Confession (What's Inside My Head)

I hope this is the week that Elijah forgets to check the blog. I hope this post gets buried beneath next week's book review so he doesn't notice it because...I have a confession to make. And I'm afraid that if he reads it, out here, in public, he will bring it up in arguments discussions for years to come and I'm not quite ready for that.

I want to have another kid.

By that I mean, I'd like to have another adorable little miniature of us running around my house, potty trained and ready for school. Seriously though, some days, the idea that Amelia is that last one makes me so sad. Except for yesterday. Yesterday it was perfectly fine that the child screaming throughout the house was my last. Yesterday after two of the sickest diaper changes, I was absolutely fine with seeing an end to cleaning up someone else's poopie bottom.

That's the problem with these feelings. I go back and forth (sometimes within the hour), from wanting to have another little love bug, to screaming about how there is not enough alcohol in the world to get me knocked up again. Does anyone else feel this way? Am I completely alone in feeling both longing and repulsion at the same time?

What I'd like to hear about, is not how happy people were when they had another baby, but how happy they were when they didn't. Who has been through this, decided that their family was complete and was okay with it? Who else worries about how on earth they can pay for plane tickets if they have any more kids? Who decided "NO MORE" because they didn't want to drive a mini-van?

I realize that this is a personal decision (and Elijah can have a say as well, I guess) but I could use some help clarifying the feelings of loss about being finished with the childbearing part of my life, and the desire to actually raise another human being.