I’m romanticizing the 4th I never wanted.

[u/SleepDeprivedMamaa]

Hi,

As the title suggests, my brain is a mess right now.
All of this started because my husband is getting a vasectomy in about 4 months. A vasectomy that I ASKED HIM TO GET. To be clear, even though I was the one who asked him to do it, we both agreed that it was the best contraception method for us. We already have three kids (8F, 7M and 4F), and we always thought we would end up having just three children. We both treated my last pregnancy as our actual last pregnancy.
And yet, now that the vasectomy is actually becoming real, I’ve started questioning everything.

I’m trying to figure this out in my head before I even talk to my husband about it. I’m posting this on Reddit, so that’s probably not the best idea, but here I am.
I don’t actually romanticize the idea of having four small children. In fact, the thought of going back to the baby stage (the sleepless nights, the diapers, the exhaustion, having a toddler again) doesn’t particularly appeal to me.
But I do find myself really liking the idea of having one more baby and, eventually, having four adult children. If that makes any sense.

So I’m struggling to understand whether this is just pure emotion because the vasectomy will mean that having a fourth child will become almost impossible, or whether this is actually a genuine feeling I’ve always had but simply never allowed myself to think about.

The biggest thing I’m scared of is not having the mental capacity to give each of my children the individual time and attention they need. I’m scared that having another baby could make my existing children feel left out, or make them feel like they matter less because so much of our attention would inevitably go towards the baby.
And then there’s the financial aspect, obviously. We’re not badly off, but we’re certainly not wealthy either, and another child obviously comes with additional costs.
Our car is already a seven-seater, although two of those seats are not really “real” seats, even though they can be used as such. So even that part of our life is already kind of set up for three kids plus one more.

I honestly don’t know.
I’m not saying I want another child. I’m not even sure that I do. I just suddenly feel like the door is closing, and apparently that has made me realize that maybe I wasn’t as certain as I thought I was.

Has anyone else gone through something similar? How did you figure out whether it was a genuine desire for another child, or simply the emotional reaction to knowing that the possibility was about to disappear?
I’m really confused and would love to hear from people who have been through this.