When you start a serious relationship with someone, friends and family often start to ask when you’re planning to move in together. November 2010, in our case.
Then they want to know when you’re going to get engaged. October 2011, in our case.
Then they want to know when you’re going to get married. May 2013, in our case.
Then they want to know when you’re going to have a baby. December 2015, in our case.
Then they want to know when you’re going to have a second child. This is where Christine and I have been for almost 10 years now. And we’ve decided that this is where we’re going to stay, thank you very much, with just the one child.
The Three Milestones
When it came to deciding when to have another child, we agreed three milestones that must be passed:
- We must be eligible for funded childcare for our first child.
- We must have a tumble dryer, to handle the increased washing.
- Both Christine and I needed to be able to drive.
We achieved milestone one when our (now) nine-year-old turned 3, and became eligible for 30 hours of funded childcare per week, during school term time. Nowadays, much younger children qualify for this, but this was the minimum age at the time. Milestone two came at the end of 2022, after we’d had our kitchen refitted. And milestone three came at the end of last year, when Christine passed her driving test. So, without wanting to go into lots of salacious details about our sex lives, we stopped not trying for a baby. My choice of words there was deliberate – we haven’t been actively trying for another baby. But we stopped using means by which to a prevent a pregnancy from happening. Suffice to say, no pregnancy happened.
Why stop now
So why are we now stopping, and accepting that we’ll only ever have one child? Well, there’s a few reasons:
- We’re getting on a bit. We’re both older now than my parents were when I was born. And even if we somehow conceived this week, we would both be in our 60s by the time the resultant baby turned 18.
- Related to this, as we’re older, there’s a greater risk of complications. A pregnancy is more likely to be unviable, and there’s a greater risk that the child could be born with disabilities.
- Our nine-year-old already has additional needs. They’re not profoundly disabled – they attend a mainstream school and we don’t require significant social care for them. But they are likely to experience some challenges, especially when it comes to exams, and they probably won’t appreciate having a little brother or sister disrupting their exam revision. But also, as we already have one child with additional needs, I don’t think it would be fair on any of us to bring another child into the world who may have more profound additional needs.
- We have boxes and bags full of old baby and toddler clothes and toys, and we really want to get rid of them. If we’re no longer holding onto them for a hypothetical second child, that’s a lot of space we can reclaim in our house.
- Once our nine-year-old has ‘fled the nest’ and our mortgage is paid off (probably in 2037), we’ll be more free to move house if we don’t have a second child to tie us down.
So, we’re going to remain a family of three. And we’re happy about that.