Round 2?

James and I had an interesting conversation a few weeks ago. It began something like this:

James - "Let's have another baby"

Me - "Are you serious?"

James - "Yeah, I want her to have siblings so they can grow up together."

I was a bit shocked, a bit taken aback. But then I thought, well I guess it's a possibility.

You see I'm from a family of two. My brother is nine and a half years older than me - he a pleasant surprise and me a much more considered arrival further down the track. So I grew up with the belief that once you've had one bub you wait quite a long time before you get back on the baby bandwagon. James is pretty much the exact opposite. He was just shy of his 13-month birthday when his little bro came along.

This really got me thinking - what's the ‘right’ time for us to be trying to have another child?

If I were one of those ‘look at me and I fall pregnant’ girls then it would all just come down to the age gap we wanted our babes to have. But I’m not one of those girls. At least, I haven’t been up to this point. It took us over a year and a half of really ‘earnest’ trying, with a couple of miscarriages thrown in, before our little mini muffin started baking.

Some people will tell you that once you’ve had one your body knows how to do it, so it’ll be heaps easier next time round. Unfortunately it seems this little post pregnancy perk can be pretty easily cancelled out by the fact that LAB (life after birth) equals less sleep, less romantic getaways…and generally less activity that gets the baby there in the first place. Yeah, sex. I was just being coy.

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day speculating what it would be like if we did bring another tiny tot into the world and she gasped and replied, “You can’t. I know this woman who had her first two really close together and she reckons the eldest never quite got over it. Grew up too fast, you know?” Is that the case for all kids born close together, or just this poor little tacker? Then I remembered James and his bro. James swears that his brother is still his best mate to this day because they grew up so close in age. Seems to me that it’s just luck of the draw?

After my second miscarriage I was diagnosed with two autoimmune clotting disorders which makes me part of a cool club called the ‘high risk group’. My obstetrician joked at my 6-week check up, “Right, you’re good to get going again then. We’ll have a sibling for Sunday this time next year.” I laughed it off as a man ensuring the sustainability of his business but, on reflection, I’m just not sure now if there was something more to it? I suppose in a way, if you’re going to put your body through a high risk situation, you’re smarter doing it while you’re young and presumably at your healthiest?

So I thought about it. If I fell pregnant right this second, (which I couldn’t -‘cause James isn’t even in the room) but let’s just say IF I could…that would make me 32 when baby #2 rolls into town. And then I was reminded of that thing that haunts every woman wanting to have a child in her 30’s (or beyond) - The Biological Birthday Cake Police. If they count up the candles on your cake and you’ve got 35 or more, then you get a big asterisk put next to your name in their Biological Birthday Cake Police Notepad. Talk about gender-age racist. There’s nothing like the fear of the ‘you’re just too old I’m afraid’ speech to put the wind in your sails.

So do the sum of all those factors equal us trying to procreate again?

At the end of the day, I’m incredibly grateful that we have one gorgeous, perfect, amazing child. If that’s all we get, then fine. I’m well aware that only just over a year ago my acceptance was around the possibility of not having a child at all.

For the time being I’m just happy delighting in every moment our little bag of fairy floss smiles, burps or makes some kind of completely unintelligible sound.