Should i have 5th child

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Read this next. Medically reviewed by Deborah Weatherspoon, Ph. Medically reviewed by Debra Rose Wilson, Ph. Medically reviewed by Fernando Mariz, MD. Can Breast Milk Treat Eczema? Medically reviewed by Carissa Stephens, R. She was desperate for some girl time in a house full of brothers, and I was eager to have some quiet time alone with her. I popped on a cute, roomy maxi dress that would accommodate my four-plus months pregnant belly it really seems to pop out pretty fast on your fifth round , and headed to a local nail salon.

While we were there, I noticed a woman about my age—I'm 34 if you're wondering—staring at my daughter who was ogling the glitter polish selection, and then my belly. She quickly asked if this would be my second child.

Her otherwise-normal face turned more colorful than the rack of polishes behind her. She paused before adding her thoughts. This was the first time I ever said to someone I didn't know that I was on my fifth kid, and it never dawned on me that people might be that judgmental, so it took me a minute to respond.

I didn't know what else to say, because truly I was happy for this other woman's contentment with one, but was left sort of hollow by knowing she wasn't happy for my different version of happiness. I sat there through the filing, polishing, and drying wondering if I should say something more.

I shouldn't have to explain why I'm choosing to happily have a fifth child, but I recognize it probably seems downright crazy to a lot of people—like the nail salon patron—and I'm going to share it with you now, because the world has more than enough judgmental parents, and we don't need to be those people, do we? I keep having kids because I really love them. If you have one or more, you can understand how a heart can swell. While I've definitely had my fair share of pregnancy-related struggles, I consider each healthy baby a triumph, gift, and enormous blessing.

I cannot stand when people use phrases like "popping kids out" when referring to moms of many, because there's not a woman on this Earth who just pops children out as if they're nothing.

Maybe some make it look easier than others, but the act of making a new human is far from easy, and I wish we'd respect the hard work fellow parents put into building their families. I am also privileged beyond belief to live safely and with enough food on my table to have these children. I come from a line of women who haven't always been so fortunate. I feel I owe it to them for surviving. If you think I'm talking about some many-generations back story of struggles, I'm not.

Of my two grandmothers, one was raised in an American rescue orphanage where English was not her first language, and the other was raised with so little food on her table that she went to work as a child and never had siblings because her parents feared they couldn't feed or protect more children from imminent war. In the culture I come from, having one child in the s was considered a stark, bleak, and sorry occurrence, but a reality for the many who fled the wrath of World War II.

But I'm also on my fifth pregnancy because every woman tests herself in different ways. Some women run marathons, do triathlons, write dissertations, and climb mountains. You can do all these things with five children, too, but as a woman who experiences hyperemesis through each pregnancy, the simple act of being pregnant is my prove-to-myself-I-was-built-strong-enough test. I still really love my husband, even when he annoys me if he's reading this, I hope he puts the toilet seat down for a change , so I'm cool with there being more of him in the world.

Somehow they keep coming out with his exact face, which happens to also be my mother-in-law's face. Life, in some ways, is a war. Everyone has different battles to fight. Some battles are short, others linger for decades or even lifetimes. I don't judge the way you fight yours. Mine are fought with arms full of love, and my children are my little soldiers who will keep fighting all that's bad in the world with goodness long after I'm gone.

While I can't imagine I'll be leaving them with literal riches, I hope they look back on their lives and know they were so fully loved that they have the energy and determination to paint their futures with all the colors of my affection.

Sometimes, though, having a big family is about the privilege of life itself. In my experience, it's not unusual to hear of a friend or relative being wounded or lost to senseless hate. But with five, unless you can afford nannies and au pairs, you simply can't physically do it all. I have had to learn to accept and ask for help or run the risk of getting bogged down by the daily grind of after-school clubs, pick-ups and household chores. But by the fifth child, the older children are that much more capable and can help you out.

I'm not talking workhouse treatment here, but general gophering and sorting out the younger kids with homework, reading, tying shoelaces, etc. And five is fun. I've noticed that my kids' friends really like coming round to our house, which is a joy. For a while I wondered why, but then I realised that with children anything with more than five tends to produce a party atmosphere. My eldest once said that she preferred our house to her friend's because theirs was "too clean".

She then reeled off a stream of rules that her friend's mother insisted on, one of which was: "No sitting on the bed. Not that I'm advocating anarchy, but you have to choose your battles - and sitting on the bed isn't one of them. Casual trips to the park become cheap days out as there are so many people to lark around with. Even when we do go somewhere special, we've given up being proud and choose venues by the latest special offer - believing, as we humbly hand over our cut-out cereal-packet voucher, that we will probably never see that ticket-booth attendant again.

There's no time to micro-manage your children's lives with five, but I'm comforted by Robert Shaw's book on bad parenting, Epidemic: The Rot of American Culture, which suggests that a new generation of sullen, selfish and joyless children is being produced by parents who work long hours, spend too little time at home, and spoil their kids with too much TV and electronic games.

Shaw suggests that what kids need is more time to chill out and relax with the freedom to do nothing, and that's certainly an option in this house. With five children, you don't have the time to spend analysing their every move or mood, or indulging them in their latest fads or foibles. Having less control over their lives means that the kids have more control over how they spend them.