PP, I understand your thought process. But there is another side to that. Do you really think the pain of losing one child would be made any easier by the fact that there is another child there? After the tragedy in Newton - my husband's first thought was - "what if any of those poor babies were only children?". But my first thought was - "wow, now i really don't want to have another - with two kids walking around, double the chance something horrible could happen to one of my kids!" Anyway, my point being - you can have "morbid" thoughts either way you go with this. Just part of being a parent!

Just saw this thread and its very timely for me. I have a newborn at home and my husband is already wanting to discuss a second! To be fair, we do need to make a decision asap on that as I am older (will be 40 this year) and conceiving this one required IVF. However, I always thought I wanted a second but this one is kicking my ass and I look forward to getting out of the newborn stage. But what I haven't seen mentioned is somthing that is on my mind and it pains me to even write about because its so morbid. But if I did decide to have a second Im afraid its mainly because I am so worried about something happening to the first one and then being totally childless. I can't imagine being a parent and then just suddenly not being a parent at all. I don;t know how we would go on. Maybe the recent tragedy in Newtown has me thinking this way. I look at my daughter and I can't imagine losing her but somehow it seems like we could go on if we still had to be responsible for parenting another child. Am I the only one with this reasoning? I know its all rooted in anxiety.

Anonymous wrote:PP, the reason parents of onlies sound defensive is that having an only is going against the social norm. That means you get a crapload of judgement from parents, coworkers, friends, etc who all tell you "oh, you MUST give that child a sibling!" So are we conflicted? Hell yes. Are we making the right decision for our families? Double hell yes. Do we still need support, and for people like you to please, please cut us a break and stop adding to our conflict? Yes.

Loved this.

NP here and mom of a 2 1/2 year old only. Some people don't seem to understand why us parents of onlies need support, and PP nailed it. We are not w/ the norm, so it's nice to meet others like us. I also think it would be nice for our children to meet others w/o siblings.

On that note, anyone live in MoCo and want to get the kids together?

I have more than one, but I'm pleased to see that I have the advantages that the parents of only children are touting as well. If kids are out of the baby stage, and get along well, and you can afford them, I really don't see what's so difficult/tiring about this. I'm certainly not "disheveled."

Also, I think infertility, even secondary infertility is very painful, and often kept to yourself, so you really need to be OK with one, even if it means convincing yourself.

If I had had one, two, three, or whatever, I think it would have all been great.

PP, the reason parents of onlies sound defensive is that having an only is going against the social norm. That means you get a crapload of judgement from parents, coworkers, friends, etc who all tell you "oh, you MUST give that child a sibling!" So are we conflicted? Hell yes. Are we making the right decision for our families? Double hell yes. Do we still need support, and for people like you to please, please cut us a break and stop adding to our conflict? Yes.