Katie Eure is one of my favorite people that I’ve met online. Not just because she’s always been a loyal #iPPP linker upper (though I do enjoy that about her), but because she’s funny and honest and always a friendly “face” to see on Twitter (or Instagram).

Her kids are A-DOR-A-BLE. Here’s proof, and here’s some more proof (if you need it). Oh, and also this (her twitter background).

Thank you so much, Katie, for being a great friend (virtual or otherwise) and being here today!

I am so honored that Greta asked me to be part of her Great Expectations series today. When I was trying to decide what to share, I kept coming back to the same topic. What were my expectations when we made the decision to have a third child? And what has reality been like?

I have a 10-year-old and an 8-year-old…and now an 18-month-old. A lot of people were surprised when they heard I was pregnant with a third, and people still ask about the delay between kids now.  I usually tell people that it took my husband six years to convince me to have a third kid. It’s true. He wanted a third child more than I did for a long time. And honestly, due to his alcoholism, I wasn’t willing to consider having a third child for several years. We agreed to wait until he’d been sober one year before we discussed it again. He made it one year (now three!), so we went for it.

I think a part of me still worried about actually having a third kid though. What were my expectations? I had some good expectations and some bad expectations really.

The good:

• I’d never had trouble with my pregnancies in the past. If it’s possible to say that pregnancy was easy, considering the fact that you’re growing a giant baby in your body, I had easy pregnancies.
• I love little babies. I looked forward to experiencing all those fun moments with a newborn again. Cuddling. Enjoying all the baby and toddler firsts.
• My girls wanted us to have another baby so bad. Jenny was already a big sister, so she’d experienced that changing role, but Reagan wanted a younger sibling, too, and I knew they’d be great sisters to another child.
• I knew how much having another child meant to my husband. He’d been through some rough years, and he was looking forward to being a stay-at-home dad to a baby and sharing in all those special moments.

The bad:

• While I looked forward to one more chance at some of the baby moments, weren’t we past the baby stage? My girls were well past potty-training age, and certainly sleeping through the night. They were in school – practically grown up!
• Could I continue to be as good a mom to the first two? They were old enough that we were able to do a lot of fun things together. Would a baby mess up that dynamic? Wasn’t our family already perfect?
• I worried about the impact to my work, selfish as that may sound. I was at a higher level at my job than I was with either of my first two pregnancies, and I worried about the impact of my maternity leave on my career.

Now, reality.

• Being pregnant in my thirties was harder than being pregnant in my twenties. I didn’t expect to have any physical issues. I suppose I didn’t actually have problems, but it was overall tougher on my body than the first two. I don’t know how much was due to age and how much was due to the fact that it had been six years since my last pregnancy, but it was harder than I expected.
• Having a little baby again was even better than I expected it to be. Particularly this baby. I love my little boy so much more than I thought I could love another child. I think it always works out that way when you have another child, but it’s a surprise every time how much you can love another one.
• Our girls are wonderful big sisters! I didn’t realize how great it would be to have built-in helpers. If Jenny asks if she can give her brother a bath? My answer is obviously yes. Who wouldn’t take that help? At the same time, I think we try not to make them resent their brother and feel like they always have to help with him to the point where it’s a chore.
• My husband is so wonderful with Brinkley. I love my work and I don’t think I’d be a good stay-at-home parent, but he’s amazing. I’m so happy he’s had this chance.
• The baby stage isn’t that terrible (I say after a night where we’ve all slept well!). The worst thing is that I’m so not used to having a baby around that I’ll forget we have a baby to deal with, so I’ll do something like load up in the car to go out for a bit and totally forget a diaper bag. Or even just a diaper. But that’s not the worst thing that could happen, so I think we’re doing okay.
• I don’t think my girls have had to miss out on much because of the baby. I’ve been to two elementary school dances with them since Brinkley was born – and I just strap him on my chest with the Ergo carrier and we have a great time. Plus they have a cute little baby to show off to their friends. I may have thought our family was perfect before, but I love how we are now even more.
• I often stress unnecessarily about work, and I think this was one of those cases. My maternity leave wasn’t a huge deal. I stayed in contact with everyone, and remained available if there were any emergencies. And I so enjoyed my maternity leave. I forgot about the positives of maternity leave because I was so worried about missing work. I’m glad I took the time to enjoy it. And I cried when it was time to leave my baby and go back to work after 6 weeks, just like I did the first two times.

Reality has proven to be better than my expectations. I can now say that I’m so happy we decided to become a family of five.

***************************

Now, go ahead and check out Your Girls and Boys, and follow Katie on Twitter and Facebook.