Children

I'm sure this is an age old complaint but why is it that once you're married everyone feels it's their business to know about when you're having children? Why when you have a toddler do they then ask about when you're having the next one? One it's a very personal thing, two have you considered how you make someone feel about it?

We have one child, a beautiful 3 year old girl but she will be our only child, yes we're absolutely certain that we won't be having any more children. We have made the decision to make sure that we won't have any more. That decision has hurt and I have had to grieve it. Some people aren't able to have any children, or don't want them, and have to come to terms with this. So why is it necessary to rub this in their faces and remind them of it? If they have a child then sure, ask them about that child, but just that child. Don't make people feel inadequate because they don't have any/more.

The decision to not have any more was very hard and painful, we both always said we didn't want to just have an only child. I remember having arguments on the topic and saying I would never just have one child, I felt very strongly about it. Yet here I am making a lasting decision saying that one is all we'll have, so consider how hard that was.

I've written a lot about how hard my pregnancy, labour and early days were. I feel that if one step of this had been hard then I would have wanted to do it again. It was all hard and I couldn't choose to do that again. I can't inflict that on my husband and my daughter.

So what's the solution? just don't ask, don't assume that you need to know all the details of someone else's life. If they offer the information then of course that's different but I don't like being asked by strangers on the street in the first conversation we have.

I haven't ever really liked very young children, I didn't dislike them but I don't understand this love of their smell etc. They are nice for a cuddle but it's when they get older I find them interesting, when they have a character and personality. I do, however, get sad when I see them and know that we won't experience that again for ourselves. My daughter is never going to be a baby again, she won't be at the stage where she is learning new things all the time and rolling or sitting up is a major deal.