How Life Tricks You Into Having a Second Child

Life is sweet, right? Your 2.5 year old is going to the potty, learning to pick up toys, helping you with dinner, and now verbally telling you every day how much they love you.

You and your spouse are in adorable toddler-snuggling heaven and you’re finally beginning to experience the rewards of your labor that,  in theory, should last for 11 more years until they turn 13. Eleven wonderful years of sharing your extensive knowledge of the world with your progeny and molding them into the best version of you and your husband possible.

Along with the meaningful philosophical implications having children brings to your life, you are SKINNY. Finally back to your pre-preggo weight, the circles under your eyes are gone, you have energy, you may be rockin’ it at the office with your renewed 8-hours-a-night-of-sleep self. You like your husband again, and he’s finally learning how to use the stroller! Sexy times and date nights are a lot like it was before children.

Most importantly, you can go out to a bar without having to pump your breasts with a mechanical suction machine of dubious sanitation when you get home.

But somehow, all this ease and fun and love and dinner-time cuteness leaves you wanting. Then, friends and colleagues start having more babies, and you hold them, and remember how SMALL they are. They are just SOOO tiny! And light, not like your hulking child who’s crushing your spine right now as you read this mommy blog.

All this plus the new time for sex in your life tricks you into going off the pill. YOU WENT OFF THE PILL?? Yup, you did. And you thought, “oh hey, it’ll still take like 6 months, I’m OLD, in my mid-thirties, infertile practically, I probably have until January, I’ll just book this Christmas-time flight to Mexico right here—click!”

Wrongo, Mami. You’re pregnant 15 days after you stopped taking the pill. And NAUSEOUS, and CRAZY, and flooded with memories of what those first few months were like and how the sleep deprivation ruined EVERYTHING. But this time? THissss time, you get to do it all with what will soon be a 3 year old.

One last thing you were probably also longing for is more things to panic about. Don’t worry, now you not only have to worry about SIDS killing the new baby all over again, you get to panic about second-child syndrome, and your firstborn child physically marring or even murdering your second child.

Have fun in Mexico at 34-weeks preggers for Christmas! Don’t forget your in-flight maternity pantyhose so you can avoid dying from deep-vein thrombosis in coach. Enjoy that virgin margarita and ask your husband to slather sunscreen on your enormous belly so he’ll stop looking at that yoga instructor on the beach down there…

Life is so fucking easy right now, dear. Enjoy it while it lasts.