But in my mind, it was hard to reason the practicality of another child. We needed to feel positive and confident about the challenges of expanding our family, especially with no extended family nearby to help. In order to try to understand what life could be like, I discussed the topic with other moms of three and read articles about the good, the bad, and the ugly of a larger family. Throughout my pregnancy, I had moments where I felt completely overwhelmed and sometimes just sobbed as I wondered if I'd made the right decision. After emoting, I'd always re-center and come back to that place within me that wanted to meet and raise that new baby.

Henry's birth was smooth, and he let out one little tiny whimper when he was born then snuggled into me. Seeing his face and holding his plump little body for the first time was an experience beyond words. For his birth, I was wholly present. It was powerful and beautiful. In retrospect, I didn't really know whether or not I'd made the right decision to have him until I held him for the first time. 18 months later, I can say that he fits perfectly into our family. Although I have encountered some of the most difficult moments of my life since having my third child, never have I ever regretted the decision to have him. In fact, when I experience all of them together, my heart feels full and I feel like a stronger mom.