Family Planning: What Would Sweden Do?

Today's guest poster prefers to remain anonymous so that she can share her secret family-planning anxiety without actually having to share it with people who will bug her about it. But we promise, she is awesome. Enjoy!

I have two pretty cool kids. Crazy, fun, usually covered in food and sporting great bed-head throughout most of the day.

A boy. A girl. They each have their own bedroom, a spot around our 4-person dinner table, and a roomy seat in our small car.

So, with everything going so well with two, why not complicate things with maybe one more?
 
I swore upside down and sideways that I would never have another baby. I proclaimed it defiantly to those who thought I was ‘too young’ to make such a final decision! I scheduled a vasectomy for my husband!

(Seriously. He didn’t show up because apparently that’s the kind of appointment he wanted to make for himself. Go figure.)

Let me tell you, contemplating a third child brings up some pretty strange questions. With two kids behind me, I’ve googled everything there is about babies and all that crazy business. Google knows my ovulation cycle.

It knows everything.

So what is there left to contemplate when deciding if tres is your magic number?

Well, everything. Here are the things I’ve typed into that magical search engine just TODAY:

-What is the average number of children per household in Sweden? (I’m really into all things Scandinavian, so I wanted to see how I’d fit in…it’s weird. I know. But at least now it’s all on the table, right?)
-Will my child be crazy if he/she has to share a room? (Apparently many children share rooms and grow up to be mentally stable. A revelation, I tell you!)
-Fitting 3 humongous car seats in the back of a Ford Escape (I did an Image search for this one…it is not possible to safely fit 3 humongous car seats in the back of a Ford Escape.)
-Cool Minivans (Google: Did you mean Un-cool Minivans? Because apparently cool ones don’t exist).

Ok. For that last one, I jest…I’m totally pro-van.

What I’m getting at is, I thought that I’d been through the ringer with two little ones and knew everything there was about anything…but there is always so much more to learn. Even if it isn’t all that useful in helping you make life-changing decisions.

Like the average number of children per family in Sweden is 1.94.

(And that I feel sorry for those .94 children. Round up your statistics! For the sake of the children!)

So maybe I should tell you that really . . . truly . . . I don’t feel like our family is complete just quite yet. Maybe my feelings will change. Maybe we won’t be able to have another baby for some reason.

But for now, I’m trusting my gut and going for #3.