Adding to the family

When John and I were dating, many people asked when we were getting married (the fact that most of them asked me and not him is worthy of an entirely different blog post). As soon as we were married, the question became when are we going to have a baby. I was sure that as soon as we had Katrina, all the queries to see how we placed on the ladder of social normalcy would end. Not so. It wasn’t three weeks after Katrina was born, that we heard “When are you going to have another one?” Because you know, my hormone tornado-swept, just-pushed-out-a-watermelon body was ready to cope with that question! As an aside, the day Katrina was baptized, a member of the congregation came up to us and said “Since you make such beautiful children, I hope that you will be a good Catholic and have a large family soon.” As if the entry way to Heaven was guarded by a child-friendly, number-loving god. “Only one kid? Nope, can’t get in.”

John started out wanting one child and I started out wanting three. So we did what any newly wed couple would do – we compromised on two. But at three months into parenthood, when John, holding Katrina said “This isn’t so bad, I think I could see us having three,” it was pretty easy for me to make the leap again. So now that we want more kids, the obvious question is when, followed by the next question how?

The when is pretty easy to answer – not right now. As I get used to my new job and as John is in the middle of determining where he is going to be job-wise next year, we aren’t ready to add a new addition right this second. Which is giving us the space to contemplate the how. If we end up with three kids, we’ve discussed and agreed on adding a child through adoption. This stems from my zero population growth mentality (although it is clear that it isn’t how many kids you have as much as how many resources are used – again, worth another blog post). So our big decision is if we are going to try to have another biological kid or expand our family through adoption first. We are spending our time reading about domestic versus international adoption (leaning towards international), attachment parenting, and other adoption specific issues as we mull over the endless possibilities.

At the end of the day, the answer to “When are you going to have another child?” can be summarized as “Who knows?” We hope to be able to answer that question soon, but for now we are enjoying being parents together in the same zip code and we are having a blast at that.