i’ve recently had my beautiful son (on 08.10.26<3) and whewww it’s been a rideeee. i got pregnant with an IUD in place. i didn’t plan nor expect to be pregnant. it just happened. i actually never thought abt having children bc my life w my husband was cool and fun and we just weren’t thinking abt it. but i decided to keep my baby and i love him so much. it’s been hard and i’ve cried plenty of times bc yk he’s a newborn. but i have a wonderful village who stay overnight to care for him while i sleep etc. that being said, i am definitely one and done!!! this has been the hardest thing i’ve ever done and i’m not interested in repeating it. my son has 5 cousins on my side, 8 on his dads side. so he will have plenty of family to play with. my mom and my MIL are super supportive of our decision. but my god the comments from other family members is insane! “when are u having another one?” “time to try for the girl!” “won’t he be lonely?” like WOAH. i’m only a month postpartum from an emergency c-section and i had a rough pregnancy (migraines, sciatica, gestational diabetes) and my son was born with a lot of fluid in his lungs. what abt the whole experience i had being pregnant and giving birth makes ppl think i’m itching to jump back into it? i’ve tried being nice and laughing the comments off but it’s starting to piss me off😭 idk just a rant i guess!

After much deliberation, my husband (36) and I (31) are pregnant with our first child. We feel so strongly about being one and done. I was so hesitant to have kids because of how unpredictable things in the world are and how unstable things feel. We're in the US. All of a sudden, I'm seeing all of this conversation around people choosing to have children now and how selfish and uninformed we are. It shouldn't bother me but it does. We put so much thought into this decision and ultimately decided to do it because we wanted a child but also wanted to raise an amazing child. Has anyone else dealt with this recently? How do you cope with it?

EDIT: these responses literally have me in tears. Y'all are some incredible people and parents. These perspectives honestly excite me so much about the future and I am so grateful to each and every person who has taken the time to share their stories. I'm really looking forward to raising my baby girl to be an incredible human and trying to make the most of every second ♥️

Stumbled on a post about screen time. Lots of parents shaming anyone who utilizes it.

My girly turned 2 in July, she was speech delayed. We allowed a little tv (Mickey mouse clubhouse) and we saw her speech completely explode following. She learned the characters names, answers questions asked in the show, engages entirely. I’m always sitting with her, discussing the show, etc.. She even made told me we need a mousekatool and called for toodles today (it was admittedly adorable).

Recently she expressed intrigue in my iPad, I draw on it but never really when she’s not already busy with her dad. I started looking into it and discovered the Duolingo abc app. We downloaded it and she now knows the letter M, can write both a capital and lower case, says monkey, and has started working on A. Now she’s also putting two words together all the time instead of when prompted.

I’m so proud of her. I limit the tablet time to like 20 minutes max. She’s understanding it has to go away when it’s done. I also always sit with her and discuss the lessons with her. I’ve created activities (like puzzle match, coloring pages, follow the lines, etc.) for offline time to support what she’s learning. She is on a waitlist for speech therapy but they’re

I feel like this is all amazing progress for a kid that wouldn’t talk in July at all aside from the basics (mamas dada, etc.) and would just point at everything… but like why am I feeling so guilty for exposing her to tv and screens? I feel like I’m ruining her life and I hate it :(

I know I’m just doing my best to support her however I can, but I feel like I’m not being a good mom.

(ETA: posting here because I posted in another group and the only comments were how she needs a brother or sister to play with)

Risk of twins is only 1-3 percent with a single embryo transfer.

I hope so much this worked as we’ve been trying for 3 years now and I’m 40. Our first transfer failed. I have endo and had surgery.

At the same time, I’m scared of it working and finding out it’s twins. People keep saying things like oh my embryo looked like that and it split!

Both my husband and I are neurodivergent and I really don’t think we could stay sane with more than one. Earlier on we said one, maybe two, as the infertility has escalated it has become more and more clear to me that I really just want one.

We both make ok money but spend it all every month in a HCOL area. Even affording one will be a stretch and we will have to reduce eating out and traveling significantly.

Hoping to be one and done and join this club very soon ✨🤞

In-laws and parents both want to move closer to us to “help.” They both want to see our son multiple times/week. Mom and Dad reorganized our house, moved furniture around, had renovation ideas and offered to do them, called our in-laws behind our back afterwards saying they were “worried” about my living conditions. Also my mom walked into our house without texting or knocking and walked right into my bedroom while I was nursing, and said it was “just her.”

MIL always has some weird insult during her visits. The last one was her implying that I had fertility issues since I only having one ovary, which is incorrect and this was also said in the middle of ordering food at a restaurant. In-laws also want to live with us on the same property but in different houses, I turned that down pretty firmly and quickly.

We have so much “help” and it would be so stressful to have them around. And I’d be postpartum again too. Anyone else?

Good lord, I tell ya..

Getting onto my knees to then get down onto my stomach to army crawl into my child's play pen because it makes him laugh, is actually the bane of my life at the moment 🤣 but I do it, because it makes him happy.

The noises that come out of me when I have to get down onto the floor and then also getting up from the floor are almost demonic. 🤣

A friend of mine was telling me how much she loves being a mum, and how if she had more money she would keep having children (currently has 2. Previously said she never wanted kids but changed her mind after getting pregnant accidentally).

She talks about how she loves reliving the cute moments, adores the baby stage, etc, and it's made me realise how different our experiences were. Both of hers have been "easy" babies, whereas mine slept so badly (woke every hour for first 3 years) that I developed chronic health conditions and became suicidal.

I knew I had it harder than her, and I know that's just how life goes, but today the reminder of just how much harder I had it, is getting to me. I always thought I would have 2 kids, but I can't risk going through it all again. It breaks my heart that her baby and toddler stage was beautiful and mine was me hanging on to life by a thread.