I'm expecting The Catholics to rake me over the coals for this one, but HERE GOES ANYWAY!
Third baby third baby third baby third baby... some people are good at letting these things happen as they will, or they're content with "maybe in a year or two!" or something equally vague. I am not. I have a general timeframe in my head for Third Baby, but I am SO surprised - SO VERY SURPRISED - at how many times I think, "Eh! I'd be fine with two!"
WHAT?!
I mean, I am the author of numerous blog posts bemoaning the fact that my husband feels like three is a stretch, and how I probably won't have the house full of kids I've imagined over the last several years. What's wrong with me? Also, hello, CATHOLIC. The likelihood of more than two is Rather High.
I think about this all the time. And, as a Naturally Guilty Person, I am always examining these feelings for the thing I'm doing wrong. Or the thing I'm thinking wrong. Right now the guilt is saying: but you are CATHOLIC. You are supposed to be OPEN TO LIFE. Not just as many lives as you FEEL LIKE.
But whatever. We ARE open to more kids. Very open! I guess it's more like... I don't know. Is it wrong for me, as a Catholic who is open to life and blah blah blah, to not really want to be pregnant again?
Because honestly? That's the thing. I'm pretty sure I would jump at the chance for Third Baby, shoot, I'd just at the chance for Fourth and Fifth and Sixth if only I didn't have to, you know, GROW them.
I know that is a horrible rotten awful inconsiderate unfeeling thing to say. It's just kind of where I am right now. When I think about having Third Baby, I feel as ready as I can be, although we'd ideally like to wait until Phillip is done with school. But when I think about being PREGNANT with Third Baby, I could wait a good long while.
Part of what makes it a horrible thing to say is that I had ridiculously easy pregnancies. Seriously. My Jack pregnancy never got to the point all the pregnant ladies talk about, where you would sign away your soul to give birth as early as is safe. It was a breeze and I loved it. My MOLLY pregnancy was different. It wasn't complicated or difficult, but it was long, uncomfortable, painful, sick and I was CRAZY. I mean it. I've even told Phillip that if that happens to me again, I am dashing to the doctor for a crazy pills prescription, despite my extremely mixed feelings on the subject, because I CANNOT DO THAT AGAIN.
I'll be older for my third pregnancy. My body is already out of whack. There is no doubt in my mind that I'll be crazy again. (I was crazy with Jack too, just not as much. So it stands to reason it'd be worse with a third!) And this is going to sound especially shallow, but I weigh less and am more fit than at any point before I had children. I worked hard to get here and I'm not excited to do it all over again.
BAD CATHOLIC MOTHER! BAD!
I don't know. Maybe there will come a day when I want Third Baby so badly that being pregnant will be no big thing. That I'll be excited and ready to do it all over again. I'm hopeful that's the case. Even now, I know I want Third Baby more than I don't want to be pregnant - I'm just willing to wait a while longer.
Sometimes I think about adopting. But I do not have the emotional and mental resources to get involved in the foster system, or the financial (and emotional and mental resources) to get involved in international adoption. And that doesn't preclude having more biological children anyway.
Mostly I berate myself for not being the kind of Catholic mother I read about. These selfless women who expect and welcome larger-than-average families. Sometimes I wonder how they do it, what they're thinking. I wonder if not using birth control is all that's required to say you're Open To Life, or if I have to also be open to not only HAVING fourteen children but WANTING them as well. Which isn't to say I wouldn't want them if they happened, that's ridiculous. Do you know what I mean? I don't think I'm saying it very well.
Anyway. I just wrote another blog post about wanting to spend time with my husband and here he is, fresh from putting the kids to bed, and perhaps I should, you know, SPEND TIME WITH HIM.
