“Where are your brothers and sisters?” his friend asked.
“I don’t have any,” my son said. “It’s just me, my mom, and my dad. I wish I had baby brothers.”
That was it. That was the moment I decided it was time to try for another baby. I felt guilty and anxious and warm-hearted all at the same time.
If my son wanted siblings (and talked about his desire to have them) chances are everyone else was wondering why we hadn’t had another baby yet. Not that it is any of their business and not that I should care, but I do. We had been thinking about having another baby for a long while, but hadn’t made the leap from thinking to trying just yet.
I felt awful for not giving my son a few siblings earlier. Every kid deserves to have constant playmates. Siblings would help my son in so many ways. He would learn to share more, play better, be more patient, not be so needy of our time… the list goes on. We hadn’t had more children for several reasons, including finances and employment issues, but I felt strongly that we should still put our son’s best interest first.
Even though we haven’t conceived yet, and are just trying, we already feel like we are better parents to our son by putting his needs and wants ahead of our own. Some kids don’t want siblings or they aren’t lacking socially being an only child. That is not the case with our little guy.
Now that we are trying to conceive, I feel like we’re actually working toward our goal of having another baby, and the issue is no longer in my hands. It’s such a relief. We’re doing our part and now we’ll just have to wait and see what happens!
Have you struggled with deciding when to conceive another child?
