A Baby Brother?

The boy will be three in March. He’s long gone from being a baby, and is even losing his toddler ways. More and more, I’m seeing a little boy when I look at him. We’re enduring the TERRIBLE twos at the moment. Defiant. Tantrums. Enough attitude for his own punk band and then some to spare. He has his own little group of friends from creche, whom he loves. And now he wants a baby brother.

He’s been asking for a while. He’s gone so far as to pat my tummy and announce (thankfully just to me) “My baby brudda?”. Ahem, kid, fat shaming you is not getting you closer to a sibling. It’s come to a head of late because his little friend is getting a new baby brother in February, big source of conversation. There’s been a few “Mummy, Daddy, E, Baby Brudda” mentions. What can I say, the kid likes a theme.

I’ve written before about not caring what other people thought about if and when I should reproduce again. I’ve heard all the “He’ll be lonely”, “Ah, you can’t leave him an only child”, “Would you not go again?” and, brilliantly, “Ah but sure try for the girl, wouldn’t it be lovely”. Now that he’s nearly three, it seems to be considered socially acceptable to ask about my womb status. Enough time has passed that I’ve surely decided that I need another baby in my life. Sure, what does anyone want sleep for? The child himself asking though, thats been a new one. I know they all do it, but it’s easy to ignore the “He’ll be lonely/he’d love a brother” stuff from others. Not so much when he’s looking at me with those big brown eyes and saying “baby brudda mummy?”

Before I got pregnant on him, I would have said that I definitely wanted at least two kids, if not three. Relatively close together in age, so they’d be friends, and that the full on baby days would all be done at once. In my head this was all in my thirties, or at least over the age of 28. Now I look at incredible women who have their smallies close together (Kellie from My Little Babog is one such hero) and I can’t imagine dealing with the chaos myself.

Life has happened. I was bad at pregnancy. I was killed with morning sickness and heartburn, got a back injury half way through, sinus infections to beat the band, and then in and out of hospital with kidney infections and high blood pressure. Add the pre-eclampsia and the postnatal depression to the mix and you might see why I’m not in a rush anymore.

It’s not that I definitely don’t want another baby. I just definitely don’t want one right now. The future, well, that’s to be decided down the road.

I’m only 25. Statistically speaking, I’ve got ten good years to change my mind before my fertility starts to wane, all going well. My priority at the moment is being the best I can be for the son I do have. I’m still needing medication for the back injury and the depression on a daily basis. My body is not currently fit for purpose, so adding a pregnancy onto it is unlikely to end well. Both myself and himself are working full time, I’m looking at heading back to college alongside working, it’s a busy time. It’s not a time for a new baby, that’s for sure.

So when E comes up to me and pats my (food baby) tummy and announces that it’s his baby brother, I’ll leave him off. He can make little friends elsewhere, and get the joy of not having to share all of his at-home toys too. Can’t argue with that, right?

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Me and my empty uterus like to post stuff on Facebook.