I'm in that stage of life where many of my friends are having children -- actually I'm in that stage where many of my friends are having their second, third and yes, fourth children. Chris & I continue our negotiations about when and how to have our third child because we both desire to have at least one more.
chris's scenario: Adopt the third child and have one more biologically.
kindra's scenario: Changes by the day!
As many of you who saw me pregnant with Caroline can attest, I'm a miserable pregnant woman. I feel terrible (sickness in the beginning and then I just don't feel like myself throughout), I'm about the size of a baby beluga starting around 4-5 months, and I have very long and difficult labors that have both required pitocin and have lasted 26+ hours apiece. So, I'm not terribly keen on pregnancy. Plus, if we follow Chris's plan, I would have our last baby when I was like 37 and that's not really exciting to me.
Before Caroline, I thought that I just wasn't a "baby person" as I enjoyed Ben more and more as he got older. But, after we had Caroline, I realized that I actually am a baby person and just didn't enjoy Ben as a newborn because he was colicky and didn't sleep more than 2 hour stretches at a time until he was 4 months old and didn't sleep through the night until he was 10+ months (and that was still only 8 hours at a time). Caroline has always been a great night time sleeper and was the typical "easy" baby and I loved it and I'm starting to long for that again, even knowing that it is not guaranteed that I'd get an easy baby again. Plus, we conceived Caroline when Ben was about the age she is now, so I think there is some part of me that's feeling ready to have another baby.
However, there are also times when I think that I'm really done with all of this childbearing stuff and that I'm ready to adopt. I had a thought the other day that it's possible that the baby that God has for us is going to be born soon. We want to adopt a bit older since there are so many people who want babies and it's harder the older a child gets to place them. While this is noble thinking, it also means that they are languishing in an orphanage for however many months/years as well and this breaks my heart to think that my baby is there and I'm not with her (we think we want to adopt a girl) and I want to do everything that we can to adopt her earlier, even though I know that this is circular logic.
The plan right now is for me to go to school, work for a year or so to pay off my school debt and then save the money ($25K-$30K) and then adopt, which puts us at about 4-5 years from now. But the maternal part of me thinking about my baby being in an orphanage says that I need to drop what I'm doing, start applying for grants and loans and get that baby now.
Chris & I said this week that if someone drops $25K into our laps, that is our sign that we're to start the adoption proceedings, so if you guys know anyone who has a blank check with 5 figures on it... let us know.
1 comment:
That's a hard thing to figure out. I think there is something to your baby turning a year old that makes you long for another one - pretty much every mom I know has said something like that. It's a lot of things to weigh out and decide.
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