Hi,
My story begins with meeting a future husband at the age of 18, getting engaged and married by the age of 23. I have ALWAYS wanted children and was ready to start straight away. However, my husband wasn’t ready. In fact, when we got together at the age of 18, he told me he never wanted to get married and never wanted kids. I said to him that I want both those things and that if he wanted to be with me then he’d have to want those things as well.

As you can see, he was happy to go down the marriage path, but was more reluctant to embark on the path of children. He asked me to wait until I could wait no longer then we’d have kids. So fast forward 9 years, we had our gorgeous son. I was 32 years of age. Following my son’s very difficult birth, my husband went AWOL emotionally. My marriage was always difficult as he suffered from anxiety/depression and our marriage had, as a result, become about him and his needs. Suddenly with the birth of our son, our marriage was no longer about him and he couldn’t cope.  Unfortunately, our marriage didn’t survive.

I have since met another man, and we married in March this year. He is an amazing man, loving, generous…all the things I have ever wanted in a life partner. He is helping me raise my son (who also sees his actual father every second weekend) and I am helping him raise his daughter.

Herein is the snag: When my new husband and I first got together, he asked me if I wanted more children. I said I wasn’t sure as I’d been through so much in the last few years and I was tired. About 12 months after that I told him that I did want another child and we agreed to start trying. Then we hit a problem for a brief while (unrelated), so while we worked through it we put the baby making on hold. About 6 months later, I approached him again about having another child and he’d changed his mind 🙁

We weren’t married at this point, but we were engaged and living together, and planning our wedding. He told me that he’s changed his mind, he was done with having children and wanted to focus on raising the two we had. He also said that the issue of children is a dealbreaker, that if I wanted to be with him then that was it for my childbearing (he didn’t use those words though).

I thought I was OK with it. I didn’t want to lose him. I didn’t want to give up the family we’d worked hard to create. I had to think about the two children we have between u,s and the big adjustments they have been through in adapting to being in a blended family.

Fast forwarding again to today which 12 months down the track and following our recent wedding, I am consumed by the thought of another child. It is all I can think about. When I’m not thinking about it, I carry a huge lump of emotion in my stomach.

I am desperately trying to focus on what I have now, not what I don’t have. I have a husband whom I adore and is an amazing man. I have a gorgeous 12 year old step daughter whom I have a fantastic, loving relationship with, and I have a handsome, gorgeous 6 year old son. I have a loving, supportive extended family, nieces, nephews, in laws etc and we have an enormous group of friends that we see and socialise with regularly. They have children that our children are growing up with, we all go camping together and I will always have someone to turn to in times of need. I am studying towards a new career of teaching primary students, and I am very excited about this. We are planning on doing a lot of travel with the children and we’ve already had some amazing holidays.

Why, oh why, when my life is so full and so so wonderful, do I allow myself to be consumed by the thoughts of another baby?? Barring an accident, it isn’t going to happen for me. Even then an accident is unlikely as I’m approaching 40. I’m terrified of letting go of wanting a child and just living in today because that effectively shuts the door on my childbearing years. There’s no time for changing minds down the track. This is it, now or never.

I know that I have been blessed more than many people.   I have some of friends that lost their chance at having children for a variety of reasons. One child is a far cry from none. One plus a step daughter whom I love and who loves me, is a far cry from being childless.

I need to work on my gratitude.

I’m going to start a gratitude journal and hope that by focussing on what I have and what I am grateful to have, then I may stop focussing on what I don’t have.

Does anyone have any other suggestions for me??

(Sorry for the loooong post!!)