by Miss Tara

Created on: June 28, 2008   Last Updated: October 09, 2010

Growing up in my family I learned that one should only have two children. After all that is the "economically sensible" number to have. Imagine the reaction when I had my third and fourth babies.

With my first baby I was given all the conventional advise by everybody. You know, eat healthy, morning sickness passes with ginger cookies, walking or heat causes labor, and so on. I had a difficult pregnancy so it was easy to dismiss most of the advise. After my daughter was born I went back to work. Of course this brought on more unsolicited advise. My husband and I decided early on it didn't matter what people told us, we were going to do things the way that suited us. We stuck to that decision.

Two years after my first daughter my oldest son followed. Again I had a harsh pregnancy so the early advise was easy to dismiss. Before he was even born my family was talking to us about having my tubes tied or having my husband "fixed". We both weren't sure we were done and stuck to our guns. Soon after we just stopped discussing this with my family.

Imagine my father's reaction when I called home just after 2 years had passed to say we were expecting again. This had been our only planned pregnancy and I called at 12 weeks... I was so excited. My father then instructed me that it was a "needless pregnancy" and that we would not be able to afford her. He said we had the perfect balance with a boy and a girl and that we were foolish. This pregnancy was very hard on my body. I suffered from a blood infection, boils, hypremesis, and to add to everything my husband's job was a bust and we moved back to California when I was about 5 months. Of course all these things just added fuel to my father's ridicule. Finally my daughter arrived via emergency c-section. She was 32 weeks. She had a heart defect, breathing issues and could not feed. She spent 6 weeks in the NICU. My father decided to blame my husband for not having a good job and our move.

With my husband's support I decided to write off my father's opinions. We both thought that he should support our decision and not make an already painful time worse. After my daughter came my father wasn't supportive for a couple years. Everytime I would talk to him he just had negative things to say. One day I told him to not call unless he was willing to be a decent human being, and would step up to being a "grandpa" and actually support our kids. At least call for their birthdays and take an interest in the activities they were involved

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