Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Is that your final answer?

I get asked quite often when Fabien and I are planning on having another kid. Which is quite funny because I don't think we really planned to have Sophie in the first place. She was a "controlled accident" in the sense that I am far too disorganised to use ovulation sticks and charting cycles to either plan for or against conception, so that we carried our general laissez faire approach to this as with other areas of our life. (is that too much information yet?!!)

At this point however, I don't know when or whether we want another biological child or adopt one. The environmental impact of having another biological kid gets to me, but the amount of legal hoops to jump through and death by paperwork almost makes me prefer labour!

In either the adoption/biological baby scenario, there is still the question of timing. Now just isn't a good one, because I am really getting into the swing of being at work now, and I do enjoy it, so I don't really want to take time out to look after another baby.

Right now, my work/life balance is so good, I nurse, read books, and play with Sophie every single morning, then I go to work. I don't feel pressured to rush home because she has an early bedtime and would be asleep anyway. My office hours are not as bad as when I was in Singapore, but I do have the ocassional late night. No all-nighters... Yet

And at least once a week, I have lunch at home with her, and at least once a month, I will spend a couple of days working from home, to make up for the time that I spend travelling for work.

With Fabien doing exactly the same thing, I guess Sophie has quite a lot of parent time overall, but both her parents can still have full time jobs. Sophie may not realise her parents are married since she often only sees one of us at a time but hopefully we have enough family holidays and weekend breaks en famille to balance it all.

This was a really long way of getting to the point that my general feeling is that we're in such a good rythym right now it seems perilous to introduce another baby into the mix! The response to the "when" question seems to be "whenever"~

4 comments:

The Missus Complains said...

I am glad to be having another child so soon esp. with all the extra help I will have. Things will be bearable for me and for Demetrio. With my mom here, the babysitter, the mother's helper and my friends and sister around, I think I will be okay. I keep saying to myself that I wonder if I will ever have a job again ever.
I must say that as a mom and a wife, I get very resentful when Deme and I do not spend time together with Veronica and when he does not spend alone time with her I upset too. The only solution is for us to make time to spend with her and one another. The one another thing still needs work but we hope to get a few date nights here and there when my mom arrives.

Anonymous said...

S* - I think I speak for many in saying that you're one of those James Lovelock's "...who should". :-)

Besides, 90% of babies "look" positively brain dead and would amount to little other than mediocrity. Since Sophie's not one of the 90%, her sibling(s) should be no different and that's good for the World. Bring them on. Ahem.

S* said...

Hey Sprogmama - you are going to have 5 kids if Tia, Giordano and Ginvera all stay with you, so I'd say that's pretty much a FULL time job!!

DC - If having an environmental conscience is one of the reasons for me to breed, " then wouldn't I be guilty of incredible hypocrisy?

Anonymous said...

S* - don't focus on the hypocrisy - you can make up for it in other ways (seek carbon neutrality and the like).

Lovelock's argument overrides all hypocrisy. We DO need more well-rounded parents like you.

Adoption is good too, of course. :-) I am in favour in adoption myself. Unless of course, an Argentine footballer comes my way this September 11th. Hmmm. TMI.