Musings on a second child.

In an email today I was mentioning to a friend that I missed out on having a third trimester entirely. Even though there are actually positives for me as a result (like being in good physical form when Shaughnessy comes home) I still feel cheated out of that experience. She was kicking quite a lot by the time I had the c-section, but there has been a major portion of the pregnancy experience missing for me, even if it's one that is described as often uncomfortable.

The thing about preeclampsia is that if you plan to have more children, you're supposed to have them sooner rather than later. The sooner you have your next child, the less chance there is that you'll have preeclampsia again. After a c-section you're supposed to wait at least a year to get pregnant again, and if you give birth within two years you have to have another c-section or there's a chance your uterus could rupture during birth.

Andrew has been kind of shocked to hear me saying things like, "Yeah, if we have another kid we'd have to start trying next year," and things along those lines. I'm not saying that I definitely want to start trying that soon, or even that I definitely want to have more than one baby. I think that a large part of that kind of talk stems from me trying to deal with the fact that I'm not in the middle of my third trimester when that's exactly where I should be right now. I can only think about a complete pregnancy experience as something I can have if I do it again, so I currently kind of want that even if the desire is ridiculous and totally hormone-induced.

I was a middle child and loved it. I got to be the baby for six whole years, then I got to be a big sister without having to be the oldest child and do everything first. There wasn't any of that oldest or youngest baggage involved for me. I don't really know what the only child experience is like, and since I love having siblings so much I kind of want that for Shaughnessy. I never did have a brother, but I always wished I had one, too. Siblings are crazy-fun to have, or at least mine are!

As for the c-section thing; I like the idea of a c-section again. Call me insane, but I know what having a c-section is like now and it's no worse than getting your gallbladder out (which I have also had done.) I HEARD women giving birth the natural way while I was in hospital and I guarantee you that as far as physical comfort is concerned my experience was WAY better. That's including recovery. There was nothing involved in my experience that made me scream, dudes. The kind of pain you feel after c-section surgery isn't fun, no, but it's also not earth-shattering and I know I can take it. This is also something I reserve the right to change my mind about, but if I want to have kids close together I'd be hard-pressed to find a doctor willing to let me have a VBAC.