'I was convinced I wanted a third baby. A single night changed my mind'

My husband and I started talking about what it might look like if we just… stopped.

In the weeks before my older son was born, I spent hours folding and re-folding tiny onesies.

(Never mind that they would never be neatly folded again, because the intensity of having a newborn for the first time meant that I was fishing straight out of the laundry basket for a full six months). 

Lining up onesies in rainbow order might not have been a totally practical task, in hindsight, but it was a ritual I needed.

It said: 'there’s someone coming to slip their tiny toes into these footie pajamas.'  

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'There’s someone on their way to thread their hands through these sleeves. There’s someone - a whole person, a real person, an actual baby - arriving in this bedroom soon, and they will need clothes to wear.'

Even if I’m not ready for anything else, I’m ready for that. 

When my first son outgrew his baby onesies, I folded them carefully. I packed them in a box.

At eight months pregnant with my second son, I unfolded them and re-folded them into a set of changing-table drawers.

I lined them up in rainbow order. I knew, by then, that this was a pointless exercise, but I did it anyway.

'We don’t know exactly how it’s going to work with two of you', the perfect neat line of onesies said, 'but we’re ready to figure it out when you are.' 

When my second son outgrew his baby onesies, I folded them once again. I packed them away in a box, absolutely certain that I’d be pulling them out again one day.

At that point, even with a three-month-old attached to my hip, I didn’t feel done. I was so sure about wanting a third baby, I even wrote an article about it.

The age gap between my first two kids is 21 months, meaning I fell pregnant with my  younger son when my older son was 12 months old. 

When my younger son turned one, I celebrated, but I also panicked.

I was not ready to try for a third baby. I had only just started running again.

The boys were old enough that I no longer felt guilty going out to dinner or going away for the weekend. It felt like I had only just started to come back to myself, and I wasn’t ready to let myself go again so quickly.

I didn’t particularly care about replicating the age gap I had with my first two kids, and I didn’t want to put unnecessary pressure on myself, so I waited.

And waited.

The certainty never came back.  

Image: Supplied

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Could it be that easy?

My husband and I started talking about what it might look like if we just… stopped.

If I never had another pregnancy, never had another newborn. If the boys didn’t have another sibling. If we ended up just the four of us. 

I didn’t feel sad about it. On the contrary, I felt… relieved. Excited. You mean I could just be done? Could it really be that easy? 

One night, only a couple of weeks ago, that tentative decision not to have a third kid became a certainty. After literally years of disrupted sleep, both my boys slept through the night. 

I woke up in the morning feeling transformed. I know that sounds like an exaggeration, but it truly isn’t. I almost wept with relief. It felt like, suddenly, I could see the future, and the future might not be quite so hard. 

Don’t get me wrong - I absolutely loved having little babies. I loved the pace of a day on maternity leave, having nothing else to do but get to know the tiny person I created. I loved watching them grow and experiencing the world afresh through their eyes. 

The memories I have of the newborn bubble with both of my boys are some of the happiest of my life. 

But I think I’m happy to let them be memories. 

There’s a tendency, when you have very young kids, to think of it as the epitome of the parenting experience.

It probably helps that parenting is all you’re doing in those early days of your child’s life – everything else is put on hold. But having a newborn is not the only exciting or meaningful thing that can happen to you as a parent.

It’s only the beginning of a much bigger story. 

We won’t have another baby, but we have two exceptional kids already, who I love more than life itself.

I won’t be going back to the newborn bubble, but I’ll be looking forward to everything there is to come on my parenting journey. 

And I am going to be so well-rested while I’m doing it. 

Originally published as 'I was convinced I wanted a third baby. A single night changed my mind'