More, Please?

On wondering if one child is enough

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It starts with the toddler climbing out of the high chair at the restaurant. He’s scream-crying because he can’t stick his hands in our drinks, and he doesn’t have the patience to wait for his mac and cheese, and coloring on the kids menu isn’t cutting it.

Then, my mind flashes back to bouncing on a slowly deflating yoga ball with a screaming three-month-old, fighting to self-regulate while shushing and patting and swaddling just like the baby book said.

But I see that gummy smile. Hear that big belly laugh gurgling. Watch chubby hands go from learning to hold a rattle to coloring wild scribbles to mixing his own egg for breakfast.

There are moments when I ask myself, “How could I do this all again?” And then I wonder, how could I not?

When we had a kid, we didn’t see the can of worms it opened. We didn’t realize how irresistible and all-encompassing it would be to experience the tiny human that we co-created.

And in contrast, we didn’t understand how challenging it would be to blend parenthood and a child into our existing lives. After a few months, I felt the pressure that having one puts on you to have another.

Every time we talked about having kids, blissfully unaware of how much it really costs, just daydreaming in a nice quiet apartment, we thought we would have three or four, maybe five if we were feeling it. No more than could fit in a minivan.

We both loved being around nieces and nephews and friends’ kids. We thought parenthood would be just as fun. Sure, it’s overstimulating sometimes, but you work through that, right?

The answer to that is: sort of. There are things you adapt to and things you miss. Wrestling a toddler in a restaurant booth = adaptation. Wondering when I will get to spend more than one nap time alone with my husband = missing our old life.

The exhausting part of parenthood isn’t the night wakings or the workout of bouncing with a newborn on a yoga ball for an hour; it’s the mental strain that comes with scrounging together moments for yourself.

Taking turns having what’s now known as “free time” sucks. Remembering the days when we could each spend hours locked into our hobbies, reaching a flow state that was uninterrupted and energizing sucks even more.

We seriously undervalued having time for ourselves and each other before we had a kid. It took a year before we could even stomach the idea of having another and starting from scratch after finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.

Currently, we’re undecided. All we know is not yet. We don’t feel like something is missing from our lives like we did before we had our son.

Even so, it feels like I’m not allowed to change my mind, even though when we thought we wanted more, we had no idea what was coming.

Who knows, maybe when I have two I might say “three wouldn’t be that bad.” But there’s a part of me that whispers to prioritize having balance in my life between parenthood and everything else. And there’s a part that says it’s selfish, that I’ll look around the dinner table in 20 years and wish we had more.

But there’s a relief in letting myself be unsure and trying to sit with it. I don’t know what the future looks like; I don’t know how I’ll feel in a few years. There’s no right answer for how many kids to have that’s going to come to me in a dream.

I’m trying to let that sink in. I want to enjoy the one I have before I spend too much time worrying about when to have another.

Maybe someday. Maybe I’ll know when I know. But for now, the question of more remains unanswered.