Photo by Lori Dorman
When Brian had his vasectomy, we had so many people feel obligated to chime in about how much we would regret it. Some of their reasoning was a bit too morbid to even be amusing:
- You’re so young!
Yes, and each year that passes I will become more at-risk for pregnancy-related conditions I am already at a high-risk for.
- What if something happens to your family/child?
I am not even going to entertain that possibility. You can’t replace human beings/family members/children. It doesn’t work like that.
- What if you change your mind?
We won’t, don’t worry. I am more worried his body is going to self-correct the severed area (which happens occasionally). Now, that would be a more likely scenario than us changing our minds.
I understand that people want to keep their options open, but even if my pregnancy with Aram didn’t almost kill both of us, we were done having biological children.
When Samuel came home, we debated adopting again, only to realize we didn’t want to add to our family. In fact, we felt delightfully complete. It is like that moment when you have had a full delicious meal and you could probably force yourself to take one more delectable bite, but you stop yourself because it may set you over the edge. That is us. We want to avoid going over that edge and take on more than what we can handle well– And let us not forget the “more that we can handle” we are referring to is human life! It would be irresponsible of us and wrong to do to our children as well as this theoretical child, by bringing him or her into our home.
I think Brian and I always knew we weren’t going to be like my sister and her family who wanted a large, consistently growing family. For them, it is a completely separate lifestyle they thrive in. They like being homebodies and tending to their garden and chickens. It is a slow-paced and lovely life.
For us, we embraced slowing down when Aram was an infant and for those first several months of adjustment when Samuel came home, but now that they are older we feel we hit our sweet spot. We can travel with ease, the boys are interested in visiting places and being a part of activities we also enjoy. It is a nice feeling, full of possibilities.
That is why we appreciate others and their exciting and growing families, but when someone brings up how disappointed we will be if we don’t have more babies, we almost jump back and shudder at the thought of entertaining that idea. It’s just not for us. I think it is a good lesson that everyone is different and we should understand that it is okay to be happy with what you have and have been given without trying to change it.
