I Lied When I Said We Couldn’t Have More Kids

Forgive me, or whatever

“When are you going to have another baby?”

I’d never met this person, who stood across from me at a baby shower and used that faux-curious tone we learn early. The one we use to disguise our overwhelm when we happen upon the ICW (Impossible Checklist for Women®).

Two Liars and a Baby (2003)

I was chatting with her at a baby shower when she realized we had toddlers around the same age. And there it was, the question I dreaded.

I’d heard it a hundred times. And still, I was never ready. 

“I don’t know if we are,” I stammered. 

Her face collapsed into pity. “You’re not going to let him be a big brother?” 

The room went airless. 

“Actually,” I said, pausing to inhale, a last-ditch reach for confidence. “We can’t have any more kids.” 

She hung her head in guilt. “I’m so sorry.” 

I brushed her reaction off, quickly ushering us back to small talk before our conversation dissipated and we returned to the larger group. I barely made it through the rest of the shower, somehow holding back the tears until sitting safely in my car.

I was horrified at the casual lie. Physically, we were perfectly able to have more kids. As far as I knew, anyway. Emotionally? Therein lay the unspeakable truth. 

I’d gotten the idea from my husband, Paul. He’d spent years trying to alleviate my anguish every time someone pried into the reasoning for our only child. 

“Just say that we can’t have anymore,” he once told me. “They don’t need to know what that means.”

To him, it was simple: he didn’t care what people thought. It was none of their business. Full stop. 

“That’s not exactly true,” I countered. 

“So?” he shrugged. “Bet they feel so terrible, they never ask anyone that question again.” 

Unlike me, he wasn’t frozen by what other people thought. He’s wired differently. It’s also hard to ignore: he’s a man. From what I can gather, they don’t get the same faux-curious questions. The Checklist for Men® is far shorter.

I’m a rule follower. I don’t enjoy pushing limits. I don’t want to be different. 

As a newlywed, I was eager to have the rest of my life all mapped out. We’d have three kids because that’s how I’d grown up. Not having had one yet, Paul was fully on board. The people who signed up for the Titanic didn’t know it was going to be the Titanic. Y’know?

After a few years of marriage, we decided it was probably time to check off the next box: baby number one. I got pregnant right away and aside from a nauseous first trimester, loved everything about the experience. I’ll never forget having Paul press the tiny foot I could feel under my rib cage, only to have it defiantly kick back. Magic.

When the doctor announced, “It’s a boy!” Paul danced a lap of joy around the delivery room. Our little kicker, Ty Alexander, was squishy and perfect. 

But while he was everything we’d hoped for, the joy of pregnancy was quickly replaced by an anxiety that flooded my system and felt unbearable. Why was he crying? Why wouldn’t he sleep? Why wasn’t he eating enough? Why was he eating so much?

Exhausted, my mind ran in ragged, obsessive loops. I bought a notebook and made charts in an attempt to crack the formula: what made some days rough, while others weren’t? I spent hours looking for patterns hidden within the hundreds of feedings, changings, and naps.

Paul was incredibly supportive, staying up with me throughout the night when I couldn’t bear the darkness alone. He’d hold my hand while I tried to breastfeed, the pain searing my body, my brain beating itself up at the inability to Enjoy Every Moment. (#611 on the ICW®.)

I saw a doctor. Went on medication. After a few months, things leveled back out. I was managing my anxiety. We were managing the breakneck new lifestyle that came with juggling marriage and parenthood and careers. 

We hit our groove, fully enjoying the blur of a baby who never stopped moving and who went through a phase of laughing like a deranged seal for so long, Paul whispered to me, “This isn’t…permanent, is it?” (It wasn’t.)

Then, right around the time our son turned one, the pressure started to simmer. Everyone wanted to know: Are you guys trying for a second? When are you having another? Are you pregnant? Are you pregnant? Are you pregnant?

Contractions are nothing compared to the pain of all the questions. Give me childbirth any day.

We fended everyone off for a while, caught our breath. We knew we weren’t ready. Another year or so passed, and the simmer turned into a rolling boil: people couldn’t compute a couple with only one toddler and no protruding belly on mom. The questions started to feel like demands. 

I was never safe from those seeking visual cues, either. One day, I wore a fitted red blouse to work with a pair of dress pants I was thrilled to finally fit back into, my body approaching some semblance of what it had been before carrying around a nine-pound human. I thought I looked pretty good. “TINA!” our department’s admin gasped. “Are you pregnant?” I was not. 

Without much discussion, Paul and I figured it was time to obey and have another. We were casual about it, neither of us feeling strongly one way or the other. Like I had the first time, I stopped taking birth control and awaited the inevitable positive test. 

Months went by. This time around, it wasn’t happening. It gave me time to think. Time to realize that I was stone-cold terrified about having another; how could I possibly manage the added anxiety on top of what I was already desperately trying to keep under control? 

I had a career I loved that required my brain to run wild; writing jokes gave it something productive to do, and helped focus the nervous energy that came with motherhood. I was afraid that the noise from adding one more kid would cause it to permanently short-circuit. I didn’t want to resent my work, my kids, or most of all, myself.  

Paul and I started to joke a bit about only having one; mostly testing the idea out. Then we started to joke a lot about it until finally, we realized we weren’t joking so much as testing the waters. Did we really feel the same way? Were we about to agree on this huge decision?

Then it was time for the annual check-up with my OB/GYN. As part of the implied duty to report our status as breeders, I told her we’d been trying to get pregnant for a year. She frowned. It was probably time to explore some fertility measures, she said. I nodded, told her I’d follow up, and rushed outside through the waiting room filled with pregnant bellies.

I wanted so badly to want another. I knew deep down that I didn’t. Deciding whether or not to move forward with treatments was going to force my hand.

That night, Paul and I skipped the joking and talked it all the way out. We knew that we could handle one kid. We’d figured out how to balance work and childcare and still getting a little time to ourselves. Two, and who was to say? We’d always had a solid relationship, one we didn’t want to risk for a decision we felt so uncertain about. Would we find ourselves on shaky ground if we added another kid to the mix? 

I questioned him a million different ways to make sure he wasn’t just going along with something for my sake. There could be no doubt that this was a joint decision. Should there one day be regrets, I didn’t want blame to have a place to land.

Finally, he said the words that cemented it, words that helped me feel the ground under my feet: “I’d rather have one and stay married to you than have another and risk our relationship.”

Neither of us felt unfulfilled by having one child. Our son was everything we’d hoped for; our little family of three felt perfectly complete. It was official: we were one and done. 

Deep down, I knew we’d made the right decision. Still, guilt consumed me. I was obsessed with what everyone must think: how sad, how selfish we must be to only have one child. When I talked about it with friends, they tried their best, but never fully grasped how I felt. If it bothered me, they reasoned, just have another! What was the big deal? 

I didn’t know the word for it then, but now I know that what I was consumed by was grief. The grief of not being like everyone else, of not having the family you thought you would. The grief of knowing your limits.

I didn’t want another baby. And I couldn’t forgive myself for it. 

People—me included—have a lot of questions for each other. All it takes is one to pry open a wound you thought had healed. Do you have kids? Are you going to have more? You’re going to have more, right? My god, when are you going to stop? 

Mostly, we’re all just making conversation. Trying to crack how to make this life easier. Maybe you have more than one kid and are looking for others to join you—it’s less difficult when you have company in your diaper-filled boat. Whether or not you mean to, the questions can feel a whole lot like judgment. That somehow, you and your only child aren’t enough. 

And don’t get me started on the derisive use of “only child”: “He’s bossy/bored/selfish/etc. because, you know, he’s an only child.” If only everyone first considered what struggles may have led to that decision. Or the parents for whom it wasn’t their decision at all. 

Once, when Ty was four, my mom babysat him for the night. Among the many things she was in my ear about—why was I still breastfeeding, why did I take him to daycare on my day off, why why why—she was relentless when it came to having more kids. (Both sides were, albeit my mother-in-law was gentler. While we were still trying, I once snapped at the woeful, I-have-no-granddaughters spiel she directed only at me. “Your son’s sperm determines gender,” I said, surprising myself at my directness. “Talk to him.”)

Ty came home after sleeping at my parents’ house and chattered happily over lunch about anything and everything they’d done together. Suddenly, he stopped mid-sentence, anguished. “I’m never going to be an uncle.” 

I was dumbfounded and asked him to repeat himself; surely I’d misheard.

“I won’t be an uncle,” he said, “since I won’t have a brother or sister.” I knew beyond a doubt my mom had planted that information in his little four-year-old head. There’s no way he could’ve reasoned it out on his own. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt the thrust of a dagger so deeply. 

Another time, Paul and I were talking with some friends about taking a couples’ trip. I was weighing our options for an overnight sitter when one of the men, a father of three, sighed with disgust. 

“How hard can it be?” He grumbled. “You have one kid.”

As though one didn’t count as much as three? It stunned me into silence. Yes, I’m certain: one is easier than two or three or however many. Still, it doesn’t cancel out the struggles of parenthood; we all have them. And yet we love to make it feel like a competition. One we’re awfully quick to point out we’re winning. 

Let me be clear: I’ve made plenty of mistakes when it comes to prodding others with invasive questions. And learned some very hard lessons about minding my own business.

I still shudder when I think about the time I was chatting with a co-worker, also the parent of an only child. Excited to share that commonality and thinking we were in some secret club, I—naively, stupidly—said, “Isn’t it so great only having one?” 

He looked crushed. “We tried for years to have another,” he said quietly. “It broke our hearts. Eventually, we had to stop.” I felt terrible for reminding him about something still so obviously painful.

We made our decision permanent years ago when Paul decided to get a vasectomy. He sent me flowers from his spot on the couch, watching The Masters under two bags of frozen peas. It was his thank you for all the years I spent in charge of birth control. (For those about to be snipped: do this.)

I wanted so badly to share with my friends the exhilaration of being freed from all the crazy-making hormones of the pill. Instead, I told no one. We were still young and financially secure enough to have more kids. Yet with one procedure, we’d taken away that option. I was ashamed of our boldness. 

Thankfully, life got busy. There were activities and homework and pets and always so very many things to get done. 

The most magical happening of all was that I got older. Eventually, the storm of guilt that had swirled for so long started to fade toward the horizon.

I’m 50 now—in conventional terms, too old to have a baby—and haven’t fielded a nosy question in years. There seems to be a loss of curiosity from others that comes as women age. At times, it’s a beautiful thing. 

He’s kind/smart/hilarious/etc. because, you know, he’s an only child. (And here he is yesterday, starting his senior year of college!)

Twenty-one years after welcoming that beautiful only child into the world, I know with certainty there’s no magic number that constitutes a family. For us, it just happens to be three. I know with certainty that we made the right decision. 

If you were one of the people I lied to when I said we couldn’t have more kids, please forgive me. I’ve already forgiven myself. 

A very special thank you to new paid subscriber Kevin G., who has always supported me, even after we saw Sean Penn in an L.A. hotel lobby and I whisper-screamed “OH MY GOD, SEAN PENN” ten times too loud. Kevin, thank you. 🫶

Want to support my writing? Click below to subscribe. One day I *might* even tell you what else I’ve whisper-screamed in a hotel lobby! (Maybe it was “OH MY GOD, FREE BREAKFAST.” Maybe it wasn’t.)