I Didn’t Know If I Wanted a Second Kid

Growing up, I wanted to have a big family. I wanted to have five children. FIVE.

However, after experiencing birth and postpartum traumas, the last thought I had on my mind was about having another child.

But that didn’t stop the comments from coming.

A male cardiologist looked at me and said, “You have to give your kids siblings!”

People asked, again and again, when my daughter would get a brother or sister.

Even my husband - very gently, very lovingly - would ask when I might be ready.

To be clear, my husband never pushed. He made it clear he’d support whatever I decided, while also being honest that he’d be happy with just one. That kind of steadiness mattered more than he probably knows.

But the outside noise didn’t touch what was actually happening inside me: fear.

What if I had pre-eclampsia again?

What if I had another traumatic birth?

What if I had placenta accreta again?

There were so many unknowns, and unlike the well-meaning strangers with opinions, I was the one who would have to live inside whatever came next.

Here’s the one thing I did know about myself, underneath all the fear: if I didn’t have another child, I might spend years wondering “what if.” But if I did have another baby, I knew - with complete certainty - I would never regret them.

That distinction is what let me make the decision. Not certainty that everything would go smoothly. Not the absence of fear. Just clarity about which version of “not knowing” I could actually live with.

So I made the hard choice to try again.

And once I made it, I started doing the one thing that was actually in my control: building a team I could trust.

The biggest piece of that was choosing to work with the OBGYN who had performed my emergency D&C, when I had placenta accreta during my first postpartum. She had already seen me at one of the hardest points of my life. She already knew my history, my body, my fear. Going back to her wasn’t the easy choice - honestly, walking back into that office still felt loaded in ways I didn’t fully expect - but it was the right one.

She and her team became a critical part of my healing, not just my pregnancy. Having providers who understood what I’d been through - rather than treating my history as a footnote - changed the entire experience of trying again.

If you’re sitting in that same uncertainty right now - wanting another child but terrified of what birth or postpartum might bring a second time - I want you to know this isn’t a decision anyone else can make “correctly” for you. It’s not about eliminating the fear. It’s about figuring out which regret you can live with, and then building the support around you to help you carry whatever comes next.

If birth or postpartum trauma is shaping how you think about growing your family, you don’t have to navigate that alone. I offer a free intro call for Washington state parents who want support processing what happened and moving forward - whatever that looks like for you.

[Book your free intro call here.]