Podcast: Talking Family Size with Three Moms

How do you know when you’re “done” having kids? It’s a question I’ve been grappling with since about 20 minutes after my son Jacob was born. He was my second, and my husband was quite convinced that with one girl and one boy, our family was complete. I wasn’t. The babylust is strong in me. I know moms who have a very strong feeling that their family is complete, but I’m just not there. There may be many rational reasons to shut down the baby factory, but biology doesn’t always respond to reason, and so the desire to procreate remains.

I decided that a discussion about how moms decide that their families are complete would make for an excellent podcast. I knew that I couldn’t interview just one person, though. The decision is too individual for that. So I decided to speak to a few mothers who are “done” having kids, to get their perspectives. And so, this week in the podcast I’m bringing you interviews with three mothers:

• Stephanie of Adventures in Babywearing – Stephanie has four children. Her youngest, Ivy, is just one month younger than my son Jacob. While she hasn’t completely shut the door on the possibility of having more kids in the future, for the time being she believes that she’s “done”.
• Allison the Bibliomama – Like me, Allison has two kids, one boy and one girl. Like me, Allison still feels babylust. But with her younger child about to turn nine, she’s decided that she won’t be fulfilling that urge. Allison’s situation is closest to mine, and so I really wanted to hear her thoughts.


Allison

• Amanda, a.k.a. pomomama – Amanda has one child, and feels emphatically done. Her husband has had a vasectomy, and any babylust is gone. I remember feeling quite done when my own first child was a toddler with an extremely healthy set of lungs, but things changed for me. They didn’t for Amanda, and she’s enjoying having just one older child.

Before I share the podcast, I’d like to acknowledge something. I know not every family comes about as the result of a heterosexual couple conceiving without assistance. I also know not every pregnancy is planned. Deciding to conceive a child, or deciding not to conceive a child, is no guarantee of any outcome. However, for the purposes of this podcast, I decided to focus on people who were making decisions around family size, knowing that they likely could become pregnant with relative ease if they chose to. Since I’m trying to make a decision based on the assumption that if I wanted to get pregnant I could, it seemed most fair to talk to people in a similar situation.

I had a really good time speaking with Stephanie, Allison and Amanda. It was a fun change for me to include multiple interviews in a single podcast, and I loved gathering all the different perspective. While I didn’t have any startling revelations about my own family size as I spoke with these other moms, it was good to hear how they made their own decisions. If you’ve ever wrestled with the question of whether or not to have another baby, or you just want to hear how other people reached their own conclusions, I think you’ll enjoy this one. Listen here:

Next week on the podcast I’ll be talking to Suzanne Bertani of Green Planet Parties. We’ll be talking about choosing sustainable, safe products, making environmentally-friendly choices, and what inspires her as a small business owner. Suzanne has a really great energy, and I enjoyed speaking with her immensely. Subscribe to the Strocel.com podcast in iTunes, and you won’t miss a minute!