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Baby No. 3

What Do You Do When Just One's Content with Two Children?

By Emily Mendell

"Table for five." Those were the three words my husband would plainly say in response to me whenever I would express pangs for a third child.

"Just think about it. It is so much harder to get seated in a restaurant with five people than with four," he would reason.

And while this rationale seemed incredibly weak, especially when I was convinced that another little soul belonged with us, it was illustrative of a reasonable point he was trying to make. We have two great boys ages 8 and 10. Things are good. Life is so much easier. Let's not mess with it. He was clearly stopping at two. I on the other hand had secretly picked out the name for our third child and refused to give away the crib and the baby clothes.

It was a topic that often came up when we were with friends. "Are you guys going to have a third?" And the fact that we had two boys upped the stakes considerably with the possibility that we might 1) "go for the girl" and 2) be goofy enough to actually admit it if we were. Often my response to these inquiries was that yes, I was going to have a third child but my husband was not. It helped change the subject quickly.

My answer was in jest because we truly had no answers. We were at a stalemate.

Perhaps it would have been helpful to set this number in stone before we walked down the aisle and started this journey. But that is not terribly realistic according to Jill Ripken, a registered nurse, psychotherapist and certified counselor in Ardmore, Pa.

"It is easy to say that these types of discussions should take place before you get married," Ripken says. "And it is a good idea, but for most people it's not the end of the conversation. Things change. And people change their minds."

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