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5 or 6. Life didn't turn out as I planned and maybe its for the best. I have fostered, and have step kids and adopted 2 kids. I think if I was able to carry a baby full term I would have had more and then been in way over my head. Because when they were little, it wasn't too hard. I loved that time. It wasn't until they got older that life got hard. So I could have seen myself having babies close together and then being like "what the hell did I do?" once they got older.
I've always wanted 5. Now I'm approaching 30, have none, and don't expect to have help from either my SO or I's family (and, as he's the only child of low income parents, he expects to have to help them significantly as they age).
I'm hopeful that we'll be able to afford two, but even that will be pushing it financially unfortunately.
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Originally Posted by emeraldmist
I hear you. We have zero help from family either. It took a while to get used to doing all the childcare on our own, with never even a night out while the kids were with the grandparents... but after a while, it just becomes the norm. Financially it's a different matter. If I wasn't able to stay at home with the kids, we'd never be able to afford daycare.
Why would you EXPECT to get help - at least more than a bare minimum? Did you even mention it to your or their families that you were planning on getting their help?
If you have kids you better be sure that YOU have all the resources necessary - THEY are counting on YOU and YOU can count on no one except hopefully your partner.
And I am shocked that so many people here planned on 5 or 6 - I'm guessing that is youthful ignorance and exuberance before even living on your own and knowing what it might cost to have a family...or maybe the Brady Bunch influence?
I wanted 4 children: two boys and two girls with the boys the older because I always wished I had an older brother. I also wanted a house with a white picket fence.
I wound up with 2 boys and for about 6 months when we lived in Mount Olive I had my house with the white picket fence. :-)
Wanted zero, got married and still wanted zero. Married five years and wanted one. Then had another 2 years later. Wouldn't change anything. What a person wants when they are young could change when older or day to day!
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If I'd done it right... if ... if... if... 
