How people change

When D and I prepared to marry, we didn't know if we wanted any kids at all.  If we had any kids, we'd probably have one.  We knew with complete certainty that we didn't want to have kids for 5 years.  

On September 11, 2001, we had been married almost 4 years, and it was after the attacks that we began discussing starting a family.  Like a lot of people, that event made us look at our priorities a little differently.  Made us wonder what we might be missing in our lives.  

Fast forward to Feb 2004---we became parents.  Within a couple weeks of N's birth, I felt I wanted to have 3 kids.  I was just so, so in love with N.  I had a big helping of undiagnosed anxiety that I was dealing with, but I was simply over the moon.  D loved N, but a new baby didn't jive too well with 6+ years of being able to game without interruption.  I remember him saying to me a few weeks after she was born, "I'm just not happy."  

I was postpartum and newly unemployed (since I had decided to become a stay-at-home mom), AND did I mention the undiagnosed anxiety?  So when he said this, I heard, "I don't want to be a dad, and I think I may leave you."  I realize now he was just having a difficult adjusting to having a new baby in our lives.  

Because of my mood issues, I just wasn't up for having another child for a long time.  It was in the late summer of 2006 when I felt ready.  D had to have emergency surgery for an infected gallbladder, and this event was like a very small September 11th again---it forced me to examine our lives, our priorities.  And I wanted another baby.

D would have been perfectly content to just have N as our only child, I think, but he went along with having a second child.  And there were some adjustment issues after G's birth, but I was by that time, fully medicated, post-therapy, and better prepared for what life with a child was like.

And then there was surprise M in 2009.  

Sometimes when I think back on all this, and I wonder whether I always really, really, really wanted kids but my anxiety was so overwhelming it was just easier to act like I didn't?   I wonder whether D would have been happier if we'd never had kids or just stuck with the one?  I wonder if D and I met now instead of in our twenties would be get together, since I feel fairly certain I would be eager to have a family and he probably would be sure he didn't?