Fluff Poll: Children - do you have the right number?

I had always planned on having 3. I had my three in less than three years, partly because my siblings and I are very spread out in age and I didn't want mine like that. I unexpectedly got pregnant again when the youngest was 2 1/2 and had a MC.

Our two boys are two years apart to the day, yes, they have the same birthday. I would have been fine without children but DH loves children. I love our boys and can’t imagine our lives without them.

Now my DH pours all that parental oomph onto our two cats. Not sure we will ever be grandparents, so the cats are very spoiled.

I didn't answer your poll, but I have zero kids of my own and am perfectly happy with that number.

We have 3, spaced widely apart (34/25/almost 19). The large age gap between kids is not how we would have planned it, but it is absolutely perfect for us and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Would have liked 1 more - we tried and it didn't happen, and eventually I aged out. DS (third child) always talked about how much he wanted a younger sibling - he said he had good "big-brotherly advice" for a younger sib, LOL! SO I do have some minor regrets that we couldn't have more. Not just for DS's sake, LOL - DH & I both wanted another too. We always said if time and money (and health obviously) were no object, we would have just kept going. Several of DH's siblings have large families and he himself comes from a large family. DS just had to be satisfied with a lot of cousins, LOL.

Oldest DD is from my 1st marriage, so there is a large gap between the oldest DD and DD#2 while I got divorced, spent a few years as a single mom, eventually remarried and had DD#2. There was a loooong emotionally trying & stressful stretch of secondary infertility...so long in fact that we had pretty much given up hope for a third child. The long stretch also included a MC at 11 weeks when DD#2 was 5. I remember watching an Oprah episode where she talked about being willing to give up the one thing you desperately want above all else and somehow that loosens the stress to where you feel like you have nothing to lose. (This was right after she won the role for The Color Purple...the role she had wanted for a long time.) That was when I stopped taking the prenatal vitamins and stopped taking my temp every.single.morning. I was pregnant about a year later, and we found out we were going to have DS. The 2 girls were thrilled beyond belief that they were going to have a brother, and DH and I were just so surprised & happy about the whole thing. So, DS & DD#2 are exactly 6.5 years apart. They celebrate each other's half-birthday on their own birthdays, and all 3 kids are good friends (and always have been, for the most part). Perfect for us!

I always wanted 5. We couldn’t get pregnant, so we adopted. Financially we could only do it twice and they were 5 years apart. When my daughter died we now have one. I wonder every day if there would be any difference in my grief if I had had 5 kids instead of two and still had 4 here. I know I would still have horrible grief, but I do wonder if having more people here might make it easier to look forward to things in life. I will always regret not having more kids in any way possible.

I just read your reply. I am so sorry.

I have 3, but I used to joke that 2.5 was our perfect number. 

I wanted none.
I have none.
I am very happy about that. No regrets.

I hope mine are close when they are older.  I have bookend girls. They are 6 days shy of 7 years apart. Somehow we ended up with 3 of our 4 with birthdays within a 9 day period. So March will always be a busy month in our house! But I am very happy to have 2 of each.  I saved most of my oldest's clothes hoping I would have another girl. I thought I was golden, but this last baby is the biggest of mine (she was the smallest at birth) and some of the seasonal stuff isn't lining up.  But that's okay it is fun shopping for my last and my sister will get awesome stuff if she ever decides to have kids!

i asked DH to look into birth control after #2 since i had been on the pill for 17 yrs and was 35.  i was going to get my tubes tied because i had a c-section but backed out. 

he was "researching" vasectomy... very slowly.  he actually said to me at one point "what if we don't work out and i end up with someone younger?  this would take away my ability to have kids with her".  
(hindsight.... what was i thinking??  but there has already been a thread on *that*).

anyway, on his 40th bday he said he had things "under control".  well he didn't.

i say that number 3 knew our family wasn't done yet! 

I had my daughter (3rd child) when my twin boys were 5. That was perfect! And they are very close. The only down side, and it's not really a down side, really, is now. The boys are 19 and away at college. My daughter's 14, and misses them terribly. The boys are really good about keeping in touch with her, though.

I wouldn’t worry too much. Just because a person has a bunch of siblings doesn’t mean they will actually get along or even like each other later on in life. I’m living proof of that. DH has one sister and other than being born to the same parents they have exactly zero things in common. He has always said that if they didn’t have some type of biological tie they wouldn’t even know each other. We’ve ended up making the extended family we wanted by picking some really great longtime friends and hopefully your son will be able to do the same.

We have two girls and we are DONE. Honestly it is probably too many at this point but we are still in that insanely busy/high needs/high attention/energy suck young kid phase. Two is the right number for our family.

I always wanted three. I have an older sibling but we've never been close and figured if there was more than two, there was a higher chance that my kids would have a connection with at least one sibling. I love my brother and we have fun when we get together but we have very little in common aside from genetics. Have always been jealous of those that have close sibling relationships.


Mine are five years apart and I just realized last year they will never be in the same school at the same time. Annoying since I am driving them all over these days but by the time college comes around, it will be nice to not have two in at the same time.