For those of you who do not know too much about me, let me give you a little bit of a background story.
My daughter is almost 9 1/2 months old (the 15th of this month!). We recently purchased a home (December 20th) and I recently accrued a great amount of debt. (Got to love graduating from college... and realizing, 'Holy crap. How will I EVER pay this off?') Not to mention the fact that I'm not exactly working right now. We decided that it would be more beneficial for me to be a stay-at-home-mommy for the time being and that I would search for a job after our kid/kids go off to school. It is just more important to us that I be home with Tayler right now. Plus, we are fine with the financial situation (or at least we were until this darn loans started to have to be paid off... but fortunately, I baby-sit and sell Scentsy, so I can at least make that payment!)
The house we recently purchased is two bedroom. The bedroom downstairs is on the smaller side (plus it's downstairs.. I don't want my baby all the way down there without me.. Yes, I'm on the protective side ;) haha) And the bedroom upstairs was converted from 2 bedrooms to one uber large room. We aren't complaining-- we LOVE it. For as long as we've been together, we've always had a small bedroom where everything was crammed in there, so this is perfect for us for the time being.
Well.... if you haven't gathered what I'm about to say from this blog, I'll go ahead and say it:
We are SO not ready for another baby.
I know, I know... everyone says there's no perfect time to have a child, but I seriously can't help but think it would not be smart for us to have another one right now.
Of course, I have two sides pulling at me. On one hand, I'm almost 25. I'm not getting any younger... We wanted to have 3-4 children (Oh, don't look at us like that ;) We have always wanted a large family!) So, it would be smart for us to have another baby (or at least get pregnant some time this year!) Plus, I love babies. If I found out I were pregnant today, Tayler would be almost 18 months old when the next one graced us with their presence. I think that's a good age, right?
Then, there's that other side that pulls on me that says, "People are going to think this is a bad decision and terrible timing." And not only do I worry about people, but I worry about the welfare of our family. I have a huge student loan debt, we just purchased a home... Do we really need to bring another life into this world when we don't know what kind of life we can REALLY give it? We've always wanted our children to have a 'good' life. We never wanted to have to worry about being able to afford their needs or their wants... Plus, there's the room issue. We would have to save money and add on to our home or at least convert the upstairs back into two bedrooms which is, of course, going to take money and work.
...then the baby-wanting side pulls on me yet again with things like: "You're not getting out of that debt any time soon, so you might as well just do it!" And that's true. We have a 30 year mortgage... it's an estimated 30 years to pay back my student loans. We can't very well wait until I'm almost 55 to have another child. Good heavens, Tayler will be 30 years old, haha!
It's just a tough situation where we are not exactly sure what we want to do.. or for that matter, what we SHOULD do. I see both sides of the situation. I see where it may be selfish of us to reproduce so soon... but then I see where it also will be selfish of us not to. We feel Tayler deserves a brother or a sister. We feel that we want at least one more baby to make our family feel complete.
Do any of you struggle with having a larger family? Do you have these conversations in your head as well? (Please tell me I'm not the only one!! haha!!) What are your thoughts?
I have to say I love that you're at least thinking before acting. So many people just give into impulse and don't think about the consequences of adding another child to a family.
ReplyDeleteFirst, thank you Rachel. We haven't always been 'thinkers' when it came to decision making (hence getting pregnant with Tayler after only dating for 5 months, lol) but with the next, we want to be sure that we are being 'smart' about it :)
DeleteJust give it time and whatever God has in store for you he will allow it. I was stressing right before Anthony and I got engaged about my student loan and couldn't fathom how I was ever going to pay it off but Anthony just assured me that almost everyone has them and they aren't expected to be paid off immediately but if you just pay the expected they will eventually get paid off...however I pray to God that one day I will get lucky and we will have a winning lottery ticket, but we that would also involve us buying a ticket so no idea how that is going to work?! Just give it time and think that if you do have another baby then you will still be at home with Taylor and then it when she goes to school it won't be long until the 2nd goes and you can return to work. But since you want 3-4 (which is what I want too!) its going to atleast be until they are all in school or your Mom will be retired and she can babysit for you (:
ReplyDeleteBritt- I pray for a lottery ticket too. Maybe we can go in on one together? ;) haha! But yes, it is hard to fathom that a lot of people have student loan debt. It just looks so intimdating when you are facing it yourself, you know? But I have been praying about the right time to ttc, so now, I guess, we just wait for Him!
DeleteSometimes I feel like we had Raegan too soon but we are definitely going to wait a while for number 2. We put the offer in on our house 2 weeks before we found out we were pregnant. It's all turning out ok, money is a little tighter than we like but what are you gonna do? We hope that by the end of the year I can be a stay-at-home mom full time.
ReplyDeleteKelly- How long are you planning on waiting? I don't know if you guys have a time period in mind or what. I feel like sometimes we would be rushing this, but then sometimes, I feel like we could be ttc now. It's a confusing process. I hope that you can become a stay at home mommy soon though! It is definitely a joy and I am thankful that I am able to do it!
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