No More Berger Babies

When I got married, I wanted six kids. Then I had one, and my pregnancy seemed eternal and I was SO. SICK, and I thought, okay, how about not six. Then I had another, and I wasn't so sick, but my body aches were awful. At the end, my sciatica was so bad I couldn't even walk across my living room without leaning on something. I was 22. I thought, maybe we'll have two more. Then, when my second baby turned out to be super clingy and allergic to sleeping through the night, I tried to get Aaron to have a vasectomy. He refused; he said we were too young and we'd regret it. Wouldn't you know he was right? Don't you just hate when your husband is right? So a year passes and I want to try for another. We do, and we lose the baby. (They say you can start trying for a baby right off birth control, and maybe some women can, but both times I have, I've miscarried. But I digress.) So while Aaron was in Iraq, we both did some serious thinking. We had two wonderful children. They were both potty-trained. They were both weaned. We had a rhythm, and a pattern, and were we sure we wanted to mess around with that? But I wanted a homebirth. I wanted to cloth diaper a baby from the beginning. Neither of which is a good reason to have a baby, in my opinion. I didn't want to have another BABY just to say I'd had a HOMEBIRTH, you understand? I did a lot of thinking, a lot of soul-searching, and I just knew, knew that there was another child waiting for us to get on the ball so he or she could join our family. So then I had to talk Aaron into it. I knew that I wouldn't be able to feel peaceful with our family knowing that it wasn't complete. So we got pregnant, and from the beginning, it kicked my butt! At 5 weeks, I had a staph infection and had to be put on antibiotics that made me violently ill. I had to fight with the nurses to change my medication because they kept telling me it was just morning sickness. Trust me, I could tell the difference. But, lucky me, my morning sickness started up really soon thereafter. And it was AWFUL. So. Sick. I lay on the couch for weeks. At 13 weeks, we moved. I was useless. And the whole time, I thought THIS IS MY LAST PREGNANCY. Everyone told me I was silly and I would want more, 26 is too young to be finished with your family. Seems like they were all ignoring the fact that I'd NEVER felt done before and that 26 is plenty old enough when you've got three kids! As soon as Jack was born, my family felt perfect. He's the candles on the birthday cake that is the Bergers. Still, every so often I think how much I love having a newborn. How I feel like a goddess for about a month when I'm round and not puking but not a house yet. How his birth was so empowering and I want to do it again! And then I remember the puking, the pain, the sleeplessness, etc.
I had a scare last week. I was about 4 days late, and although I've been keeping pretty close track of my cycles and this was only my 3rd cycle since getting my period back (so it could very well be irregular still) I bought a test. I spent a couple days asking myself, "What if I am pregnant?" And the answer would come, "So you'll have a baby." But I didn't WANT a baby. I have a baby. He's only a year old. IF we had another, I'd want it to be in a year or so. But do I want another baby at all? I think the true answer to that comes in the two minutes after you've peed on the stick and before the blue lines show up. And my answer was ABSOLUTELY NOT! I truly, truly, am done making tiny people. The ones I've made are so great! And they keep me very busy. And, more importantly, I don't feel like there's anyone else missing. I've never envisioned Jack as a big brother. I've never seen myself pregnant again. I am done having babies. I realize now that there are phases to marriage and child-having. I've spent the last 9 years making babies and nursing babies and changing babies and planning the next baby. Of course, watching them grow, helping them grow, and all the blessings that come with that. But now, I look toward my family's future and I don't see anymore babies, only big kids. I'm so excited about this phase! This new phase of only big kids, and all the fun THAT entails. I can't wait.