Why You Should Have Another Kid, Even If You Think You Shouldn't

When you first get together with a romantic partner, after you’ve introduced them to family or friends, the first question from everyone you encounter becomes “when are you getting married?” After you’re married, the first question becomes when are you having kids? After your first child is born, shortly after the placenta is delivered, the big question evolves into “when are you having another one?” This process seems to continue until you eventually become a grandparent.

Asking about someone’s potential reproductive plans is not only nosy, it’s not a simple question as there are always myriad factors that go into these decisions. When Mrs. Dude and I began talking about starting a family, I wanted 3 kids (because I came from a family with 3 kids) and she wanted 2 kids (you can probably guess why). We got married in our early 30s, became parents a couple years later, and then again 3 years later, so time was not working in our favor. But thoughts of “what if?” lingered in both my wife’s and my mind after the Littler Dude was no longer so, um, little.

 

As our 40^th birthdays approached, the conversation continued, and we went back and forth on how we could potentially add another child into the mix, if we could even get pregnant again, that is. Then one day, I read something that helped solidify the plan for me. In a Facebook group I belong to, someone mentioned that you don’t only have kids for yourselves as parents, but it’s important to consider having kids for them to have each other, as time passes and life evolves. Nine months later, give or take, Little Miss Dude was born. 

Beyond my prognostication that we were only ever going to have boys, having baby #3 changed my mindset toward parenting. We were never the type to sterilize the baby if they encountered a speck of dirt, so laid-back parenting has always been our M.O. But it’s the knowledge gained via almost 7 years of parenting experience when she was born that has made my daughter a different type of gift. She was a gift for my wife and for me, but also for her brothers, who at almost 7 and 4 when she was born couldn’t believe how lucky they were to have another life to help shape.

From day one, which began early one Friday morning at 4:15am with Mrs. Dude’s water breaking three weeks before her scheduled C-Section date, Little Miss Dude has made the perfect punctuation for our family. Unlike after our boys’ births, I was able to take paid paternity leave after she was born, and the almost 10 weeks we spent together day in and out, helped lay the foundation for our now complete quintet.

Now that her first year is 3 quarters over, I can’t imagine life without this little girl, whose infectious smile helps her makes friends in every grocery store line, restaurant and little league game she attends. I know how lucky I am to have three wonderful children, even if they usually wake up too early and are sometimes too picky with food. They are happy and healthy, which helps me feel confident that they will live long healthy lives, as wonderful children, siblings and hopefully parents themselves.

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We usually think about all that we are thankful for later in the year, with turkey and pumpkin pie, but with Father’s Day upon us, I’ve partnered with Life of Dad and Pampers to say #ThanksBaby for helping complete my family.

I’m sure you have stories about your kids and what you are thankful for, so please use the #ThanksBaby hashtag on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook with a picture and a few words about what your little ones have done for you.

Also, take a moment to check out this great video that Pampers put together to honor all kinds of fathers on Father’s Day:

My First Day as a Father

What am I going to do with a baby?

I always knew I’d wanted to have kids, and had been a very experienced uncle for years, but when the moment of truth was upon us, what would I do with my own child? How would I take care of him? Would he be OK? Would I be OK?

After 9 months of waiting eagerly, suddenly I found myself nervously observing in the operating/delivery room, sitting behind a draped cloth with my wife’s upper body, while doctors and nurses worked their magic scalpels and tools on her midsection. In 10 minutes, the anesthesiologist announced, “it’s a boy”, but I’d never considered otherwise. He was here, I had to be ready. Even if I didn’t think I was.

Are you ready to cut the cord?

I tend to overthink things, especially all of the possibilities of everything that could go wrong. What if I cut the cord too long or too short? What if I couldn’t even cut all the way through it? At that moment, as I watched my son on the table, just minutes old, I knew I had to jump in with both feet. I grabbed the scissors from the nurse and cut the cord swiftly, which freed my son from his only source of life up to that point and suddenly gave me a new one of my own.

We headed to the recovery room where my wife was able to rest for a bit. As adrenaline pumped through my body like a gallon of espresso, I watched this little miracle lay swaddled snugly and started to feel inklings of confidence return despite the enormous uncertainty squarely before me.     

After a while, we were given a room. My wife was understandably exhausted when the nurse came and examined my hours-old son. She asked if I wanted to give him a bath. As I pondered the joyous task, the feelings of doubt returned? How do I even give him a bath? He’s so little; I don’t want to break him.

She reassured me: “They’re hard to break”.  Whether that was true or not, who knows. But she seemed to know what she was doing, and mentioned that she’d been doing it for 20-something years, so I had to let go of my fear once again and literally get my hands dirty to clean my still somewhat goopy child. With each soft swab of the washcloth, he amazed me even more. Before I knew it, he was clean. What now?

“Are you ready to put on his diaper?”

Well, I’d attended the pregnancy class before he was born and strapped one on a plastic baby, knowing it was foolproof. Guess what: so is diapering a real baby. Sure, I may have ripped a couple straps pulling too hard, but my boy was fine. His scrawny little legs dangled out of the Pampers Newborn, a size he fit in for exactly one day. As I watched his body temperature even out after the bath as he lay upon the warming table, I knew he’d be OK. And so would I.

Later that night, as I watched my wife and son sleep in our hospital room, one day in the books, it finally occurred to me, as obvious as it had been all day to our gathered family and friends. I was a father. And had to be ready for whatever was coming next. Looking back, I’d read the baby books before he arrived but there is no parenting book as real, as honest and as true as the one you start to create upon becoming a father. It’s not an easy job and the benefits are crap, literally, but there is nothing better, nor more sleep depriving in life. Seven years, another child and yet another en route later, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Note: I have partnered with Life of Dad and Pampers for this promotion, but all ideas expressed above are mine and mine alone, for better or worse. I was compensated for this post, but I can assure you it was much less than I’ve spent on Pampers over the last almost-seven years.

Note 2.0: Pampers put together an amazing Father’s Day video, which I know you will want to check out. Spoiler alert: tears are looming that you may not anticipate.