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For Some Couples One Kid Is Enough
A mother of one considers her waning fertility but chooses her life as is.
by Karen Karbo
It looks as if I won’t have another baby. Not for medical reasons (though I’m on the downward slope of my fertility) and not for lack of a loving partner. Indeed, it’s due to the ongoing excellence of my relationship with my boyfriend that I’m hesitant to press the baby issue—even though I count the days when I was pregnant with my daughter, now 14, as among the happiest of my life.I hold the unpopular opinion that having a baby doesn’t necessarily bind a couple together in the way our romantic notion of family claims. The upheaval in a couple’s life is seismic, and the notorious lack of a sound night’s sleep is the least of it.
I don’t mean to be curmudgeonly; I love babies as much as the next person. But their sheer existence doesn’t necessarily spell bliss.
When my daughter was 2, her father and I decided that our marriage had come to an end. This isn’t uncommon. While many toddlers are going about Patting the Bunny, the relationship that created them is disintegrating.
The husband-now-father and wife-now-mother are so busy peering into the bassinet that they’ve forgotten to look at each other—and when they finally do, they’ve lost interest.
My daughter’s father and I had met in film school. We’d been together more than a decade, yoked not unhappily to one another, compatriots in forging our careers. We were companions who split everything 50/50.
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1 Anonymous // Nov 12, 2006 at 8:48 pm
I have two wonderful children with my fiance. One is two, the other is one. The two-year old is a mama’s boy,but that is ok. My fiance and I do find time to make love. We also find time to be romantic,even if it is just a little kiss, holding of the hands or a hug. Juts because we had children,our love life didn’t die.
2 lynn // Sep 20, 2006 at 5:38 pm
The writer is right on the mark.After our miracle son was born,the jealousy started,The sex left and indifference to any sex life went south.Anger set in,depression started and then I had two kids one still a baby and the other a 38yr old baby vying for my attention.I solved the problem by working 40 hr wks and 24 hr wekends.Then let my husband move 650 miles away to take care of his folks.It came to a head after I relocated under pressure to be by his side.And now with an Order of Protection against him (5th degree assult)I struggle to keep a roof over our heads and love each new miracle day with my son.