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[quote=Anonymous]I think I'm sort of starting to have baby fever.  I have two boys who are 6.5 and 3.5 years old.  I had a c-section with my 1st, VBAC with my 2nd and got 12 weeks maternity leave with each  (partially unpaid).  I breastfed both for roughly 2 years including pumping until they were each at least 12 months. I have always said I'd like 2-3 kids and we've decided that we are done but aren't ready to make permanent changes or close the door 100%.  I got the full "experience" of having my babies and we are moving on with the next stage of life.  I've gotten rid of ALLL my baby supplies like a year ago, moved into a single family home, finally have an incredible neighborhood, and I got a new job that allows me better flexibility (it's with our local school system) so I get a month off in the summer in addition to scheduled holidays/breaks.

My experiences with my pregnancies and postpartum was overall horrible.  Medically, I was fine but I believe I struggled with perinatal anxiety and my mood was all over the place.  I believe I developed some postpartum depression and anxiety after returning to work due to the profound stress placed upon.  My 1st employer discriminated against me when I needed to pump and ended up telling me that my breastpumping made him uncomfortable and created a 3 page policy on breastfeeding! I commuted almost an hour each way to work and I was away from my child almost 12 hours a day M-F.  My 2nd pregnancy, I changed jobs between my 1st and 2nd trimester due to how horrible my job became and the transition was SO hard during my pregnancy.  My body ACHED and I had to work crazy hours, weekends, and while I was 2 minutes from home....my hours at times were longer.  I had no time to decompress (and my car time had become my decompress time).  I experienced some discrimination there too and was told to arrange my pumping times before work, I was told again that I wasn't allowed to chart and pump so my hours became very long and I was told that I basically was doing a crappy job postpartum, shamed, and the stress resulted in me going to a counselor who indicated that it was really work related stress, not postpartum depression.

Childcare has been a HUGE, HUGE issue in my area.  I was told I was a neglectful mother to my face for not sending formula and requesting that they not discard my breastmilk that i fought so hard to produce.  Lost childcare, sick days, appointments....it was horrible!! In the early days, we had 2 sets of grandparents willing to drive 2 hours each way to help us for a few days when needed.  We now have ZERO help as my parents are aging, my FIL died, and my MIL is disabled. We rely on friends/neighbors/community support for emergent childcare. The cost of childcare at one point even put is into debt when I was at my first job.

This was all traumatic.  I keep wishing that there was more support for parents in our country and in my area because if it wasn't for all that, I would actually want a 3rd child.  I'm 33 so I've got some time but not a ton of time.  Despite ALLLL of this, part of me is longing for another and my husband has begun asking if I'm wanting another baby.  It's totally unrealistic and there's a pandemic....so many reasons why I should NOT have another child but part of me is like...yeah, you want one.

Does anyone else struggle with this?? What have you done?

Not sure if this was the right forum but here we are.

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