"I've had four kids and my husband just had a vasectomy. But what if I want more?"

When do you know if you’re done… ?

Yesterday my husband had a vasectomy. He is 27. Poor bastard. However, I am currently sitting here 33 weeks pregnant with our fourth child, which could potentially be born on our eldest’s upcoming fourth birthday. Today makes me feel like we made the right decision. However, when I was dropping him to the hospital, I had to quickly ask myself if we wanted any more. WTF? Umm, no. We don’t. Well, I don’t want to grow anymore.

This prompted me to think about if I truly felt ‘done’. I had previously asked Daniel whether he did. His response was “I’m not sure I’ll ever be sure of that”. Lovely, yes, but he is not the one with the vagina. However, to be honest, he does more mothering than I do. Especially with newborns. I express and he bottle feeds the babies. He is a lot nicer tired person than I am.

When I was little I had always envisioned having two children and adopting a child. I’m not entirely sure why I have always wanted to adopt, but it was ingrained in me. Perhaps this is why I became a Child Protection worker. Who knows. However, I never envisioned that I would have more than two pregnancies. Even throughout my second pregnancy I constantly would say that this is it. However, as soon as I had a second son, I knew I wanted another baby. Just one more try for a girl. This was easy to get from Dan because he always wanted three. We had a ‘whoops’ with number three. I was attempting to track my ovulation to increase our chances of a girl.

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We were incredibly fortunate to not only have a healthy baby but a baby girl. We found out her gender at 15 weeks. I didn’t quite believe my scans until I actually had her in my arms. With this again I thought I would be ‘done’. Yet I didn’t feel like I was. Daniel was a little more reluctant to the idea of four, especially given the current situation with his job. However, once again another ‘whoops’ occurred. I knew instantly I was pregnant. Yet this pregnancy I was actually the most excited about. I’m not sure why. I guess I knew that this would be the last?

I really wanted to enjoy this last pregnancy. I haven’t though. To be honest, I don’t love being pregnant. I really wish I did but I don’t. I feel terrible in saying that especially because I have relatively easy pregnancies and I clearly have no issues falling pregnant. This time around I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism but it is easily treated and well managed so I have no other complaints. It makes me feel awful when so many people struggle to get pregnant and have awful pregnancies, yet I’m sitting here complaining because my vagina is swollen.

While sitting here writing with Daniel next to me icing his balls I can 95 per cent confidently say that I feel done. I am glad we made the decision to have his vasectomy done whilst I was pregnant to ensure that we wouldn’t change our minds. I know that I have enough love to give more children I just honestly don’t think I would have the time for anymore. In the most selfish way, I miss my body, my brain and most of all me. Maybe that is the strongest signal that I am finished with baby making?

When did you know that you were ‘done’ or do you ever really know?