'Final piece of our family puzzle': Why baby number 3 is the icing on the cake

"If you’re tossing up whether to go for a third, here’s the surprising reasons why I’d say go for it," writes Aussie mum Melissa.

Several girlfriends had told me I would know when I was ‘done’. 

My family would feel complete and I could willingly say farewell to the nipple pads and ugly maternity bras and move on with the next chapter of my life.

When baby number two arrived, I never felt that feeling. The problem was, my husband did. We had the pigeon pair – a boy and a girl – and he was content with our awesome foursome.

When we decided to move interstate and were packing up our life’s possessions, he held up some of the baby bits and pieces, asking whether we should keep or toss them. 

A bassinet. A baby carrier. Some itsy bitsy 0000 clothes.

I shook my head. They were coming with us to regional Victoria. Obviously, I still wasn’t ready to part with them.

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"If you're tossing it up, I'd say go for it"

A few weeks later it was Boxing Day and I was washing the dishes when I started to feel that old familiar feeling. Woozy. Slightly light-headed. A little heavy in the breast.

The next day I went out to grab a pregnancy test and took myself off to the local toilet block to find out the verdict. Two lines. I was pregnant.

I was so nervous about telling my husband, I decided to keep it a secret for the moment. But I’ve never had a good poker face and my husband knew something was up the moment I walked through the door.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Nothing,” I replied and got busy making dinner.

As we ate our meal, he again asked, “What’s the matter?”

I didn’t know how to tell him, so I decided to skirt around it. I asked whether he believed in fate? 

It was around this point that my husband started to think something really awful had happened. He told me later that all he could think was I was about to tell him I had cancer.

“Well, I don’t know if you’d call it fate, but I’m pregnant,” I said, holding my breath as I waited for his reaction.

He was so relieved that it was nothing sinister and wrapped his arms around me. He said he always knew in his heart of hearts that we would have three.

About 32 weeks later, our baby girl arrived. We called her Lily. She was the final piece of our family puzzle and nowadays, we couldn’t imagine life without her. 

If you’re tossing up whether to go for a third, here’s why I’d say, ‘go for it’.

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You can still travel

This might sound silly to some people, but one of my reservations about having a third was whether or not we could still travel. 

Would we need to book two interconnecting hotel rooms each time we went overseas?

The wonderful thing about Airbnb and other similar sites is that bigger families like ours can still find affordable accommodation pretty much anywhere around the globe. 

I’m happy to report we even had a resort-style holiday in Bali earlier this year, and all five of us managed to squeeze into a room comfortably.

You don’t need an upgrade

One of the considerations we’d thought about when discussing a potential third was the financial cost. Would we need a bigger car or house?

The truth is, you make it work, whatever your situation.

We didn’t bother buying a bigger vehicle – we all pool into our Nissan Xtrail and it gets us from A to B just fine.

For the time being, my study is doubling as a nursery and eventually we might look for a four-bedroom property, but for the moment, it works.

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The older kids adore her

Babies naturally bring you joy, but I never banked on how much happiness it would give me to see my older children so in love with little Lily.

They often fight over who is going to hold her and smother her in kisses daily.

That alone has made all the sleepless nights worthwhile.

I’m a better mother the third time around

With my first child, I really did sweat the small stuff. I tried to be the perfect mother, which I now realise is an impossibility. 

By baby number three, I don’t care if the house is a shambles or she doesn’t have two sleeps during the day. 

I don’t fret if I feel brain-dead because I haven’t slept in a year. I know that it’s all just a phase, and at some point, I will get a decent night’s rest again.

Most days, it’s pandemonium in our household. The days are full and by the time I fall into bed, I’m exhausted.

But it’s a beautiful, messy kind of chaos that’s filled with love. So much love.

Originally published as 'Final piece of our family puzzle': Why baby number 3 is the icing on the cake