One lump or two?

It's only been three months & already I've been obsessing about having another baby. Or not having another one. I keep thinking about all the stuff we could get rid of soon to create more space in our little house: we could pass on all the lovely hand-me-downs like the swing, the playmat/gym, the bassinet, the baby tubs (yes, we ended up with two). But what if we have another baby? Then I'd want to hang on to these things so we don't have to go around collecting it all over again, or, gasp, buying some of it new.

I'm starting to wonder if this is one of those decisions that I'll never be 100% sure about even after I've made it... Here are some of my thoughts about having another child:

PROS

• I'd like Linnaeus to grow up with a sister or a brother. I really appreciate the relationship I have with my sisters. You just don't get this kind of history & sheer amount of shared experience with cousins or friends, no matter how close they are. 
• Theoretically, the kids can play together & entertain each other, once the youngest is up to the age where that's actually plausible. My sister W & I spent hours playing together as children.
• The second child is cheaper than the first one. The price of family admission, the hand-me-downs, knowing where to get better deals & what not to buy the second time around would mean another baby wouldn't have such a steep 'start-up cost'.

CONS

• While the next kid may not cost as much as Linnaeus, s/he will cost more money, which we don't have a lot of at the moment.
• Oliver grew up without siblings & he turned out just fine. He's not at all the egotistical, spotlight-hogging, selfish stereotypical only child.
• The subsequent children never get their parents undivided attention, as there's another kid around. Part of me would always feel a bit guilty for the benign neglect that happens to a lot of second & third kids.
• Having another kid in the next three years (so that they can have a hope of being close earlier on) is not very compatible with doing a full-time two-year Speech Language Pathology M.Sc program.
• I assume I'll have milk supply issues with my next baby & will have to go through this breastfeeding + supplementing then constantly worrying about weight gain routine again.
• The insane sleep deprivation that might result from having a newborn AND a toddler waking me up a various times during the night coupled with the work involved in parenting them during the days too might well drive me crazy.
• Childcare costs for one are insane, but for two... ?@#*&! As a full-time ESL teacher, there'd be no point in working:100% of my take-home pay would go to daycare. Once I'm an SLP, we might be able to afford it, but that's at least five years down the road. This country REALLY needs a quality national subsidized childcare system.

For the parents one or more child out there: have you thought about having another? For the parents of more than one: when did you know you wanted more? For my readers with or without children: how do you think your life was affected by having/not having siblings?

Interestingness (yes, I know this is not a real word)

It's six-thirty in the freakin' morning, still dark outside & I really should get back to bed, but it's been an interesting enough time since I last posted that I had to write. To keep it brief & hopefully let me get back to sleep soon, here's a list of interestingness:

• Sprout cluster-fed through most of the daytime, like the day before, so I think this might be a growth spurt.
• He did not take a top-up yesterday at all.
• I pumped before I went to bed & got 45mL in about seven minutes. 15mL is going to the CHILD Study at my three-month home visit later today.
• Sprout just slept for almost NINE hours straight after fussing a bit & then being swaddled. 
• I woke up more engorged than ever before only five hours after pumping & going to bed.

If he keeps sleeping this long, I'll need to pump before bed every night so that I don't get painfully, sleep-interruptingly engorged overnight. This will mean that I have extra milk I can freeze or something. Oh. My. God. I have trouble believing that I might be able to make what he needs, let alone more than he needs. It's only been a week that we have been cutting back on the top-ups & we haven't weighed him since before that. I'm tempted to go to the Breastfeeding Centre today to weigh him on the same scale as last time, just to see if he's gained much weight this week...

Just before I go back to bed, I'd also like to say that I'm thinking of my other mama friends who have struggled with milk supply issues & other breastfeeding difficulties. Thank you for sharing with me--knowing that I wasn't alone in this has really helped me get through the weeks of appointments, weigh-ins, pumping, supplementing, trips to the store to buy formula, endless bottle-washing & doubts. I hope you all feel really proud of yourselves for persevering through all this to get your babies as much breast milk as you can for as long as you can.

Must... blog... about... poop...

I consider myself lucky to have avoided 'christening' so far, but poor Oliver has now been the recipient of a small load of baby poop twice. Today's incident happened as Papa was feeding little L his top-up. We are trying out the next size up of diapers & still need to get  the fit adjusted better, apparently. The leg leaked & Papa was distressed to discover poo had leaked onto his pants, the couch & even the floor. 

I wasn't much help because I couldn't stop laughing. Apparently six hours (total, in three 'bites') of sleep is enough that I feel a lot happier, but not enough that I can avoid dissolving into a useless pile of giggles at the slightest baby-related provocation. Poor Oli was a bit miffed that I just laughed at him as he opened up what might be the biggest mother lode yet in little L's diaper. I am so glad to have him home & to have a partner who is willing to share diaper duty, among other things.

It's pretty easy to laugh when it's newborn poo, as the stuff seems more like mustard than anything an older human might deposit in a toilet. Though perhaps it's just the new parent oblivion to/fascination with our progeny's bodily functions. I remember thinking months ago that I'd never write a status update on Facebook about my child's bowel movements, & as far as my sleep-deprived brain can remember, I haven't yet. However, I'm not above blogging about it.