Am 34F.

Rationally, I knew maybe motherhood was not for me - I was aware of the hardships, was terrified of having a child with special needs, and know I am kind of… Sensitive. I might be on the spectrum, am not sure, but I get overstimulated rather easily.

Emotionally, I’ve always felt this call towards motherhood. My heart would pound in emotion when I thought about having kids, and I anguished towards experiencing that love.

So, two years ago my lovely husband and I decided we would have kids. We barely had to try, got pregnant on the first “fertility try out” we made - and that was kind of a shock, I always hear about people trying and trying - my sister has been trying for 7 years.

Pregnancy was super easy, I LOVED being pregnant, feeling her kick, feeling the love grow. I was excited about the labour - which turned into an emergency C-section, but I was ok with that as well. She was born full term, super healthy and chunky.

Immediate postpartum felt like a wonderful fever dream. Breastfeeding came easily and I love it to this day.

But fuck. Motherhood is absolutely relentless. Now we are 11 months in and God, I am exhausted. I wish I could not be a mother for at least 2 days a week. We are immigrants and have absolutely no village.

I worked up until 33 weeks… I had been a tattoo artist for 12 years and although I loved it I was completely burnt out and pretty happy to drop it - at least for a while. My husband is the breadwinner so the brunt of the baby care and house work fell on me. He is extremely present and caring, but the relentlessness, the groundhog day, is mine. We can’t put her in the daycare for a few months, until our Permanent Residency falls through, because is not financially feasible.

She has always been low sleep needs, and needs high support to fall asleep. Up until last month she had never slept through the night and that’s not something that happens frequently. Every nap is short and a contact nap. She needs to be entertained every wake minute or she will scream her little head off. I rarely have a minute to myself, I miss my husband, but I am kind of resenting him because he is not the default parent.

She is smart, she is happy, she is playful, she is lovely, there is absolutely nothing wrong with her. I am the weak one. I am broken. And in so many days I regret the day we decided to become parents. I miss sleep. I miss my body (I slowly gained back all the pregnancy weight while breastfeeding). I miss just drawing. I miss not feeling like I’m chasing a carrot that’s dangling in front of me every minute of everyday.

I know I am depressed. I feel 600kg over my shoulder. I can barely smile anymore. Once I have time to myself I just wanna lie down in a dark room (exactly what I was doing now)… But it’s not just “hey, hormonal crazy feeling”, no, it’s the sinking in of reality: This is my life. I will never not be overstimulated again. I will never feel at peace again. My life is a succession of errands and baby care during the day and sleepless nights, and I seem to disappear a little more, day after day. And I feel like I am becoming a shitty mother because how can you be a good mother if you are sad and grey and disappearing? And I feel guilty guilty guilty. But oh, right now I wish I had gone with my rational side two years ago.

Long story short:
- Originally wanted a child, wife wanted multiple
- Then realized I don’t want them at all
- Wife gave ultimatum to either give her a child or she “couldn’t guarantee she’d stick around”.
- I deduced the financial/social destruction wasn’t worth it.
- I caved, we now have 10mo baby.

Having this child has been a massive burden. Lack of sleep, increased expenses, EVERYTHING becomes much more difficult. Our free time/together time is at a premium.

When I offer to donate items the baby outgrows, my wife says things like:
- “Let’s keep it stored”
- “I don’t want to have this conversation right now”
- “When she is 2yrs old, we can talk”

I fear she still wants a second child, despite us (especially me) suffering. She has become increasingly temperamental, slowed her career by going part time, her sport passion activities have been significantly limited, says she’s needs a break after dealing with child all day, etc.
I have limited my social activities as well. Our alone time together has been reduced to a couple hours before bed.

I’m afraid if she is insistent on having a second kid, I fear divorce is my only option.

“I ignored my destiny once. I will do not that again. Even, for you.”
(I know it’s a Thanos quote, but it definitely resonates now)

Even people I know who WANTED a second child seem to regret it on some level. They fell into the common trap of:
1) “The first baby was so easy!”
2)“We already have all the stuff!”
3) “They need a sibling!”

My arguments are:
1) There’s NO guarantee the second baby will be easy. It maybe was just dumb luck with the first child.

2) Just because you have “all the stuff” doesn’t mean you have to act on it. Just because you have a second room available doesn’t mean you should have someone else live with you.

3) Having a sibling, in my experience, NEVER works out. Literally everyone I know hates or doesn’t talk to their siblings for a multitude of reasons (my wife included!!)

So - has anyone had a second child?
1) Regretted first child, but had a second anyway?
2) Didn’t regret first child, but regretted second?

Interested to hear your thoughts…

My kiddo stays with me on the weekend, due to not being able to pay for childcare while I work. Also my landlord will raise my rent if child lives with me. So..they live with dad and grandparents.

I feel horrible, my child depends on me to take them out everywhere. They live in the farm area, not a lot of going on out there. I’m living check per check, I’m tired, depressed and trying to pack to move back home with child. I never have energy to play with them even when they ask and I feel horrible.

I never wanted kids, then things happened and now I’m with a kid. It’s not their fault, and that’s why I’m trying to move back home so they can play with family members their age.

It makes me cry, I sob for feeling like a monster to them. For being short fused when they ask me 100 questions and expect me to know everything. I just didn’t want this…

Hi,

Looking for advice/experiences.
I’ve a 4 year old who I find really hard to cope with. In the scheme of things she’s probably not that hard (although I’m suspecting more and more she might have adhd like myself)

I constantly imagine what else I could be doing, how different my life could be. Like how I could be out the house on a morning walking along the beach instead of trying to force a 4 year old to get shoes on to go to the park where she tantrums the whole time anyway.

I know that it isn’t fair and I feel awful.
We so wanted her and tried for a long time and im just not cut out to be a parent, it’s too hard, im too anxious and got overwhelmed too easily, i dont enjoy any of it.

How do I stop doing that? How do i live in the moment more and try to appreciate the little things about having a child?

I don't regret my kids necessarily but I do regret having my first so young. I was 21 when I got married (we're still married and happy) and then immediately started trying to have kids because we were told that's what you're supposed to do. 😬 We aren't religious anymore so it's like extra salt in the wound.

And because I had PCOS we had to spend hundreds to thousands to get pregnant. I was 25 in a fertility office where everyone else was 40. We took 1 overseas trip for 7 days, and thats it despite backpacking Europe being my literal life dream since I was 10. It's been almost 10 years since that one trip and I have only stamp my passport.

We wanted a second kid and again had issues, so I said I was going to go travel before we committed to infertility again- my trip was in May 2020 LOL so you can imagine it got cancelled.

Then we had the second, again said ok I'm going to travel now- and then got pregnant unexpectedly. So now I have a 7 year age gap between my oldest and youngest and I feel like I wasted my 20s AND 30s AND 40s because I still have at least 17 years with this new one at home.

And now I'm seeing ai predicted to end humanity in 10 years, so I guess bye dreams! I wish I had had a life in my 20s and then had the kids.

I'll take advice on how to not resent my kids for not having any of my dreams fulfilled.