Our Decision On Baby #5

Brian and I have always agreed that 4 children is all that we planned to have. We both love kids and would have more but we felt that we couldn't comfortably support more than 4 children financially and still do/have all of the extras that we are used to. We didn't love our choice in not having more but we understood it and respected it. Brian is the budget guy. He's the one whose great with numbers and money. I'm the type to go shopping and never even look at price tags. I get what I want and that's that. I don't ever question his conclusions on financial matters so for all of these years I didn't bring up the subject of having a 5th baby until a few weeks ago. I jokingly mentioned something about how if this baby is a girl we will just have to try one more time to give Hudson a brother and Brian's reply was 'Maybe, huh?'. I was shocked. I know to most that's super vague and simple. It'd mean nothing to you. But to me it meant everything. It meant that Brian wasn't so sure on us not having more kids. He would of ignored my remark or shot it down right away if he was 110% sure that we have to be done having kids. Later that night after we put the kids to bed I straight up asked Brian if he was still certain that we shouldn't have more than 4 kids. He wasn't! 

Long story short after hours of talking we came to the decision that this baby will most likely NOT be our last baby. We came to that choice for a few reasons. One, we never know what the future holds financially. We don't know what money will be like after I'm working. We don't know how much extra money on top of our incomes that we will be making between the tire shop, lumber jacking, and cattle farming. We don't know if we will win the lottery and get rich over night ha. But even if we had to live on our income right now that brought us to our second reason. Two, money isn't everything and we can live without most of the extra stuff that we have if it came down to it. RV's, boats, tractors, bull dozers, regularly going on nice trips for fun, $5000 vacuum cleaners (yes I paid that for our Rainbow vacuum cleaners... twice), new cars, expensive boutique kids clothes, over the top birthdays and holidays, ect. That's all stuff that can be greatly down sized and if those things had to be given up all together to fit our budget as a bigger family, we'd proudly give it up. Three, we would never under any circumstances regret having more children but we very well could regret not having more. I know that I would. 

We are so happy with our new agreement. I was heartbroken by the thought of never having more kids but I never imagined that we'd end up backing down from that conclusion. Brian had actually mentioned getting a vasectomy because he knows how dangerous birth control is for me and didn't want to risk my health but now we know that he's definitely not doing it. I didn't expect this at all. My entire pregnancy has had a sense of sadness over it because I 'knew' that it'd be my last. Every day that passed was a day being pregnant that I'll never get back. I still hope that I can keep this baby in past my due date so that I get in every minute possible. Every single pregnancy could possibly be a women's last pregnancy. No one can control fate or fertility but now I have much less of a burden on my shoulders about it for sure being my last. I'll continue to cherish each minute as if it's my last but I also get to enjoy it knowing that we are keeping the door open to have another baby someday. I don't know when or if it'll ever happen. We've talked about doing it right away after this baby is born like we did with our older 3 kids and we've also talked about waiting until baby #4 is in school. Heck, we may get all of our kids into school and decide that we don't want to start all over. I doubt that happens but you just never know. What matters is that now we aren't doing anything permanent or hard to reverse to stop our family from continuing to grow and I can start planning for our maybe baby #5. Let the name game begin again 😊

Despite your situation or how many kids you have, growing your family is about doing what's best your specific family. Some people are done and never question it. Some people are forced to be done when they don't want to be. Some people think that they are done then change their minds later in life. Some people leave it all up to God and don't have a plan on when to be done. Some people don't want to grow their family by having any kids at all. Regardless of what you do or plan to do, don't let any outsiders make you question your choice. We get asked often if we are getting fixed after this baby is born and I think that's rude of anyone to say to another person. I'm used to it and not offended by it but I do still think it's rude. We are grown adults who raise our children physically and financially on our own. We don't deserve to have our family size questioned but that's a rant that we've all heard before ha.