Dilemma: I don't know if I should have another baby or not?

That’s it,” reply so many mums when you ask whether they plan on having more babies. “I’m done.”

Their response is so definite. So final.

My issue is though, I just don’t know.

I always assumed that once you had a couple of kids under your belt a little alarm would go off internally when you got to your ‘magic number’. You feel complete.

For some it might be one, maybe two, I don’t know.

When I was younger and friends would ask in childlike conversation how many children I wanted to have when I grew up I always answered “three”.

Little me obviously had limited understanding of all the things that went in to having kids; the pregnancies, the birth, the sleepless nights, endless worrying, not to mention the financial cost. The list goes on but to me, three seemed like a good number.

I was one of two. My brother was 16 months older than I was but I always wanted another sibling. Therefore three was my ‘magic number’.

The trouble is that older me now has three children and that internal alarm hasn’t gone off yet.

I have my two boys who are four and two, and I have my five month old daughter. I adore them all like crazy. Like so many other mothers though I’m worn out. I’m exhausted and right now I simply can’t contemplate another small person relying on me but somehow, I can’t accept that ‘I’m done’.

My husband keeps hinting at getting rid of our baby things now that the newborn stage is coming to and end for our daughter. But I can’t. Selling and giving away our baby items symbolises that it really is all over, finished and I just do not know whether I am.

I get really upset thinking that I might never have a pregnant belly again- a little unborn baby kicking me in the night. I get sad thinking that I might never lie in a hospital room staring my new baby in the face, getting to know them, amazed at how perfect they are. It upsets me to think that this could be it, no more.

So I’m torn. Of course the less children there are, the more there is to go around. I want the best for the children I have, undoubtedly. What if I’m able to choose private education for the three that I have, but that wouldn’t be the case if there was one more?

But what if later in life, I’ve created a bond so strong between them that they always have a little ‘wolf pack’ of their own to lean on when times are tough and I’m no longer here? Is it better to have more so that they are never alone. Right?

So do I keep waiting on that internal alarm to tell me that ‘we’re done’ or does it’s absence meant that maybe we’re not?

Did you get a definite feeling of being 'done' having babies?