“I almost feel more pressure to get pregnant now, after I’ve given birth to a child,” a friend told me. We each have our own toddler, and both are trying to have another one, but they keep waiting. She because she keeps having miscarriages, me because I suffered a birth injury that makes it difficult for an embryo to attach. “It’s just as if the threshold for asking people if they should have children is lower when you already have one,” she continued. I have experienced the same myself. In the midst of intensive hormone treatments to make my womb more homely, I have been asked by fathers in the nursery with children on each arm if I will soon have more. “I’m doing my best,” I reply, “but I have a birth injury that makes it quite difficult.” My motto after six years of trying for a baby has become to be as open and direct in my answers as those who ask me. I generally like direct questions quite well, but I have to take a breath before I answer. But why am I so often asked if we should have more children? I’ve been scratching my head about that, even though I realize it’s not meant to hurt. At times I am asked weekly when my daughter will have a sibling. When I answer that I have both endometriosis and a birth defect called Asherman’s syndrome, both of which make conception and pregnancy difficult, the question quickly arises whether we are thinking about adoption or foster care. We have of course considered that, but not as a substitute for a baby. We would like to be in a foster home sometime in the future, but for us it is important that it is about the child’s need for a safe home, not our need to be parents of two children. In my rush to get pregnant, I haven’t quite managed to stop and think: Maybe we should give up here? Could it be possible with one child? “It’s like it’s taboo to only have one child,” I told my friend. I myself have four step-siblings and two half-siblings, have grown up with children everywhere, but still have been called an only child, because my mother is just my mum. “An only child”, people have said and frowned, and I have realized that it is something I should be ashamed of, which makes me selfish, unable to share, unsociable and a weasel. I have worked hard to disprove the prejudices. At one point I handed out my toys to the neighboring children on the block to show how altruistic I was. I still exaggerate the number of step- and half-siblings I’ve grown up with, to really emphasize that I’ve learned that you have to share the benefits. When I see that people are starting to assume that I don’t share my mother with anyone, I’ve tried to preempt them and said: “I’m an only child, you know”, with a smile. Sometimes I wonder if it is the shame of being an only child that has made me so obsessed with making siblings for my daughter. Her father called her an only child once, and it sent chills through my body. What kind of mother am I if I can’t make siblings for her? To get rid of the shame, I have sought out mothers with one child. We’ve talked about why we don’t have more children, and I’ve learned that many people are as ashamed as I am – or more so. They talk about postpartum psychoses that have scared them from having more children, about painful and lonely miscarriages, about having a first child so late that you can’t have more, about not finding someone to have a second child with, and about everyday life with one child which simply does not add up with two. The list is long, and women’s health, maternity care, working hours and lack of relief go on and on. But what we have in common has been that we believe that we must have two. It feels as if there is a summary of how to be a family in Norway, and there two children (or more) have two lines under the answer. Now I want to end this shame. Research has long since disproved that only children are more selfish than others, simply because the parents overcompensate by constantly reminding them to share, but also because children get a lot of socialization outside the home. They learn to share in kindergarten, at school and in the streets. While I would still like to have more children, I don’t want these weird, chaotic, beautiful, fragile years with our girl to be lost in the pursuit of another child. And for that I need both to change my own expectations of what a family is, but also a never-so-small change in society. I need us to shake off the underlying expectation that a full-fledged family consists of several children, and I myself will stop saying that I “only” have one. I have one! And I’m incredibly grateful.
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The hunt for more children – Statement
