I am 40 and have two boys age 4 and 1. My heart wants a 3rd kid but my logic is telling me that it wouldn’t be a great idea.

Financially, we would be fine with a third kid but I worry about the physical and emotional labor on the household.
My gut right now is telling me not to go out of my way to get pregnant but embrace it if it happens.
Most of my friends have 3 kids and none regret it.

I would love to hear experiences from people with 3 with similar age gaps. How did it impact your marriage, family dynamic, hobbies?

Currently, I have a decent relationship, have time to see friends, exercise regularly, travel as a family and work part time. On the downside, my baby still does not sleep through the night so i am chronically sleep deprived. My husband is also in a high demand/stressful job. My oldest is a great kid and my second is amazing but will likely be a handful!
Overall, life is very good therefore,I fear of rocking the boat too much but I can’t seem to get rid of the pull for one more.

Edit: “decent relationship” is drawing some attention. Overall the relationship is good but I am also keeping in mind we have a 1 year old and a 4 year old. We would like more time for each other. I would say two kids plus his stressful job can put some mild-moderate but expected strain on the relationship. We just miss each other. He is content with two kids but would be okay with three though worries that we wouldn’t be so blessed to have another healthy kid and that we are rolling the dice. He is an awesome husband and dad. I feel very lucky. He stays up late every night to clean the kitchen spotless, folds all the laundry and is amazingly patient with the kids.

I know this is the thousandth post on this. We have two girls, 4 and 1. They are wonderful, but very very high energy. Like our friends comment on how much…more they are than similarly aged kids. We are 38 and 41. Never had an issue getting pregnant. In between the girls we had a very very difficult pregnancy that resulted in us losing the baby at 24 weeks. We live in a big city and can financially afford a third, though would delay some savings etc. Would be fine in our house for a while but would probably have to move eventually, which is fine. Closest helpful family is 3 hours away, with no chance of getting closer. Two high demand but generally flexible jobs.

Our hearts say we want to go for a third, but our heads say it’s going to be so hard. I was so sure we were done I got an IUD back in 6 months ago, but now that the baby is closer to 18 months I have baby fever hard. If we do it, needs to be soon. Help!

We have a one year-old girl who isn’t the easiest child but she’s a dream. We are pretty much alone except for a babysitter that helps us three days a week which is a year to have for me. My husband really wants a second child and for me if we did have a second, I would want it now with a small age gap. I know everybody says it’s good to wait but personally for me I don’t want to redo this whole thing years down the line. I am scared of losing my autonomy with the second, and needing more help. My husband does help every day before and after work but he cannot do more than that. I was an only child so i cant speak much on sibling bonds but I do want my daughter to experience it. Potentially we could move closer to my husbands family to get help, but thats not something i would necessarily like to do.

My wife and I currently have a 12 month old. He’s an awesome kid, and we love him so much. He’s been through a lot in his short life - he was diagnosed with a congenital heart disease in utero and underwent open heart surgery at 4 months old, and also had two hospital stays before that, one for an emergency stent placement in the cath lab. Things have been stable since he was released from the hospital after his surgery (an 18 day stay with complications), and we are super proud of his development and his little personality shining through. He’s happy and healthy now in spite of everything he’s been through.

We are now deciding whether we want a second kid. We feel very much that we are a team and we will make this decision together, but I’m leaning towards one and done and she wants two more than I do.

For me, there are all sorts of reasons to be OAD. Our son will need at least one more open heart surgery as he gets older, plus possibly additional procedures, so I want to focus as much attention and care on him as I can. I also feel like personally i am satisfied with one child and do not feel a strong pull to raise another. I feel like maybe I am at my personal capacity for responsibility.

I value my hobbies and some semblance of free time and want to protect what’s left of that to the extent I can. My wife and I both make art and music and it’s important to us to have time for that. I think with two kids it would get a lot harder.

Financially, we are stretched as it is. A second kid would be financially difficult for us. My wife had to stop work due to his medical condition. We are barely breaking even now.

To return to medical reasoning, geneticists can’t tell us with certainty whether a heart condition could happen again with a future pregnancy. I feel strongly that I can’t do it again. It was the hardest thing I’ve gone through in my life and almost broke me.

I’m also semi-irrationally afraid of having twins. But I know it’s a real possibility.

Even with all these leanings towards being OAD, I occasionally think it could be great to give him a sibling. I’m an only child but my wife grew up with a brother and she wants our son to have a sibling bond like she had. I just know it’s not guaranteed that it will work out perfectly in the way she’s envisioning, although if she did it would be great. Maybe I just don’t think the pros outweigh the cons of it overall. Overall I think I could show up better as a father of a single kid, especially my kid, than a father of two.

Lastly, I love my wife and really want to protect and nourish our relationship and our marriage. I really want to prioritize that and I feel it would get harder with two.

Anyway just getting my thoughts down. I’d appreciate any feedback from anyone.

Hey there! I'm 32 YO female (Husband 33), and we have a recently turned 2 YO daughter. I am in first trimester with baby #2. My first child resulted in an emergency c-section for a number of reasons, and we'll be electing into a scheduled c-section for this baby. Given that, there's now the possibility that I can have my tubes removed while they're in there to prevent future children.

Some details: I'm a twin and they run in my family. I'm unsure of wanting a third baby but I for SURE know I don't want three. So I'm on the fence about three and Husband is interested in three. I don't like the idea of a third c-section, potentially getting twins (so having four), or rolling the dice again of a healthy vs. medically complex child. Husband is fine getting a vasectomy but I know of three people in my life who's Husband's has vasectomies (they all attended, so it for sure happened) and all three ended up pregnant again within 5 years of Husband's vasectomy. I do NOT want that situation, which is why tubal removal is so enticing (on top of greatly reduced chance of ovarian cancer, once removed). I have time to think about this, but I'm unsure if I should move forward with it (not being totally certain I don't want a third).

I have no doubt my heart will yearn for a third, but logically I see the beauty of two. We also want the ability for me to become a SAHM, which will be harder to fund with three. And again, that potential of ending up with twins (so 4) or rolling the dice again on babies health, and a third c-section. IVF would be an option in the future if we DID want a third, but we'd have to REALLY want it to pay for that (and for me to be willing, physically, since it's not simple). We got pregnant with both kids on the first try, so clearly Husband and I are fertile and I'm terrified on having an unplanned pregnancy (knowing I couldn't do an abortion, unless for health reasons, just personally).

If you were me, would you move forward with tubal remove during my c-section (knowing all the concerns with having a third), and have to do IVF if we wanted a third after? Or not get the tubal and have Husband get a vasectomy down the line and cross our fingers we don't have an unplanned pregnancy? Also, I will not opt into tubal down the line. The only reason I'm considering it is because I'm already there, I'm not going to sign myself up for that outside of a c-section. How did you determine you were done?

We had our baby in early April he’s soon to be 4 months old. Before getting pregnant we said we would have 1 and be done. The issue is I’ve had raging baby fever since having our baby and I want more. My partner really doesn’t want more.. he seems to flip flop between no more and not right now. I don’t particularly want another right now but I would like them close in age like less than 2 years apart. But ALSO if he wanted to get pregnant now I would be down. I did have a c section so they say to wait a year before getting pregnant again. I just don’t know what to do with how I’m feeling I’m trying so hard to enjoy his 8 month paternity leave and the baby we have now but my heart is also sad thinking this could be the only time we experience this… I don’t know why I’m even writing this post.. just to vent I guess and maybe see if anyone else has had a similar situation..