Quote Originally Posted by ksmom View Post
First off I'm so sorry you're getting hurtful comments like that, both from family and strangers. I remember all too well the comments I got from random people when we were expecting DS3. It really amplifies the GD especially when you've swayed. While having 2 kids is fairly easy, I didn't find adding a third to be too much. Really by that point you're used to dividing your attention and the third gets thrown in there somewhere with all the busy activity. It was a little hard at first when DS3 was a baby (but it was that way too when DS2 was little) but now my youngest son is 2.5 years old and my oldest two are 7 and 5 so they can help out. We definitely want a fourth as well. If you can do IVF for your third, then by all means do it. I wanted a girl for our second, got a boy and was OK then swayed pink for our third after chickening out of HT and had another boy. Now we're doing HT for sure for baby #4.

I've found it's true what Atomic says about boys needing to come in pairs. My oldest two are like two peas in a pod and I wouldn't trade them for anything. Best of luck to you!
Thank you so much @ksmom!! That's so exciting that you're doing HT for #4!! And I agree, I mean I haven't even had this baby yet but I am genuinely so excited now for my son to have a baby brother - I'm thinking long-term, life-long, I imagine they will be close as anything, or I hope so at least. There is such a difference in the experience of boys / men and girls / women growing up and then entering this adult world, I'm so glad he will have a best friend and confidant for life. And that is fantastic to hear that adding #3 wasn't too crazy difficult; as you say it's all a matter of perspective. So wonderful that your elder two help with the youngest. My son turned 2 recently and I am so enjoying this age, he is such an easy child to be around and needs so little from us now compared with the tiny infant stage. You put in the hard yards in those first couple of years and then you have an amazing little person to spend the rest of your life with. Pretty great deal in my opinion

How far are you along the HT journey? I admit it sounds a little bit scary too, but I think I'd be a lot less daunted if it didn't mean having to travel to a foreign country for medical treatment (and potentially back again if it doesn't work first go). But that's the route we'll go down if we go for a third because I don't want to put GD on a third son or go through it again myself, both for my sake and my husband's. Have you told anyone you're going for HT? I'm guessing we;'d have to travel to Thailand or the USA with our two boys if we went through with it, and would probably keep it to ourselves, so that might be challenging! but that's all some years away, I keep reminding myself 'one step at a time'.

I agree, those comments are awful when you have your own feelings about it and especially when you've swayed. I had one girl come right out and say "so will you go again and try for a girl" and I wanted to say to her there's no such thing as 'trying for a girl' - if there was then everyone would have the precise family makeup they planned on! I am so extremely grateful for my second beautiful baby boy and can't wait to see the two of them together, but people's comments do hurt and I'm a sensitive soul to start with