One and done

Yesterday, I was chatting with my mother about my fertility stuff, and she told me how great it would be if I got pregnant with twins (I had mentioned Arabella's good news to her previously), because then I could be all done and not have to get pregnant again. Something about this assumption that I would, naturally, go for a second child if I didn't get a twofer on the first pregnancy rankled me a bit.

"Well," I said, "I might be all done after the first one, you know."

"Take it from an only child: you do not want to have just one."

"You mean, the only child wouldn't want to be on her own."

"Well, yes. I was so lonely as a little girl ..."

Now, keep in mind, my mother grew up constantly surrounded by all manner of cousins on both my grandfather's and my grandmother's side. Additionally, her mother endured several miscarriages and an infant daughter who died shortly after delivery before my mother was born. Possibly, this is where some of the fertility issues that my sister (who suffered a number of miscarriages) and I have dealt with.

My mother never had a problem with fertility. Her friends called her "Fertile Myrtle." I have three sisters and a brother, with barely a pause between them until the 8-year gap between my youngest sister and myself. Chalk it up to Catholicism (and its then-attendant lack of birth control), or to a little girl who wanted a passel of kids because she herself had been all alone. Maybe a bit of both.

My POV is that of the would-be mother who has already struggled with infertility for 15 months. Will I even want to go through this a second time if I get pregnant for a first? Maybe one baby will be all I can handle. Maybe, one baby will be all I need. I don't want to feel emotionally blackmailed into trying for a second baby before the first one is even a reality.

My mother opined for a little while about her lot in life as a variant on the theme of the Little Match Girl (I kid, I kid, but she does draw a sad little portrait of herself), and then told me about overhearing a conversation between her parents when she was about 12 years old. Her mother mentioned an operation she could have gotten that would have enabled her to carry more children successfully. A family friend had had it done and bore four children. My mother felt a little angry that her mother hadn't had the procedure done and given her a little brother or sister, but she never asked her about what she had overheard, even as an adult. At the time of this overheard discussion, my garndmother was 37, and my grandfather would be dead within four years of a freak heart attack at 48. I can't help but think that their having only one child was something of a blessing in that situation, especially as the Great Depresion was not long over, although obviously, I'd never wish fertility issues like those on my grandmother.

"But, Mom," I reasoned with her, "You've never experienced infertility. You don't know what it feels like to lose a baby. What if the operation hadn't worked? What if she continued to miscarry, or worse? You really can't imagine how draining it is, physically and emotionally, to keep trying." She conceded this was true, and we ended the conversation there.

Is it wrong of me to think of doing "one and done"? Am I being just as selfish as I thought my mother was yesterday? All I know is that I can't decide such things this far in advance. There's no point until I'm further along this road so I can see exactly where it might take me.