Two Year or Three Year Spacing? Always On My Mind...

Time sure does fly when you have a baby.

At this time last year I was 8 months pregnant and could barely imagine what it would be like just to have one.  Now here I sit with an 11-month old, and it's T-4 months if we want to stick to plan A and space our kids two years apart.

I've heard a little from both sides - I've been warned not to do it, and I've been told that it ends up better in the end because they can play together sooner.  We're totally torn and you know what that means, folks:  We're easy prey for that insidious Baby Bug. 

Making this pro and con list, I know in my heart that what I want most is to be convinced that it's okay, and 2 year spacing will work out.  However, living in Boston with very little money, a lot of educational debt, no family in the area to help, and a husband with crazy work hours ... I'm worried I'd be biting off more than I can comfortably chew, and I really believe good parenting comes from parents who are in a happy place.

Pros of 2-year Spacing:

1. Kids play together sooner (in theory...)
2. Kids may be closer as teens and young adults, due to being closer in age (key word:  "may")
3. If we have boy-girl-boy, the two boys would only be 4 years apart instead of 6.
4. Easier to do family activities (ex: the afternoon-nap years are over when #1 is 7 instead of 9... woot, way more fun on vacations).
5. Physically way easier to be pregnant when younger.  Not to mention way easier to lift 30 lbs forty times a day, easier to clean the floor under the high chair after each meal, easier to give a bath while on your knees... parenting is SO physical.
6. Have baby #3 at age 34 instead of age 36.  Statistically most risks (infertility, miscarriage, health of baby) start going up exponentially at age 35.  And what if we end up wanting more than 3?
7. More financial aid for college, if we qualify.  They consider whether you have another kid in college that same year, but they don't consider your own educational debt.
8. Get rid of baby gear and get furniture we care about up to 3 years earlier, depending on how many kids we have.

Cons of 2-year Spacing:

1. Another year of squeezing a family of 4 into a 2-bedroom apartment... and possibly a family of 5 if we have a 3rd and do 2 year spacing.
2. Soooooo much harder to travel with two kids than one, especially a toddler and a baby... and my parents only visit us once a year, and my in-laws visit even less, so everybody expects us to go to them.
3. Along those lines, we'll be buying 4 plane tickets whenever we go home a whole year earlier, which means a whole year poorer... YIKES.  Would we only go home once a year ever?  Good thing our families live driving distance from each other.
4. I've heard it's really hard to keep the toddler entertained when you're stuck at home for the baby's morning nap.  I've heard that you should wait until your oldest can do a few mornings a week of preschool.
5. My husband will be super busy the year we'd have #2.  I've heard the adjustment from 0-1 is hardest on the primary care giver and 1-2 is hardest on the secondary caregiver.  But if I'm BOTH of those people... would I lose my mind that year?
6. The walk-up to our second floor apartment is hard enough with just a baby, and hard to imagine with a baby and a 2-year-old who may not follow direction.  Add groceries to that...
7. Speaking of groceries, imagining doing them with a baby in the baby carrier and a 2 year old who might try to run off at any time is somewhat unfathomable...
8. As is being sick as a dog when Matthew is just 16 months old.  Do they watch TV by then?  We currently don't even have television service.  
9. And what about being hugely pregnant when M is a year and a half?  How will I lift him?  How will I wrestle him for diaper changes?  My husband will already be in his busy year at this point, so dinner and bath time will be all on me.
10. Last, generally:  The time with just one baby is sort of blissful and sweet.  I have time to blog, time to make photobooks, time to keep up with friends on Facebook, time for a book club.  But two is supposed to be more than twice the work.  If we space them two years will I regret giving up a whole year of what has so far been one of the very best times of my life?

Eegads.  I want so badly to do the 2 year spacing but I'm terrified.  If anyone has any additional pros, cons, advice, or encouragement, I'm all ears.

UPDATE:  Overall the feedback I received from several friends has been very encouraging in terms of two year spacing.  But I also noticed that both of the friends who cautioned me strongly against two-year spacing are at home, or were at the time, and all but one of the friends who loved two-year spacing worked outside of the home.  It got me thinking... 7 of the 10 things on my "con" list really relate to the 1 on 1 ratio during pregnancy or the 1 on 2 ratio post-baby#2.  If I knew my husband would pretty much always be home whenever I was, I don't think I'd be as worried.   So... what now?

Reentry Shock: "I am not one of your nurses."

(let me preface with the disclaimer that my husband and I both laugh when I resort to making the title statement of this entry).

Last week, after a brutal spring of bad rotation after bad rotation after someone else's bad rotation on the hit list, we finally reached a glorious milestone in the grueling world of residency:  My husband became a senior resident.

Back in the old days (as in, just a couple years ago) senior residents lived The Life.  They'd put their time in and could relax as junior residents skillfully managed the interns.  Many even made good money moonlighting while they were officially working their senior resident shifts.  No more.  The work is flowing up in an effort to protect interns (and their patients) from the notoriously hellish existence of those early residency years.  Most practicing physicians I've spoken to believe the regulations have recently gone too far, and that patient care is now jeopardized by too-short shifts (meaning a complex hospitalized patient gets a brand new doctor every 16 hours now, instead of every 30), among other issues.  Suffice it to say that it needed to change back when my dad went through it on Q2, but even with our crazy commute my husband's intern year wasn't that bad.  What was bad was his junior year, when the work flowed up to residents who already had a full plate.

In any case, all of a sudden my husband is back "at home" (working regular hours).  Well, for a few weeks anyway.  This is the moment we've been waiting for, and the moment to savor before he's onto the next bad rotation, and then his brutal first year of fellowship. 

So... why is it fraught with frustration?

I'm sure the medical spouses (and significant others) who do read this blog can relate.  It's the "reentry shock."  Suddenly your medical spouse, who is used to being "The Boss" in his or her world, is supposed to be someone else's equal - *your* equal.  And the goal is no longer efficiency...  it's happiness and contentment.  Move over Mars and Venus:  We're talking a whole new galaxy here.

In the medical world, your spouse is prized for his (or her) ability to make tough decisions quickly, and to be sure of the decision made.  When my husband talks about why he loves MGH, and why he believes physician training can't be a cakewalk, he'll say he doesn't want to be one of the physicians who wavers or is unsure for lack of training.  The physicians he looks up to are the ones who know their stuff - cold - and can practice medicine with confidence and efficiency.  The better a doctor you are, the faster you'll catch things, and the less your patients and their families will suffer.  And he's seen mistakes... even at the revered MGH. 

But how does this translate to being at home?  Well... it sort of doesn't.  If one "partner" is making lightning-speed decisions and just announcing them to the other partner... especially if the other partner has more experience with, say, how a baby's schedule needs to work... it just doesn't work.  Compromise is key in relationships and homes. (By the way, can anyone even imagine him being this way?  Our college friends out here are shocked at the transformation... at first they thought it was Boston, but it's definitely the residency.)

Even AS I'm typing this and reading it TO my husband - and we're both laughing - he is insisting that I go on my run now so that I can bring back portabella mushrooms and he can make a caprese salad for lunch.  Okay... but what about the fact that I don't want to jog while holding my wallet and mushrooms?  No, no we "have to try new recipes!" he declares.  This would be great in the hospital:  Doctor sees the best end-game solution and sacrifices all to achieve it for patient.  But home isn't about the end-game... it's about enjoying life and stopping to smell the roses.

To be honest, I don't think there's a great solution here.  I just assume that being one week into a "normal" work schedule isn't enough for my husband to really be "himself."  Plus, sometimes it's good - he's been grilling up culinary masterpieces this weekend and we had the Andersons over for a truly gourmet dinner (even if it did result in a super messy kitchen and an off-schedule baby).  He also forced me to go to a pilates class that I ended up loving, and will now go to every week.   So, I find myself choosing my battles.  I don't think I'll be jogging with my wallet and portabella mushrooms in tow; he'll have to understand that.  But if he wants to bring grilled-veggie gazpacho soup to our get-together today, sweet; I will relax about the kitchen getting messy :)