How many kiddos?

[LovingMummy]

Ours are 15 and 17 months apart. All very much planned and wanted. Still, I am feeling the need for a break! It's fun but pretty crazy We are *hoping* for 3-4 years off and then a couple more.

I tandemed nursed my first two and wouldn't do it again (not that it's a bad thing, it was just really hard for me personally). DS1 weaned at 1 year when I was 3 m pregnant. So I'm really looking forward to nursing my toddler DS2 and letting him self wean.

Having said that, we seem to be super fertile and not good at preventing pregnancy, (DS2 was conceived before I even had my first PPAF) so who knows?

[Dandelion]

As for spacing of the ages, I really think there are pros and cons to having them closer or farther apart. There are times I am glad they are spaced rather far apart, and there are times I wish they were closer in age.

I used to always want mine closer together, but at the same time I love having little ones and truly "babying" the babies so I didn't want that time to end too soon. If we had had our babies a year apart we would probably have had 20 kids. Now that we are down the road a ways I really like our spacing. I don't have too many dc in any one stage and they all play together really well.

[MudPies]

Dink did not sleep. We were exhausted. He and wink are 3 years 3 months apart. I thought people were crazy to have kids spaced less than 2 years apart . Pink is 9 months younger than Wink- we actually wanted her to be older than wink. Then Link came along, and he is only 6 months younger than Dink.

In birth order: dink -6 months-link- 2.5 years- wink- 9months- Pink

Joined our family order: dink-3 years 3 months- wink- 2 years 10 months -pink- 14 months Link.

[JessicaGhig]

I come from a family of 5 kids and hubby is one of 9. We have 2 so far, 23 months apart. Unless circumstances make us reevaluate, we are mostly comfortable just letting God plan our family. I figure He knows better.

---------- Post added at 08:15 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:13 AM ----------

Also, like I told my husband, I don't want to limit our family and then someday be sitting around the dinner table wondering who is missing, who else was supposed to be here.

[ValiantJoy07]

Before we were married we said 6-8 kids.

When we were pregnant with dd1(and it was a hard hard pregnancy) we said "we will take it as it comes", but Ultimately dh said "at least 3" and I said I would like at least 4.
We joked we wanted 4 or 6...we were both from families of 5 kids and felt like that number was off kilter some how.
We have 3 now the age gaps are 19mos, and 29mos. We are leaning towards being done with biological children. I don't want to mess with birth order so we would like to wait until dd3 is 5 and pursue adoption or fostering...I would like to adopt a young sibling pair...but I also feel like we may end up with some tweens at some point (preferably when my kids are in high school, leaving the nest).

I am open to anything right now. I know our family is not complete but I am reluctant to add any more biological kids as my pregnancies are wretched and the whole family suffers immensely when I am pretty much out of the game for an entire year. I can't do that to my kids again. Especially now with home schooling. That said if it were to happen, we would make it work and we would be excited.

Soo yes, I don't think you can "know" ahead of time...that is the best part of building a family, it takes on its own unique "couldn't have been fabricated" thing and it is beautiful and all your own.

[rjy9343]

Our first baby was a surprise and then he did not make it. So we said we wanted to wait awhile before another one. We never could seem to find the right time, so God surprised us with Ivy. That was without a doubt the worst time of my life. My pregnancy was terrible and I never wanted to go through it again. Fast forward three years later and we realized we wanted another one. We waited and there will be five years between Ivy and this baby.
After this, I think we are done. I am miserable and barely able to take care of myself, much less Ivy. James is concerned about money and how I will deal with both kids when he is out of town since Ivy is autistic and does require a lot more hands on care than most four year olds. There is also the concern that this baby will be autistic as well and that will leave me with two children with special needs without a lot of help.

[CelticJourney]

Our original plan was 'birth two, adopt two'. We birthed two (three years apart) and then crashed into the reality of the expense of adoption. There were eight years between our second and our third. While I would not have planned it that way, there are many, many ways that I see the hand of God in how things actually did happen (too much to go into here). Unless something drastic happens, there will not be a fourth, but I am at peace with that.

[WanderingJuniper]

We didn't have a plan. :Shrug I always assumed we would have two and be done but I didn't have a preference on spacing or timing. It was just going to be whatever it was. Hubs want done with two and we were blessed without 3rd in 3 years. We were both at peacec with 3. I do notvlike being pregnant, birthing or nursing so I was quite okay not having more biological children. Howevercwe both have always desired to have an open welcoming home to children. On any given day we have 1-7 extra children around. I would not be able to offer that with more of my own children. Spacing wise 3 I. 3 years was hard until the youngest was 3. Now that they are all older i love love their spacing. They are amazing friends, have common friends and we can most of the same things together as a family without having to accommodate kids in different developmental stages.

[twentysixcats]

I'm obsessed with odd numbers, so I always said 3 or 5. My oldest was an easy, good natured baby and I was thinking "definitely 5". Then ages 2 and 3 hit. DD1 and DD2 are three years apart, and that was wonderful spacing. It took us a year+ of TTC both times before we got pregnant, so we started trying expecting another year and got pregnant right away! So DD2 and DD3 are 2 years apart and that spacing plus third kid has really kicked my butt.

We decided after DD2 that we would be done after 3 kids. God has reaffirmed that decision by giving my a really hard pregnancy, a preemie, and a challenging newborn (so far - she's 3 months old).

[Prism]

If you really do some digging you will see that I once answered the question very differently. Today, I know the truth. Plan all you want, prevent with NFP, pills, condoms, or surgery... try hard with natural supplements, doctor intervention, and lots of prayer... Your just going to get what your going to get. I've seen people get pregnant after it all, i've seen people who really want babies do everything and still end up empty handed. I have been trying for 7 years for a second baby.

At this point in my life the hurt is gone. I am happy with one baby. Our family can be complete with only one. If we are blessed with another someday then that is tremendous! If we are blessed with twins, then Hallajuiah to God all mighty for creating miracles in this day and age. If we never have another... Well, she is almost old enough to go on some crazy adventures and I'm ready to take her on them and be done.

[milkmommy]

Originally Posted by Prism

If you really do some digging you will see that I once answered the question very differently. Today, I know the truth. Plan all you want, prevent with NFP, pills, condoms, or surgery... try hard with natural supplements, doctor intervention, and lots of prayer... Your just going to get what your going to get. I've seen people get pregnant after it all, i've seen people who really want babies do everything and still end up empty handed. I have been trying for 7 years for a second baby.

At this point in my life the hurt is gone. I am happy with one baby. Our family can be complete with only one. If we are blessed with another someday then that is tremendous! If we are blessed with twins, then Hallajuiah to God all mighty for creating miracles in this day and age. If we never have another... Well, she is almost old enough to go on some crazy adventures and I'm ready to take her on them and be done.

Our second came 7.5 years latter...


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[Redeemed]

I always wanted four, and I have five. . . three of my own and two of my hubby's.

We are not having any biological children. . .I voluntarily lost my fertility two years ago by way of a hysterectomy. I got pregnant with my oldest while on the pill, and discovered after my miscarriage in 2004, that I have PCOS. It was difficult getting pregnant with my youngest two.

[MissusLeata]

We have 4. There are 27 mos. between 1 and 2, 22 months between 2 and 3 and 18.5 months between 3 and 4. I am miserable pregnant and have had very intense PPD that lasted a LONG time after the last two, so I don't ever want to be pregnant again, but am open to adopting. We haven't taken any permanent measures and know God could surprise us, but I just don't ever want to be in that dark place again.

[sothisislove]

My 3 are all spaced 2 or 2.5 years apart. I had a couple of miscarriages in there, so the planning wasn't 100 % purposeful. What I found interesting though, was that when my last kiddo turned 3 I thought something to the effect of , "Hey....I should have a newborn by now!" There were a few times when I considered how wonderful it would be to have a new baby...but I'm also sleeping a lot more than I would with a new baby. Both of my sisters had babies recently...maybe I'll enjoy my break a bit longer and not worry about keeping a tight hold on my baby-spacing-pattern! God's plans always work out better than mine anyways!

[AsTheDeer]

We have 6 - age gaps are 31months, 26months, 18months, 23months, 22months. I had 2 m/c's between the oldest 2 and there hasn't ever been a 'plan' as such, we have just been very blessed. I would love to have many more (and we are still fairly young), but things have been quite difficult recently so I am just trying to enjoy our youngest bundle who is now 17months and well I guess if the Lord decides to bless us again then our time will come