Everyone Thursday: Shawl Collar Knit Blazer

I saw your question about 2 vs. 3 kids posted yesterday but didn’t have the chance to respond, so just in case you’re still reading:

DH and I were absolutely on the fence about 2 vs. 3. For context, our eldest kids are now 5.5 and 2.5. We had one of each gender so there was no need to “try” for a boy or a girl or whatever — we just weren’t sure we were done. I knew, however, that I never wanted to be pregnant again — so we started seriously pursuing adoption…and then I accidentally got pregnant last fall. It was, for the better part of 6 months, like living in a nightmare. We were actively preventing and just ended up being the .0003% or whatever and I was devastated. I had some big career dreams on the line, I hate hate hate being pregnant, I was angry at the lack of control I felt in the situation (that this had happened to me) and I felt as though all of the time we’d put into adoption was for naught. I realize, of course, that I could have terminated — and for the record, I am pro-choice — but it wasn’t the right option for us. Still, I won’t lie, that was a very low time in my life.

OK. Fast forward: my baby girl was born last week and I did, in fact, survive the pregnancy (woo hoo!). We haven’t had a ton of days (yet) to live our lives as a family of five but I’ve spent a LOT of time thinking about this. Here’s what I can tell you from the front lines:

1. I don’t think there’s a “right” choice — and as a Type A, I was concerned about making the “right” choice until it was, in fact, made for me. I now better understand that there are sometimes two good options with different outcomes. If you have 2 kids, you love those 2. If you have 3, your life will be different — harder in some ways, sure, but easier or better in others. As with anything, there are tradeoffs.

2. We live close to family and have a great support network, but both of us work full-time and I have a SUPER demanding new job so childcare is something I’m always thinking about. I wish we lived somewhere where nannies are common, but they’re not, which stinks. We do have access to an awesome daycare and that helps a lot. While our extended family isn’t helping care for our kids daily or anything, I can definitely call on my retired MIL to hang out with a sick child or something for a half (or occasionally a full) day when necessary.

3. I do think it gets easier with more kids. I know that sounds bananas, but it was the biggest shock for me personally to go from 0 to 1. 1 to 2 was much easier. Jury is still out on 2 to 3, but our daily routines haven’t changed all that much (yet). But it’s easier b/c we have all the gear, we’re more laid-back now that we’ve been through some of the phases twice, and the two eldest are in a spot where they can pretty easily entertain themselves/each other.

4. My eldest is just starting to get into activities and I totally hear and understand what the other commenters were saying about shuttling kids to this or that, but at the same time we’ve been pretty adamant about limiting the stuff our daughter signs up for and plan to do the same with her sibs. It’s kind of a sucky juggling act — for example, she likely won’t be able to go to a weekday dance class in the fall b/c neither I nor DH can guarantee we’ll get her there on time due to work commitments, which means we have to decide whether we want to commit part of our Saturday/s to one of her activities. But in the overall scheme, that seemed (to me) to be an annoying trade-off but not the end of the world when we were thinking about adding a whole other person to our family.

So — these are just my experiences, nothing earth-shattering here but I’ve been where you are and totally empathize. Now that #3 is here I can’t imagine life w/o her — and if you’d asked me that even 2 months ago I wouldn’t have given you the same answer.

Right now I have an high deductible HSA plan (single). I’m expecting in October, and trying to decide whether to convert it to a family plan (with double the deductible and out of pocket) or add the baby to my husband’s plan, which has a comparable deductible, but it seems like the bulk of the hospital charges would be for me only, so I could pay my copay on those (as I’ve met my deductible) and we would pay separately under his plan for the baby. Does anyone have any clue at what point the baby becomes a separately insured entity? I know we have 30 days to add her to either plan, but at this point it seems like it would make more sense to put her on his plan and pay all the baby costs toward that deductible, while I pay my copay for hospital expenses attributable to me only, as opposed to paying against a suddenly doubled deductible.

Is anyone knowledgeable about this? The insurance company said to contact my benefits coordinator, while the benefits coordinator seems to be giving me conflicting answers (that my deductible will double, but also that the baby will be treated as “part of me” for some period of time). As far as I have found, there’s no relevant state law in effect.