My husband and I had been at odds as to whether or not we should have a third child. He found two to be the perfect number and I have always wanted a larger family, no smaller than three kids. We always joked that he wanted two kids and I wanted five, so we compromised at three.
However, after becoming parents, my husband began to doubt whether he could manage having one more child. We decided not to stress about it anymore. When we found out we were pregnant, both of us were excited. My husband was happily telling his friends and saying he was going to find out the gender—with our first two, I didn’t want to find out, so we didn’t.
We had our first ultrasound and there were signs of pregnancy, but we weren’t as far along as we should be. We were both unconcerned, as we’d had two really healthy pregnancies prior and my cycle had been irregular so we figured it was just off by a bit. We simply adjusted our due date in our heads and continued as normal, excitedly waiting for our follow-up ultrasound in two weeks.
However, at our follow-up appointment, we knew right away that something was wrong. I had never needed an internal exam before, and things just felt different. We were told that our baby had stopped growing around 7 weeks.
We handled it differently. I really wanted to try again now that we had actually been having a third baby, wrapping our heads around the idea of bunk beds for our girls to make way for our new addition in the baby room. My husband feared loss again and started booking a vasectomy.
During that process we ended up pregnant again. Again, we were both overjoyed—the vasectomy was more around preventing pain than preventing pregnancy for my husband. I wanted to wait to tell people, but my husband was too excited and told our family and close friends. But it was another “failed conception.”
However, my husband and I pulled through and found common ground. He cancelled his vasectomy and I said we didn’t have to try again. Some time later, we are both on the same page: it would be wonderful to have another baby, but if we don’t, our family of four is perfect just the way it is.
Waiting on Sunrise 