My Children Were Not Accidents

As of right now, I am sitting on the sofa watching my two sons play together. The eldest is two years and two months, the youngest is one year and one month and I am thirty weeks pregnant today. I am twenty four years old, my husband is twenty three, we planned all our children and yes, we want more.

Firstly, the background. I grew up with an older brother, two years my senior. My husband grew up with two brothers and another who visited regularly, spaced four years between them. The biggest "set" of kids in my family is four (cousins) and most of my family stuck to two. My husband's family doesn't have a penchant for popping out loads of kids either, in fact he was part of the biggest "set." We are both atheist, conventional people and did not grow up in communities where large families were the norm. My husband did have experience of hand me downs and bunk beds and my mum did drive a seven seater at one point, but that's about as far as it goes.

Shortly before my husband and my wedding, we started discussing starting a family. We were about to buy our first home together and we were both twenty at the time. I found lists of questions to discuss with your other half before starting a family, big things like the most important values you want your children to have and practical decisions parents need to make together. Needless to say, we were completely in sync. With this in mind, we decided to start trying. I was getting over a relapse with an eating disorder so my cycle was not in action at the time but I used trying to conceive as motivation to eat and on the morning of my wedding I saw something that filled me with joy. Something which, to most women, would have seemed like the worst luck. There was some blood. It felt to me like the most positive omen about the marriage. A few months later, after tracking ovulation, being very diligent about baby making and using an ovulation app, I took a test. More accurately, I took several tests. I saw positives! I nearly fell over, completely delighted and shocked. I stayed in this bubble for the next week. Just before the six week mark, I started to get very bad cramps. This was shortly followed by heavy bleeding, clots, and pain. I had never experienced something before where I felt so completely helpless, entirely aware of something awful happening and yet totally unable to stop it. I lay in bed for a few days and felt desperately sad, comforted by close family. Another thing which may have seemed unlucky happened at the best time, my husband broke his wrist and badly injured his knee, leaving him signed off work for a while. This meant he was home with me during the day and I am thankful we had that time to recover together. The next cycle came round and we decided to try again straight away. This time, I took about ten tests. There were dark pink lines, bright blue plus signs that appeared before the window was even fully wet and the digital tests displayed the word "pregnant." I was home alone but giddy with excitement so naturally I did what anyone would do, I went and found the cat and showed her the tests. She didn't seem that bothered. I couldn't hold it in and text my husband at work with the news. He informed me that I had made him cry at work (woops) but he was delighted. Throughout the pregnancy I experienced some ups and downs but everything went relatively smoothly. We bought and decorated our first home and moved in, set everything up, and I diligently prepared for the arrival. The first day we had him home, we stared down at him in awe, a little bit unsure of what to do with ourselves. Once I was recovered from the stitches and had stopped bleeding, I told my husband we had to get down to business again. I knew it was going to suck, I wasn't looking forward to it and for that reason I wanted to get it over and done with so we could move on to happier days when my downstairs felt good again! So we did and let's just say over time it all sorted itself out. I got my periods back pretty fast after my first, despite breastfeeding for the first six weeks, so we decided to start trying immediately, when our little one was just seven weeks old. I had a little spotting around the time of implantation and then I was suddenly a few days late. All signs pointed in the right direction. More time passed and I had this gut feeling that made me feel unsettled. I got to shortly before the six week mark again when the same thing happened. I cried a lot and was very disappointed but I somehow had known there was something wrong from the beginning. As with the previous time however, we caught on the next cycle and my second son was made. His pregnancy was quite difficult in some ways but largely alright. When he was born, my body took a good while longer to recover, due to a traumatic birth. At the three month mark I started to go back to normal and that's when we started trying for this one. At five months postpartum, I found out I was pregnant again. I felt more sure and confident than I ever had and the tests were again glaring positives. I bled on and off for the first few weeks which was terrifying, thinking we were following a pattern. Luckily though, I went to early scans and saw a tiny heartbeat strongly pumping away, little wriggly stumpy arms and over time, the bleeding stopped. So you see, our children were all planned and deeply wanted.

When we walk past with our tandem pram, changing bag stuffed full and my big belly, people's eyes widen. Fairly often, we get sweet smiles and positive comments. Mostly these are from other people who either had theirs close together or have little kids with them. These people are more than welcome and can come hang out any time! All too frequently however, we get comments which, at least at first, shock or irritate me. I can't tell you how many times I've been told I need to find a hobby, or get my husband's tubes tied. My husband gets told he needs to keep it in his pants all the time. I have been asked on four occasions by different strangers if my kids have the same dad! My husband got asked when he was out and about with both of them alone if they were both his. Sometimes people will just look at us, roll their eyes and say "again" when they find out we are having another one. These comments are usually said in front of the children, who are thankfully young enough not to understand them but will one day be old enough to know what they mean. I don't know what it is about us that makes us seem so foreign to people. I have lots of tattoos and can look a little "alternative," we're both young. I'm really not sure what it is. Nevertheless, I know that I have started wearing my engagement ring as a wedding ring when I am out with the kids now. My husband and I didn't do wedding rings at our ceremony, however I now don't like to be without it in public. When filling in forms at doctor's or midwives, people would always fill me in as "miss" without asking. At my last consultant appointment she rather bluntly said "is contraception something you are going to need help with?" Listen, I get it. It's normal now to have two kids and be done. If you have two of the same sex then people will understand one more. If you have four you are wild, but you can still come to the party. If you want more than that, clearly you don't know how condoms work, you were bored and unprotected sex was the only activity you could think of or you simply haven't figured out what gets you pregnant yet. I think part of it is people looking at us and to be honest, it doesn't appeal to them. Having three kids in nappies at once, who don't communicate with full sentences yet and who demand a lot sounds awful. Seeing us wrangling public transport and remembering sippy cups and blankies and being dribbled on frankly a rude amount is something that surely can't be self inflicted. Not only that, but they always see us at the most stressful times of travelling, shopping etc. They never see the times where the kids are cuddling each other in front of the TV or playing ball or we are around the dinner table. These people see my children as a clump. I understand this, but my husband and I never have and never will. No matter how many children we have, they will always be individuals to us. My two boys have very distinct personalities and this little one cooking at the moment is a mystery that I can't wait to discover.

In my time trying to conceive my second son, I was a member of Facebook groups of other people trying to conceive. I saw so many heartbreaking stories and so many uplifting ones. I saw families with twelve kids, eight kids, and made friends with a fiercely amazing mother who has six kids. I also saw women who had suffered so much loss, even a woman who had fourteen miscarriages and was still waiting to have a child. I was surrounded by women who understood what it was to feel that being a mother was your calling. The most important thing to having kids should be that you are able to provide for them, you give them lots of love, and care and guide them through life with the values and principles you believe in. This can be done through many different circumstances and yes, it can be done in a household with multiple children. Many of the happiest families I have seen are ones with lots of children, where sharing bedrooms and hand me downs and budget planning is the norm. Many of the most disjointed families I have seen have only one or two kids. Kids' happiness and health does not come from their numbers. You can also tell nothing of how responsible a decision was based on the number of kids someone has.

Sometimes, comments and concerns are warranted. When my mother in law jokes about keeping her son off me, it comes from somebody who loves our kids. When my mum tells me her concerns, it comes from the serious health problems I had with previous births. These things are fair enough. When strangers assume I'm not married and my kids have different fathers, when they assume my husband isn't responsible for all of them or we simply have utterly failed to grasp how contraception works, it becomes a problem. I have no difficult accepting people who say they want no kids, one kid or any number. I hope one day it becomes the norm to realise that when you see somebody with multiple kids, chances are they aren't an unfortunate hoard which resulted from boredom or broken condoms. They are individuals which bring joy and love to their family and each and every one has as much place here as the one before.