All Finished.

When I was a teenager, I wanted 6 kids. And I was serious. I wanted to get married at 18, then have a kid at 20, 22, 24, 26, 28 and 30. I even had their first and middle names picked out. (Jeremy Dainel, Thomas Bradley, Christian {something}, Emerald Nicole, Bethany Ann and Desiree {something}) Once the insanity wore off, I realized that my ideal family would be 4 children. A nice even number so there is no middle child and no one is left out. For example, I have 2 sisters. And if we went to Disneyland, and the roller coaster sat 2 to a row, there would always been one person who had to sit alone. Or in our 7 seater van, mom and dad would be in front, then 2 of us would sit in one row together and the 3rd child was all alone. So that's my reasoning for wanting 4. Not to mention I come from a pretty huge family and I can't imagine holidays, birthdays and parties being anything but loud and crazy, and SO MUCH FUN - I want to give that to my own children. After we had Kaitlynn, Cory said he was done. One boy, one girl, one perfect little family. But I didn't feel complete. A lot of moms that are done having kids, say they just KNEW after the last one, that they were done. I definitely didn't have that feeling of completion after Kaitlynn. Luckily, I convinced my husband that he would never regret having 3 children. However, he might be old and hunched over and grumpy and wishing he WOULD have had more children, and by then it'd be too late. So along came Mitchell to complete our family. Cory said for SURE after Mitchell, we are done. No more kids, no pleading would change his mind. I never said yes or no to that, but inside I still wanted that 4th child. But is wanting an even numbered family a good reason for wanting a child? I needed to start to really analyze WHY I wanted another baby. My friend Carla (who's expecting in 2 months or so!! Congrats!) put it very well. She said she's pretty sure her 3rd daughter is her last one. She said she wants to move onto the next chapter of her life, finish school, raise her children and begin to use her talents to enrich other childrens' lives. And then in that sentence, I recognize my problem. I can't move on to the next chapter of my life. I can't bear to say goodbye to never being pregnant again, to not being able to ever feel life in your belly kicking the crap out of your kidneys (I promise it's a good feeling), to never seeing a first step, or that first giggle or to potty training. Okay I lied, I could do without the potty training, but how do you say goodbye to such precious moments like that? So for months I've still had this longing.

On the flip side, as Mitchell has become older, he's become a lot more work. At dinner I've got 3 kids to feed, 3 faces to wipe, 3 chairs to clean up... I mean for goodness sakes, one night I didn't feed Mitchell his carrots because I just did not have the energy to clean the mess up. So he got applesauce instead - less staining. I started to realize that 4 children means: 4 lunches to pack, 4 extracurricular activies, 4 games/competitions on weekends, 4 missing shoes to find, 4 yearbooks to buy... Aside from the financial responsibility, I had to wonder if it would be possible to give 4 children the kind of life they deserve. I want to read them bedtime stories every night. I want to be involved in their education. I don't want to miss one single event if I don't have to. If we had another child, I believe all 4 would missing out on those things .....and could I really live with the guilt when I wasn't able to be the kind of mom I want to be? Basically, wanting four children, is my selfish-ness. I want one more because ...... well because it's what I want. But that wouldn't be fair to the three that we already have, so I believe I have finally conceded.... We're All Finished.

Thoughts???