One and Done!

I have one child. One. If I had met my dreamboat of a husband earlier we probably would have had more, but now I am 41 and it is what it is.

This past weekend I had several girlfriends over for a baby shower. For the mom-to-be this is her first little one and her and her husband look forward to adding more to their family. However, for my other friends who are moms who attended the party they all say...”I have had one child and that is the only one I am going to have!” That sentiment, we all agreed, has brought nothing but eye rolls and judgement from anyone we have said it to.

Can we not just be happy with our little guys? (The four of us all have boys)

Even though the television show was called Eight Is Enough must we all be Duggers and go forth and birth as many young’ns as our child baring hips can stand? I think not.

As the discussion progressed we each had other tales of judgment by family and absolute strangers who felt it is was their job to tell us where we have gone wrong on this journey called motherhood. I for example was ridiculed by a checkout woman at the grocery store who saw my container of formula and asked why hadn’t I breastfed. When I told her I tried but my milk never came in she responded, “I’m sure you didn’t try hard enough.” I am not making this up folks, she honestly said this to me. A complete stranger who knew nothing about me. She didn’t know if I had survived cancer and it was the effects of chemo. She didn’t care if I had possibly been in a car accident where my chest had been injured. She definitely did not know that I sat hooked up to a pump day in and day out for a month with my final milk total being about...2 ounces. I left the store without telling this information to the clerk. I surmised that stupid is as stupid does. I needed to get home to spend time with my family. She obviously had other people to judge.

We had made this decision and knew it was best for our situations. Budgets, work and fertility led us to the choice we made to have only one child. Does having only one child make us less than amazing, hard working moms? Does not giving birth naturally or feeding your infant formula make you less of a mom?

No it does not. At the end of the day we will always be mothers. We still get hugs, love and snot on our clothes and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Except for the snot...we could all use less of that.