Quote From: joymommaShould I get pregnant? That is a good question. I had three kids before my present marriage, my husband had two, so we have five kids from previous marriages. We had invitro four years ago and that resulted in twin girls. So, we have seven kids, although only the last three are home. Seven kids sounds like a lot, I know, and we do have the twins together, but... my husband so wants to try for a boy. Are we crazy? I'm pretty sure most people would think so! I just so love a new baby, and being pregnant I feel so special. I dont want to think I'll never do it again. We already have six grandkids! Also I'm 43 now and my husband is 51. OK, just posting this and actually typing this out, I can see we must be crazy! I lost my cousin a few months ago to a drug overdose and his name was Logan, which was going to be our sons name if we ever had one. His death felt like our never-to-be born sons death. It is so hard to say we will never even try for a son, we will just never have any more. When my daughter got pregnant at 18 and had her baby, I held my first grandchild in my arms, and although I adore her, she is not mine. Do I have something wrong with me? Our older kids are 31, 29, 20,18, and 15. Our grandkids are 9,8,7,4, 3, and 10months. I love all the chaos and craziness and business of a big family. Maybe I need to find fulfillment elsewhere?
I'm not going to judge you, I will just give you my opinion based on my own life experience and then you can make your own hopefully better informed decision. You already have seven children who need your attention, love, and affection. Babies are delightful because they don't have many emotional demands. But your children do, and they will resent you later if you try to fulfill your identity with constant childbearing. Particularly if to fulfill the need to have a baby that is biologically yours of a certain gender (there is no guarantee you would conceive a boy this time either) you subject yourself to the expense and physical stress of a pregnancy at your age to bring forth a child when so many are already here, both in and outside of your current family, who need love and attention. Your daughters will wonder why they are not enough to fulfill you.
You are still young, but not in terms of reproducion; we know pregnancies with mothers of your age are much more likely to end is miscarriage or produce children with significant problems then ones in women in their twenties or early thirties. Not to mention, men over 35 are more likely to have defective sperm and the pregnancies they produce are more likely to end in miscarriage regardless of maternal age (I just read this in American Baby magazine) so your husband is not an ideal character either. Why would your husband want to subject you to another pregnancy if he knew that your health and safety could be affected?
I think you are trying to use the excitement and attention of being pregnant and caring for a new baby as a way to feel special when the real way to feel special will be to love and nurture the children you have now. Even if you do manage to produce a child through costly procedures that will be taxing on your emotional and physical health, the time period in which you can continue to do that is limited and you will eventually have to confront your issues. I don't think you'll feel fulfilled if twenty-five years from now ALL your children are with you at the therapist demanding to know why your obsession with constant fertility and how it made YOU feel took precedence over their very real needs and concerns. Hopefully that won't happen and you can one day say to your kids, some girl who went by the goofy pseudonym "justice" warned me not to have any more babies!
However, that being said I really am not trying to condemn you, just warn you. Hey, we all like attention, being the beautiful expectant lady, and all the excitement and joy that comes with the presence of new life. I think your feelings are normal, but at your age and with your current committments, you have to devote your energy to the children you now have. In other parts of the world, your feelings would be encouraged as normal and your children would not be neglected because extended family members could help with ensuring they had proper attention. But also in other parts of the world, you would not have the means to keep trying to push your body beyond what it is meant to do. Give your body a rest and try to do something good for other people (and remember, charity begins at home) with the life God gave you. If you have all the money and spare time for a kid, take in a foster kid, or, as another reader suggested, adopt (they thought you might be "too old" which is silly; at 43 you certainly aren't.)
