One and Done...is that your final answer? Yes.

I got married when I was 30. We started trying to start a family exactly one year later.

When I was young I wanted 6 kids (Brady Bunch influence maybe?). As I got older that number started to seem far too ambitious and so I settled on four. My parents had four kids, so could I. Then I met my husband who had been perfectly content as an only child and had spent no time around kids. His party line was let’s start with one and take it from there. I just knew he would be good with two and felt confident I could persuade him to have third when the time came.

Then my thirties became one big run on sentence of chasing that very first kid and the possibility of an elusive second. We tried for a year, then we visited a Fertility specialist, we tried IUIs, when faced with IVF or adoption we chose adoption, we waited years without success, we revisited assisted reproduction options, waffled back and forth between donor embryos or donor eggs, had success out of the gate with IVF using donor eggs, our miracle baby is born, turn back to adoption for #2, wait longer without success, my biological clock screamed “mercy” long ago, feel like we used our 50/50 shot to get our beautiful daughter so another $30k for a repeat seems like a long shot, 40 in a few months, nearly a decade revolved around family planning, time to make room for the next phase in life, finally accept the conclusion we are one and done.

If that period could convey the weight of my emotions in its placement it would need to be the size of a bowling ball. We are one and done, but in my case it is not by choice. My friends who have struggled with infertility fall in one of two categories. Either they found success and completed their family through IVF, adoption or eventually naturally conceived or they are still fighting for #1. When I look at the first group I am green with envy and when I look at the second I am wracked with guilt for not being 100% content with the beautiful and amazing gift we have been given already.

That’s the danger in looking side to side rather than looking forward. No good feelings ever come out of comparing our circumstances with anyone else’s. So I’m praying each morning for God to guide me through this and looking forward.

I just finished this book:

It provided great insight into the blessing of only childhood—both as a blessing to the parents and to the child. It provided a lot of excellent evidence that refuted my concerns (primarily a life of loneliness for Isabella as a child and a life of burden as we age in her adulthood and not being able to recreate the love and camaraderie my parents did for myself and my own much smaller family).

However even with the logical part of my brain satisfied their still remains a tiny grain of discontent which the author summarized perfectly:

"It’s an emotional struggle that, it turns out, no set of numbers and analysis can erase."

I am 99% at peace with being one and done but I am currently indulging that tiny 1%. I’m giving myself a week to feel my feelings, seek out others who are one and done not by choice and then I am respecting the period at the end of our very long run on sentence and joyfully moving forward into the next phase of life as a family of three.