After we had baby #3, my husband left full time military service and went to graduate school and then we made the decision for him to go on to a PhD in another country, where we were mostly living on savings and support from family and friends. All that was in a time frame where we thought we would be trying to conceive again. Many things made that feel impractical. Once he was done with that schooling, I suddenly had a moment, speaking to a young mom's group, that I didn't "fit" with that group anymore. I had moved on. It was a very strong sensation that I hadn't felt before. We took that as a sign that we were "done." Fast forward another 6 years to when child #3 was 10 and we had a surprise baby #4. Sometimes you're not the one who determines that you're done!
I love that you're discussing nuance in family planning! I always have a hard time explaining my "planning" style to people who just ask flat-out "So, are you done?" Or, after just giving birth to girl #4, "Are you going to try for a boy?" My answer then was "It's too soon!" Ask me in a few months!
Have I ever personally felt like I was "done"? No, and I'm not the kind of person to have strong gut feelings or "signal graces", yet. Our default mode is still "well if/when we have more kids..." and we still orient our lives toward the likelihood of having at least one more (possibly more than one more). But it does shift from "not right now, but probably eventually" to "it wouldn't be the end of the world if we got pregnant right now" to "ready for whatever" and so far it's never gotten past that stage before we did in fact have another.
I'm seeing some other comments about $2000 not being enough or not coming at the right time, etc. and I feel like this is a case where maybe we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. BUT we definitely can't let it be an excuse to do nothing else. I don't know all the answers but family-friendly society isn't built on laws and tax incentives alone, a huge part of it is cultural priorities. But you can't legislate a sudden culture change, so here we are. If we can't do a lot, that doesn't mean we should sit back and not even try.
*Did you ever feel you were ‘done’? Did that feeling persist or shift?*
Yes. Twice. After my first, in which he was born at 34w6d because I had toxemia, it was a rougher pregnancy. I said I wasn't having any more kids. It took me 2 full years before I started thinking about another child. #2 was born when #1 was 3.5yo. I went on to have 5 more after him, 1 girl, 3 more boys, and 1 more girl.
One year after #7 was born, my husband had just accepted a new job in a different state, and I kept noticing that something was off with newly minted toddler - then just before we finally all moved over said toddler was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. And the next year was devoted to learning how to take care of her. Everything seemed so final about #7 being the last one, the move, the diagnosis. My only other daughter finally got her long-awaited sister. It just felt like God, himself, was telling us we were done. So I was irrationally upset, thinking something was terribly wrong, when I found out I was pregnant with #8. I got over by the time she was born.
I gave up even pretending to believe in the illusion of a control I didn't actual possess. So for #9 and #10, I suppose one could call it ambivalence, I prefer acceptance of or at least acquiescence to God's plan.
When we were dating my husband and I both knew we wanted kids. He's one of two and he wanted two kids, I'm one of three and I wanted three kids. We talked about it and eventually came to the conclusion that we'd work it out when the time came; we felt that this was not an insurmountable difference, we both knew that babies don't always arrive when/how you plan them, etc. Flash forward two years and I'm pregnant with twins, and one of the (many!) things I worried about was, "Oh no, he's not going to want to have more kids! He always wanted two and after two at once there's no way he'll want to go for three!" Flash forward another 6 months and we're both sitting in our living room holding our infant twins. Almost without prompting we looked at each other and said, "We're going to have another baby, right?" "Oh yeah, definitely." "OK, great!" :-D We did of course have further discussions about timing and as it turns out I am not one of those people who can easily get pregnant while breastfeeding so that played a role, but we trusted to our ability to figure it out in the context of our life as we went along.
I have always felt weird about family planning questions. I know that many people *are* able to decide how many children they want and (approximately) when they want to have them, but that's just not been my experience. Even before getting married, I knew I might have trouble getting pregnant due to medical issues; we went through fertility treatment for a while with no success; we then ended up getting pregnant spontaneously during a break from treatment. (The most wanted unplanned pregnancy ever!) So every part of the process has been very much outside of our control.
Now, when people ask us if we want more kids, I say "We'd love more, but we didn't think we could have him! *shrug*" Show me a survey that can accommodate *that* level of nuance, lol!
I agree! When people say "are you planning to have another one?" I truly feel like they are saying "So it's been pretty dry lately, are you planning to have a thunderstorm?" There is zero correlation between my plan and reality so I just roll with what reality presents me with.
Did we ever think we were done? Yes, after the fourth child. We had 2 boys and 2 girls and were content. Youngest was 6 at the time. Our kids BEGGED us to have another one. We were torn, so we had our pastor over and sought advice from him. He said, "What's stopping you?" and we couldn't give a well thought out answer. We had no good reasons for not trying for another child, so we did. He's now 17. Absolutely no regrets.
My first and second are four years apart. Mostly because we ended up in a financial situation that caused me to stress out. We were in serious debt. I was able to combine two full time positions at work and negotiate a better salary. However, it was not good for family life. I ended up leaving for a remote job. Same salary but no benefits. The flexibility, though, of remote was less stressful in my family. I got pregnant five months later. During this time, my husband started to rethink three was too much. Mostly because we both have very demanding jobs that require our attention. Childcare is not cheap. I think if we had better childcare support, he might want a third. BUT I ended up having a second c section after a failed VBAC. It was worse than the first so now I’m done. I cannot mentally or physically do a third. I know a lot of women have had 3+ c sections, but I simply cannot do it. I have met other moms who also stopped at a second c section for the same reason. The recovery is awful. If we had c sections in our early 20s, then we’d have more. I’m closer to 40 than 30 so yea. For some, the physical recovery keeps us from wanting more. I worry, though, that I will regret it. But, baby is two months old so maybe over time I’ll live with the decision to stop.
I only have had one c-section, so far, but I can really tell how much less prepared my body is to recover from another. (Plus, you have to keep bigger kids away from the incision!)
Yes, recovery is awful. Second time I had the worse side effects.
I am also wondering a lot about desire/yearning vs God’s will. As mentioned, I wanted a third… but does my desire align with God if I’m feeling like I could not handle a third birthing? Does my hesitation come from God or my own grief?
When I have questions like that, I tend to bring it to God in prayer to ask for strong consolation if I should move forward, because it's hard for me to sort out these two factors. I say that I'll trust a "Yes" if He's giving me one, but if He's *already* giving me one, He needs to do it less subtly, because I'm not understanding Him.
I really liked this book on Ignatian discernment, including that you can just *ask* for clearer answers when you're confused and in turmoil: https://amzn.to/4tMzlHN
Thank you Leah, I just ordered the book! This question is on our minds: how to balance desire with responsibility -- since we wouldn't mind a third child but not sure we could manage a third. I would be 43 years old at earliest with the attendant health risks, and my husband doesn't want to deal with the newborn phase again (we don't have family around and he doesn't want to outsource much care as, "what's the point then?"). So we are most likely stopping at two, but I don't feel quite at peace, and hopefully prayer and this book you recommend will help! (I have read other books on Ignatian discernment but it still felt fuzzy...)
I felt real done after three babies in two years (2yo and twins). We were trying to avoid when we were blessed with our surprise #4. I had a 3yo and two 1yos, and I cried when I found out he was coming. To this day, at 20 years old, he continues to be my easiest, and I'm forever grateful God knew better than we did.
My first baby is five months old and I definitely don't feel like I'm done, but reading your article in The Dispatch made me reflect on how for probably the first time in ~four years, I feel SUPER STRONGLY that it would be a really bad time to get pregnant. As I got married we slid pretty naturally from "wouldn't mind avoiding" to "actively trying," were unfortunately stuck there for quite a while, then pregnant for nine months. Now that I have a young baby, I have this visceral fear of becoming pregnant by accident again--he's still so young! I still have so much physical fitness to rebuild!--and looking at it a bit detached, it's quite interesting that I feel the same way about pregnancy now that I felt when I was earlier in grad school. It's the cycle of life I guess!
Thanks for the explainer, Leah. If this new credit is indeed folded into the paperwork for SSN/birth certificate, that is huge. With each additional child I get increasingly cranky at the amount of administrative slog we have to do in the newborn phase. Anything we can do to cut down on that for new parents is a step in the right direction.
Yes! The bill is written so that when you fill out the SSA forms to get an SSN for your baby, they send info over to the IRS to initiate the payment. You just need to add one more form in the hospital room stack where you specify direct deposit info!
It's not that this is a bad thing, it's just that it only helps those who have more than $2000 in their tax bill. That's a lot of people, but not the poorest, who, by the way, are already eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit, which already increases per child (up to three) and is a very significant amount of money - up to $8,000 by the third child. AND the earned income credit is a refundable credit, meaning you get it even if you pay no taxes, so the poorest are still eligible for it. If you prepare tax returns, you know that Earned Income Credit tax return season is like Christmas in the communities of the poor.
This new credit also comes too late - by the time this check would show up, the baby is by definition at least five months old, and possibly seventeen. The big bills hit much sooner than that.
It's a kindly thought, but likely to be entirely ineffectual in terms of changing behavior. In aspirational terms, though, maybe it's worth having Congress make the statement of support for mothers and babies.
Actually, it's fully refundable as a credit! You don't need to owe taxes to qualify!
I'm not sure where you're getting the at least 5 months or possibly 17mo old? This comes a month or two after the baby is born, outside of tax time, specifically to cover the gap of e.g. the CTC which doesn't come until you next file taxes.
Good to know, and especially good to know that this timing angle - and the poverty angle - have been considered. I am cheerfully withdrawing those comments.l
Many women are up against the biological deadline of fertility loss at age 40. Yes women do have babies later but often not. We have not found ways to work around this by policies which support women having babies during their 20's and 30's when they are pursuing higher education and careers. Also $2000 is a drop in the bucket of the costs of pregnancy and raising a child. A good place to start would be universal healthcare and subsidized childcare. We should actually be collecting more in taxes not less but tax the right people.
I definitely don’t feel done we’re, after 3 in 4.5 years, planning to slow down. 😅
I have a friend who is delaying baby #2 because of finances, childcare is so expensive. Thankfully I work half time (and mostly from home) and we have my parents to help so we haven’t felt external childcare costs too bad.
I wish I could support legislation like this, but the involvement of any Republican in ANY kind of birth-encouragement law means the law is mostly designed to kick women out of the workforce, education, and eventually public life entirely. Until the Republican Party and conservatives as a whole accept the fact that women are something more than 3D printers for new males, I cannot support, endorse, or, in fact, do anything but condemn all initiatives of this kind. Either women are fully human or we’re not. So far, the answer from the Republican Party is that we are not.
"For Guttmacher, this suggested more outreach about preventing pregnancy should be directed at men. Ideally, “helping men as well as women clarify their pregnancy desires—and align pregnancy attitudes and plans with contraceptive practices—could help improve contraceptive use and reduce unintended pregnancies.” Notably, the researchers do not note a parallel possible benefit: that of helping some couples clarify their desires, drop contraceptives more deliberately, and achieve pregnancy sooner."
What stands out to me is that puts a new spin on accidental pregnancies. Since women are often the ones who determine whether they will use family planning methods, do we as a society presume pregnancy is solely up to women? If women are ambivalent, might that help us understand their behavior regarding family planning? Conscious/unconscious motivations might matter here, and it would behoove women to understand their own feelings and behaviors.
After we had baby #3, my husband left full time military service and went to graduate school and then we made the decision for him to go on to a PhD in another country, where we were mostly living on savings and support from family and friends. All that was in a time frame where we thought we would be trying to conceive again. Many things made that feel impractical. Once he was done with that schooling, I suddenly had a moment, speaking to a young mom's group, that I didn't "fit" with that group anymore. I had moved on. It was a very strong sensation that I hadn't felt before. We took that as a sign that we were "done." Fast forward another 6 years to when child #3 was 10 and we had a surprise baby #4. Sometimes you're not the one who determines that you're done!
I love that you're discussing nuance in family planning! I always have a hard time explaining my "planning" style to people who just ask flat-out "So, are you done?" Or, after just giving birth to girl #4, "Are you going to try for a boy?" My answer then was "It's too soon!" Ask me in a few months!
Have I ever personally felt like I was "done"? No, and I'm not the kind of person to have strong gut feelings or "signal graces", yet. Our default mode is still "well if/when we have more kids..." and we still orient our lives toward the likelihood of having at least one more (possibly more than one more). But it does shift from "not right now, but probably eventually" to "it wouldn't be the end of the world if we got pregnant right now" to "ready for whatever" and so far it's never gotten past that stage before we did in fact have another.
I'm seeing some other comments about $2000 not being enough or not coming at the right time, etc. and I feel like this is a case where maybe we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. BUT we definitely can't let it be an excuse to do nothing else. I don't know all the answers but family-friendly society isn't built on laws and tax incentives alone, a huge part of it is cultural priorities. But you can't legislate a sudden culture change, so here we are. If we can't do a lot, that doesn't mean we should sit back and not even try.
*Did you ever feel you were ‘done’? Did that feeling persist or shift?*
Yes. Twice. After my first, in which he was born at 34w6d because I had toxemia, it was a rougher pregnancy. I said I wasn't having any more kids. It took me 2 full years before I started thinking about another child. #2 was born when #1 was 3.5yo. I went on to have 5 more after him, 1 girl, 3 more boys, and 1 more girl.
One year after #7 was born, my husband had just accepted a new job in a different state, and I kept noticing that something was off with newly minted toddler - then just before we finally all moved over said toddler was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. And the next year was devoted to learning how to take care of her. Everything seemed so final about #7 being the last one, the move, the diagnosis. My only other daughter finally got her long-awaited sister. It just felt like God, himself, was telling us we were done. So I was irrationally upset, thinking something was terribly wrong, when I found out I was pregnant with #8. I got over by the time she was born.
I gave up even pretending to believe in the illusion of a control I didn't actual possess. So for #9 and #10, I suppose one could call it ambivalence, I prefer acceptance of or at least acquiescence to God's plan.
When we were dating my husband and I both knew we wanted kids. He's one of two and he wanted two kids, I'm one of three and I wanted three kids. We talked about it and eventually came to the conclusion that we'd work it out when the time came; we felt that this was not an insurmountable difference, we both knew that babies don't always arrive when/how you plan them, etc. Flash forward two years and I'm pregnant with twins, and one of the (many!) things I worried about was, "Oh no, he's not going to want to have more kids! He always wanted two and after two at once there's no way he'll want to go for three!" Flash forward another 6 months and we're both sitting in our living room holding our infant twins. Almost without prompting we looked at each other and said, "We're going to have another baby, right?" "Oh yeah, definitely." "OK, great!" :-D We did of course have further discussions about timing and as it turns out I am not one of those people who can easily get pregnant while breastfeeding so that played a role, but we trusted to our ability to figure it out in the context of our life as we went along.
I have always felt weird about family planning questions. I know that many people *are* able to decide how many children they want and (approximately) when they want to have them, but that's just not been my experience. Even before getting married, I knew I might have trouble getting pregnant due to medical issues; we went through fertility treatment for a while with no success; we then ended up getting pregnant spontaneously during a break from treatment. (The most wanted unplanned pregnancy ever!) So every part of the process has been very much outside of our control.
Now, when people ask us if we want more kids, I say "We'd love more, but we didn't think we could have him! *shrug*" Show me a survey that can accommodate *that* level of nuance, lol!
Yes, because of my losses, the idea of a "plan" has felt very theoretical to me ever since miscarriage #2.
Yes, "planning" can fall apart in multiple ways: infertility, loss, or or even unexpectedly *high* fertility!
I agree! When people say "are you planning to have another one?" I truly feel like they are saying "So it's been pretty dry lately, are you planning to have a thunderstorm?" There is zero correlation between my plan and reality so I just roll with what reality presents me with.
Did we ever think we were done? Yes, after the fourth child. We had 2 boys and 2 girls and were content. Youngest was 6 at the time. Our kids BEGGED us to have another one. We were torn, so we had our pastor over and sought advice from him. He said, "What's stopping you?" and we couldn't give a well thought out answer. We had no good reasons for not trying for another child, so we did. He's now 17. Absolutely no regrets.
My first and second are four years apart. Mostly because we ended up in a financial situation that caused me to stress out. We were in serious debt. I was able to combine two full time positions at work and negotiate a better salary. However, it was not good for family life. I ended up leaving for a remote job. Same salary but no benefits. The flexibility, though, of remote was less stressful in my family. I got pregnant five months later. During this time, my husband started to rethink three was too much. Mostly because we both have very demanding jobs that require our attention. Childcare is not cheap. I think if we had better childcare support, he might want a third. BUT I ended up having a second c section after a failed VBAC. It was worse than the first so now I’m done. I cannot mentally or physically do a third. I know a lot of women have had 3+ c sections, but I simply cannot do it. I have met other moms who also stopped at a second c section for the same reason. The recovery is awful. If we had c sections in our early 20s, then we’d have more. I’m closer to 40 than 30 so yea. For some, the physical recovery keeps us from wanting more. I worry, though, that I will regret it. But, baby is two months old so maybe over time I’ll live with the decision to stop.
I only have had one c-section, so far, but I can really tell how much less prepared my body is to recover from another. (Plus, you have to keep bigger kids away from the incision!)
Yes, recovery is awful. Second time I had the worse side effects.
I am also wondering a lot about desire/yearning vs God’s will. As mentioned, I wanted a third… but does my desire align with God if I’m feeling like I could not handle a third birthing? Does my hesitation come from God or my own grief?
When I have questions like that, I tend to bring it to God in prayer to ask for strong consolation if I should move forward, because it's hard for me to sort out these two factors. I say that I'll trust a "Yes" if He's giving me one, but if He's *already* giving me one, He needs to do it less subtly, because I'm not understanding Him.
I really liked this book on Ignatian discernment, including that you can just *ask* for clearer answers when you're confused and in turmoil: https://amzn.to/4tMzlHN
Asking is a way of trusting.
Thank you Leah, I just ordered the book! This question is on our minds: how to balance desire with responsibility -- since we wouldn't mind a third child but not sure we could manage a third. I would be 43 years old at earliest with the attendant health risks, and my husband doesn't want to deal with the newborn phase again (we don't have family around and he doesn't want to outsource much care as, "what's the point then?"). So we are most likely stopping at two, but I don't feel quite at peace, and hopefully prayer and this book you recommend will help! (I have read other books on Ignatian discernment but it still felt fuzzy...)
I'll pray for your clarity and your peace <3
I felt real done after three babies in two years (2yo and twins). We were trying to avoid when we were blessed with our surprise #4. I had a 3yo and two 1yos, and I cried when I found out he was coming. To this day, at 20 years old, he continues to be my easiest, and I'm forever grateful God knew better than we did.
And it *is* very reasonable to be TTA there / feel overwhelmed when you're surprised. Just want to say that explicitly!
My first baby is five months old and I definitely don't feel like I'm done, but reading your article in The Dispatch made me reflect on how for probably the first time in ~four years, I feel SUPER STRONGLY that it would be a really bad time to get pregnant. As I got married we slid pretty naturally from "wouldn't mind avoiding" to "actively trying," were unfortunately stuck there for quite a while, then pregnant for nine months. Now that I have a young baby, I have this visceral fear of becoming pregnant by accident again--he's still so young! I still have so much physical fitness to rebuild!--and looking at it a bit detached, it's quite interesting that I feel the same way about pregnancy now that I felt when I was earlier in grad school. It's the cycle of life I guess!
Thanks for the explainer, Leah. If this new credit is indeed folded into the paperwork for SSN/birth certificate, that is huge. With each additional child I get increasingly cranky at the amount of administrative slog we have to do in the newborn phase. Anything we can do to cut down on that for new parents is a step in the right direction.
Yes! The bill is written so that when you fill out the SSA forms to get an SSN for your baby, they send info over to the IRS to initiate the payment. You just need to add one more form in the hospital room stack where you specify direct deposit info!
It's not that this is a bad thing, it's just that it only helps those who have more than $2000 in their tax bill. That's a lot of people, but not the poorest, who, by the way, are already eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit, which already increases per child (up to three) and is a very significant amount of money - up to $8,000 by the third child. AND the earned income credit is a refundable credit, meaning you get it even if you pay no taxes, so the poorest are still eligible for it. If you prepare tax returns, you know that Earned Income Credit tax return season is like Christmas in the communities of the poor.
This new credit also comes too late - by the time this check would show up, the baby is by definition at least five months old, and possibly seventeen. The big bills hit much sooner than that.
It's a kindly thought, but likely to be entirely ineffectual in terms of changing behavior. In aspirational terms, though, maybe it's worth having Congress make the statement of support for mothers and babies.
Actually, it's fully refundable as a credit! You don't need to owe taxes to qualify!
I'm not sure where you're getting the at least 5 months or possibly 17mo old? This comes a month or two after the baby is born, outside of tax time, specifically to cover the gap of e.g. the CTC which doesn't come until you next file taxes.
Good to know, and especially good to know that this timing angle - and the poverty angle - have been considered. I am cheerfully withdrawing those comments.l
My pleasure! You're right that a lot of family policy has a gap here.
Many women are up against the biological deadline of fertility loss at age 40. Yes women do have babies later but often not. We have not found ways to work around this by policies which support women having babies during their 20's and 30's when they are pursuing higher education and careers. Also $2000 is a drop in the bucket of the costs of pregnancy and raising a child. A good place to start would be universal healthcare and subsidized childcare. We should actually be collecting more in taxes not less but tax the right people.
I definitely don’t feel done we’re, after 3 in 4.5 years, planning to slow down. 😅
I have a friend who is delaying baby #2 because of finances, childcare is so expensive. Thankfully I work half time (and mostly from home) and we have my parents to help so we haven’t felt external childcare costs too bad.
I wish I could support legislation like this, but the involvement of any Republican in ANY kind of birth-encouragement law means the law is mostly designed to kick women out of the workforce, education, and eventually public life entirely. Until the Republican Party and conservatives as a whole accept the fact that women are something more than 3D printers for new males, I cannot support, endorse, or, in fact, do anything but condemn all initiatives of this kind. Either women are fully human or we’re not. So far, the answer from the Republican Party is that we are not.
"For Guttmacher, this suggested more outreach about preventing pregnancy should be directed at men. Ideally, “helping men as well as women clarify their pregnancy desires—and align pregnancy attitudes and plans with contraceptive practices—could help improve contraceptive use and reduce unintended pregnancies.” Notably, the researchers do not note a parallel possible benefit: that of helping some couples clarify their desires, drop contraceptives more deliberately, and achieve pregnancy sooner."
What stands out to me is that puts a new spin on accidental pregnancies. Since women are often the ones who determine whether they will use family planning methods, do we as a society presume pregnancy is solely up to women? If women are ambivalent, might that help us understand their behavior regarding family planning? Conscious/unconscious motivations might matter here, and it would behoove women to understand their own feelings and behaviors.
Congrats on the new job at IFP!
Thank you!