Will One Little One Ever Be Enough?

pregnant woman
January 25, 2013 8:00 am By Yolanda Darville

When my husband and I first decided to get married, we’d talk endlessly about what our life together would be like. And of course the main focus of the conversation was our future children. We’d chat for hours about how many children we wanted and how we would raise these future perfect little angels. I remember desiring a big family – at least 3 biological children with the possibility of adopting an additional child. Can you say “dreamers”?!

After a few years of marriage came the cold hard reality. Having a baby didn’t come as easy for me as we’d expected. And when our child was born we discovered how time consuming and expensive it was to raise just one little person. It didn’t take long before my husband and I agreed on what we refer to as “the one child plan.”

The plan has worked for us, and I wouldn’t trade my family of three. But in the first few years of being a mommy of one, I’d get a strange pang every once and a while. It was more of a hunger than a pang, really. It was a baby hunger. It would come at the strangest times. The hunger would creep up on me as I’d watch a mom in the grocery store with a baby on her hip and two little ones in the shopping cart. The hunger would smack me in the face whenever a well-meaning, but really nosy person would say “So, are you ready for baby number 2?”

But the hunger would be most overwhelming whenever I would hold a friend’s soft, cuddly baby. Just looking too closely at a precious little face was enough to make me go running back to my husband to revise “the one baby plan.” Of course, he’d bring me back to reality by reminding me why we came up with “the plan” in the first place. Once he started multiplying the prices of dance classes, swimming classes, and future college tuition by two and three, it was easy to refocus on “the plan!”

Now that I’m older and my child is more independent, I couldn’t dream of having another little person running around needing my time and attention. I’m content and thankful to have just one child. And I treasure every moment that much more knowing that I’ll only get to experience it once with my daughter.

But whenever I meet mothers who have one child, I search their eyes wondering if just one is enough for them. And when I see strangers ask them “So, are you ready for baby number 2, yet?”, my heart automatically goes out to them.

MommyNoire friends, have you ever experience baby hunger?

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