Another Baby?

First of all let me say that I am truly amazed at how fast time has passed and how my little Lily is going to be 7 months old. This year has been the fastest year of my entire life. Why do the shitty years last forever and the truly wonderful years just fly by? I guess that's a question for the universe t0 answer. I think having children is what really speeds up the clock. They grow up so fast and discover so many new things and pass milestones every week and it all just flies by. In a flash. Just last week my sister told me that Lily was sitting up in her crib. She had put her down flat on her back in her crib and when she came in to get her she had managed to sit up. All in one day she figured it out. She can now roll over from her tummy to her back, sit up straight for long periods of time unassisted and go from her belly to sitting up. I think crawling and standing on her own are not far off. I was rocking her to sleep the other night and I got tears in my eyes thinking of her being all grown up. Mother's can't rock grown ups to sleep anymore. Mother's can't feed their grown up children and wipe their mouths and kiss them one thousand times a day. You can't give them baths and sing crazy made up songs and make them laugh and giggle and coo when they are all grown up. I guess you could do these things but it would be weird. It dawned on me that this time when she is my baby is passing. Every day she needs me just a tiny bit less. Every day she figures out the world a little bit more on her own. And every day she lets me hold her for just a little less long before she wants to move out of my arms and wiggle around on her mat by herself. My new favorite thing is when I'm holding her or rocking her to sleep and she gazes up at me with her big blue eyes. Or when I'm driving and I look back at her and she's craning her neck to try and look at me from her car seat. I wait until a stop light and I look back at her and touch her sweet little head and she smiles. I don't think it's possible for me to love another human being more than I love her.

After saying all that the big question is do I want another baby. It seems like there is a six month grace period before people start asking about baby #2. My grace period is up and now the world is free to ask me this question. I love that people seem to forget that it took nearly four years to conceive her. They forget about my infertile past and just assume that now that I have a baby I'll just be a fertile myrtle and another baby will just be a piece of cake. Well it's not that easy for me. It's hard. It's really really hard to even think about going through all of that again. I was actually at a party this past weekend and two women were talking about this woman they know that has only one child and how selfish she is. Man, sometimes women can just be bitches. I can't tell you how many times I've heard the same thing about only children "they're selfish, spoiled, hard people to deal with, ADD, socially inept, loners". And the list goes on. I really don't know that many people with close relationships with their siblings. I have a sister and a brother who are 6 and 8 years older than me. None of us are particularly close. We like each other and we spend time together on holidays and sometimes socially. I felt like an only child while I was growing up because I had no relationship with them at all. I don't think either one noticed that I existed until I was 20. I was blessed with wonderful girlfriends at an early age and we are all still friends even now. They felt more like sisters to me than any family member ever could. They are the ones I called during every crisis and every heartbreak. My daughter will play with their kids like cousins since they are all around the same age. She will have lots of friends. But am I a bad mother if I don't give her a brother or a sister? My husband desperately wants another child. Especially a son. Am I bad wife if I don't want to go through this again? Yes, it was all worth it. I'm happy with Lily. I love being her mother. How would another baby change our relationship. She wouldn't be the baby anymore. I would have less time to dote on her and enjoy every smile, laugh and every amazing little thing that she does. Would another baby make me crankier and more tired than I already am and turn me into one of those mother's that I don't want to become. Or just inattentive because I'm too busy which could possibly be the worst thing of all.

I just don't know that I can do it again. I feel like my entire thirties were spent "trying" to have a baby. The timed intercourse, the trips to the fertility clinic, the miscarriages, the hopes and disappointments. It consumed every detail of my life for 4 long years. Now my life is about something completely different. The pain of those four years is finally starting to fade into the background. Those painful memories are being replaced by wonderful and beautiful experiences with my daughter. I'm happy. I am really and truly completely happy. Probably for the first time in my life.

I'm completely impressed by so many of my blog friends that escaped the trenches of infertilty and are already back in the stirrups trying and/or pregnant with baby #2. I truly commend you. I admire you. I just don't think I can do it. Maybe I'll change my mind. Thoughts?