How has having a child with special needs affected your family size?

[Ginger]

Sounds like you've already made up your mind Meow.

[meow]

I know what I want that's for sure!

But I do understand the opposing views and I really want to explore them more as I am having trouble being sensible at the moment. I really appreciate you sharing your reasons for stopping having more children. That is what I really needed from this thread, to gain some perspective, so I appreciate it.

I think there is a good chance we'll have another but when is the question really. I was a medically high-needs baby and my parents stopped after having me (second baby). My mum always wanted another though and after getting divorced she fell pregnant in a brief relationship... 13 years after having me. It doesn't give me much faith that the desire goes away!

[Early Kids]

For us it wasn't so much the special needs side of things but it was the thought of putting another child through the NICU (my boys were prem). Our eldest has ASD, among a few other lesser diagnosis (SPD, speech disorder, developmental delays in all areas) and he has also had some very severe health issues (he's had 6 surgeries one of which Drs are amazed he survived). Our youngest has SPD and Social Anxiety, we've had it suggested we have him 'tested' for Autism however if he does fall under the spectrum it doesn't affect him all that much (mainly as we already have the routines, therapies, etc in place).

Our chances of a 3rd child being full term is very very slim which increases the chances of another SN child. Emotionally I can not handle another high risk pregnancy, I was highly medicated throughout DS2s pregnancy for not only PTSD and AND but also to try and prevent per term delivery. I was in and out of hospital meaning DS1 was quite often 'dumped' with whoever could take him. We don't have the family support we did back then, mainly due to distance, we live further from Perth than we did then.

I had my tubes tied, against medical advice, at 24. Sometimes I wonder what if and some days I think we could have had a 3rd but on the bad days I'm glad we didn't. It wasn't an easy choice and we had a lot to consider, but I feel we made the right one

Good luck!