Posted on August 12, 2016
Dear Mamas: The Podcast – Episode five
We are late! We’re sorry! Oh life, life gets in the way. But you will love our latest podcast. Hopefully.
In this episode we explore how to know when you’re done having kids – is that even possible? Can you know? Holly is agonising over whether to have a second, I’m pretty sure I’m done at two…but BABIES ARE ADORABLE….so we ask our friend Andrea who has a lot of children (you’ll have to listen to find out just how many!!!), why she kept having kids and how she knew she was finally done.
In the process, she breaks every stereotype we thought we had about people with large families, graciously endures our wide-eyed questioning, and we hold hands and agree it’s different for everyone and we’re all doing just fine.
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Dear Mamas is a monthly parenting podcast that’s all about the real honest sometimes tough stuff. Holly Walker and I hope to build friendship and community. You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or Stitcher, or listen here on my blog. Holly will be posting transcripts of each episode here for anyone who’s unable to listen. Absolutely so grateful to MamaMuriel for doing the transcript for us. We are just so, so appreciative!
I have two questions I recommend people ask themselves to help decide: can you do justice to all your kids if you add another one (ie. do you think you’ll be likely to parent how you want to or will adding another one put too much stress on your resources)? And what if you go for it and conceive differently than you expect – eg. multiples or a kid who will need more lifelong support than you have imagined providing due to a disability or illness? I had more kids than I wanted (multiples second time round) and it took a lot of work to reconcile myself to not being able to parent how I want to, and to let go of plans that we can no longer afford, among other things. In the end I decided I wanted more than one child and I felt if I terminated the pregnancy I wouldn’t be able to face trying again, especially if the next pregnancy wasn’t my ideal either. No contraceptive works 100% and every pregnancy carries risk, even if small, so we can never fully control how we grow our families and definitely need support available for when things turn out very differently than we plan.