Matt and I had a conversation about birth control and our future baby plans. As far as he's concerned, he's fine with just having one baby, and if my opinion didn't matter, we would go back on birth control, he would work on his music career, and we would get this whole parenting thing under control. Then once we were a little more stable, we could discuss baby #2.
I don't do well with open-ended plans. I'm not saying I want to set a date for when we're going to start TTC again, but I'd like something a little more specific than 'when we're more stable' and 'his music career is more established'. Especially since he's been on working getting said music career established for almost as long as we've been together: 12 years ago, yesterday. I don't particularly want to be adding another baby after 35. Not saying it can't be done, but I just don't want to be pushing 40 with a kindergartner.
He also doesn't think I'm going to be ready to be done after #2. I am a self-declared planner. I'm always looking for the next thing to plan. I've always been like that, and he's convinced that we're going to have #2 and I'm going to decide that our family just doesn't feel complete, that I need more to plan.
And if I'm brutally honest with myself, deep down, I think he might be right. And it makes me sad. Not that he's right, but because some of my reasons for having a second baby are selfish. There has been so much drama and negativity surrounding my pregnancy and the first few months of Hannah's life that I want a do over. I want a chance to just enjoy being pregnant, not worrying about jobs and my thesis and where we're going to live and how we're going to pay for XYZ. We'd have a better idea of what we're doing; I feel like Hannah and I don't have a great connection and I can't help feeling like I did something to cause that. But that's selfish on my part. I'd be bringing another human into the world for something for myself.
He also wants to be able to have spontaneous sex and we can't since condoms are just not comfortable for us. So we have to wait at least 15 minutes for what we're using to kick-in if I'm not the one initiating. He realizes this is a selfish reason for me to go back on birth control. But he also made the very good point that if we're not talking about #2 any time soon, my whole reason for not going back on birth control (to figure out what my cycle is going to do on its own now that I've had a baby so we have a better chance of conceiving faster next time) is pretty much mute.
*sigh* I have never thought of only have one. Not there is something wrong with it; it just has never been the plan. I'll admit that spontaneous sex would be nice again. Especially since sometimes all we get is 15 minutes. And while I don't miss getting my period, I would be less stressed if it just would follow some sort of schedule.
As much as we needed to talk about it, I didn't come out of the conversation feeling any better. If anything, I feel worse. All of his points were very valid, and I find myself running out of logical arguments. All I've got are feelings. There's nothing wrong with making decisions based on feelings; they just don't always stand up in the face of facts and logical arguments.
I wish there was a zone of compromise when it comes to having children. Either we're both going to be happy about having a second one or we're both going to be unhappy about not having a second one (me about not having one and Matt for making me unhappy); there is no middle ground. If he puts his foot down and says he's confident that he is happy with one, there isn't much I can do about it.
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