Baby Number Two

Don't have a heart attack, Mom. There is no baby number two. This is just me expressing my thoughts on the subject.

I feel and have felt for a while that the decision to have baby number two will be twenty nine times more intense than the decision to have baby number one (i.e. Noelle).

I am hit with conflicting thoughts about the topic. In many ways, I know that I am not ready for a second child. Financially, it scares me. Daycare is expensive. Everything else, I feel I have absorbed just fine in my "budget" (WHAT BUDGET?) by making sacrifices in other areas. But the daycare...holy hell. It sucks. Daycare in general sucks-- not because I think they don't take good care of Noelle, but because I am paying someone else to play with her, see her smiles, hear her giggles, and all the while I am sprouting gray hairs like I can sell them on eBay due my stress at school.

That brings me to my next point. Is it morally correct to have another child when I know that I am not going to be able to stay home with him/her? When I know that this baby will have years of daycare in his/her future? I feel like Noelle is such a trooper and is just going with the flow...and I feel like she is our little battle warrior baby...but why would I subject another child to long days away from their home?

Is Noelle ready to be a big sister? That sentence almost is comical. She is still such a baby herself. But...in 9 months...or a year...or 18 months.... will she be ready? Will she be ready to share us? Should we only have one child?

But then I get into the cold, hard, facts. My pregnancy with Noelle was flawless, including being 7 cm dilated before I even went into active labor. If I can get my mind to forget about the nearly 4 hours of pushing, I think I would just go around being a professional baby-haver. It was that easy and "textbook" as my doctor put it. Noelle has been the perfect baby. Not a health problem...only one sick baby visit in 10 months. Sleeping through the night at 8 weeks. Sleeping the second her body falls into a car seat. Smiling, laughing, waving, giggling, saying "Cat..." she's perfect. Why wouldn't I have another one? Why do I have any reason to believe that any subsequent children won't be this wonderful?

When will I know that we are ready to expand our family? When will my heart with the battle with my head? I find myself feeling the way I did before I got pregnant with Noelle...jealous of the pregnant women I see around me and wondering when it will be my turn.

Seriously...no comments, Mom. ;-)