I never thought I would have just one baby until I gave birth. I had a very healthy, relatively easy pregnancy and complication free birth. But unmedicated childbirth was horrifically painful. That was my first reason never to do it again. Almost 11 months later and I still feel that way despite how many people dismissed me saying it after the birth.

My feelings were solidified by an extremely difficult postpartum period- I had a really hard time adjusting to the lifestyle change and feeling like myself again (I'm not good with change), I had a horrible time breastfeeding (mastitis multiple times and then a hospital visit for breast abscess surgery that had to be packed with gauze for 6 weeks every day) and feel like a failure for not being able to do it as long as I wanted, not being able to handle cloth diapering, having to go back to work when she was only 8 weeks old, dealing with guilt, guilt, guilt constantly. I'm not as maternal as I thought I would be, I'm not as patient as I thought I would be. I never thought I'd have to deal with postpartum depression and anxiety. Feels like every time I stop stressing over one thing (is that a flat spot? why does she have a severe diaper rash? etc.) a new thing to stress over pops up. It's been like I'm just barely balancing and one more thing just tips me over the edge. I've never been so easily overwhelmed in my life, it's not like me at all.

I only had ten pounds to lose to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight after giving birth but all this stress caused me to gain 25 more lbs. instead (I weigh 10 lbs more now than I did 9 months pregnant and I was healthy weight to start with). I'm working on all that now and things are much better, but this year almost killed me so many times. I do love my baby with an intensity I've never experienced before and I hate that people see this as a reflection of her when I say I don't want more kids, but honestly there is no baby in the world cute enough to make me want to go through this again.