The Second Child Question

Now that the miscarriage is well behind us...as in, life has continued forward at that break neck pace that comes with a growing toddler leaving me with just little snatches here and there in my days to contemplate what was lost, I've had this growing sense of the sacrifice it is to my one child to add another.

That's NOT to say that I'm seriously considering only ever having one child. By no means! I don't know what it is, evolutionary predilection of a species to want to produce in large numbers in times of plenty (which surely modern life qualifies), or the fact that I'm obsessed with birth and babies and want the chance to experience all of that again in this calmer, more observant place at which I now sit. Whatever it is, there's just no way I'd ever consider K to be my first AND last child. But, he IS my only child for the moment, and I'm ever more conscious of how much I give him, how much of me he takes, and what little there is left over for myself...much less another child!

A lot of people talk about the 'gifting' of a sibling to their first child. As though they're having a second simply to provide a playmate for their first. Which, is not a good reason. (or so I think) And, while I did, while pregnant with this past baby, think often of how great the two of them would get along, and how much my first WOULD enjoy the addition of a second, it was never a primary reason to have a second. Nor should it have been, because, as I see very clearly now, the addition of a second to a family structured such as ours is only taking AWAY something from the first and giving back very little in return.

Yes, there might be a time when they were playmates, and social skills developed more easily, or when the various 'mom'/parenting moments of the day seemed more 'fun' because of the dynamic of two children rather than one, but, mostly, I'd be draining away a good deal of my time away from my first.

Obviously, this isn't a horrible thing in my mind. There comes a time in every child's life when they can't have Mother around all the time, obviously. But, I wonder at the forcing of it. But, then what's the option, wait until my child avidly asks me for a sibling? Wait until he's grown and no longer needs much of my time? I don't have any answers because it's not really a thing I'm actually contemplating that hard. Given the right timing, yes, I'd have another right this moment, but while I'm waiting, I've been noticing....