​My husband and I have a 5 year old daughter and have always been happily one and done. Even before she was born we discussed the matter and agreed we wanted only one. Despite being careful and using contraceptive, I just found out I’m pregnant.

​We are both heavily leaning toward termination. My husband openly says he doesn't have the emotional capacity for a baby again. I feel similar but different. I think I would be able to do it but I love our current life, freedom, and stability. I have zero desire to go back to sleepless nights or reset our progress. I also feel like the three of us are such a good little team.

​Yet, I’m spiraling with guilt because of two thoughts:

​My reasons feel selfish. Financially and physically, we could do it (although I would be 38 by the time I give birth). My reason for terminating isn't lack of resources, it's simply that I don't want to. It feels hard to give myself permission to choose my own comfort without feeling like a bad person.

​Will my daughter be lonely? This has always been on my mind to some extent but now it has become sooo much more real. I grew up with a sibling and love it (husband is an only child and totally fine). Our daughter is thriving and super happy, but I keep worrying about the future. It doesn't help that I live in a country where everyone judges and demands an explanation for only having one child.

​Also, our daughter was a surprise too, and I adore her. So my brain keeps trapping me with "what ifs". But deep down, I know our family feels complete as a trio just like we always wanted it to be.

​Has anyone in the OAD community been through an unintended pregnancy and chosen to stay OAD? How did you deal with the guilt of choosing your current life over a potential second child?

Hello, my baby/toddler was always a healthy kid. She had her first fever at 6 months old due to teething, her real sickness was when she was over 18 months old but since started nursery, she has been sick every 2-3 weeks and sometimes week after week. Anyone else has these same experiences? Also these sicknesses are something I've never heard of like Adenovirus or Roseola. I'm hoping she will outgrow these soon enough. ​Thank you in advance 💐

People wont show their true colors until its too late. Husband wants more kids but only helps out once in a blue moon. I told him he is welcome to have more kids with another woman. I thought about how I would have to "lie" to the said woman to "convince" her to have children.

And then it hit me, that I was also deceived in this way. I dont blame society for not warning me. Also i dislike it when people just assume that he showed his true colors from the start. Im just ranting... of course if the partner was more involved i would consider more kids.

Also my decision is very financial too. I dont want to be miserable and poor. Sorry not sorry.

My question is this: sometimes second marriages work better because we know what we dont want.

Is there a Happily OAD woman out there whose partner is very supportive, helpful and awesome??

I understand having the right partner can make or break.

But are there moms who feel strongly OAD even with that 10/10 father??? Just curious... im still OAD no matter what. No matter how much anyone tries to convince me they would help. I dont care what Anty says at the grocery store. I LITERALLY will start a debate if people want to. Like pay me 1 millon dollars and I might actually think about it, because I could pay someone to help. But still. No thanks

I love my baby so much <3

I have a precious toddler and am happily OAD. I’ve never wavered or been unsure—I know in my heart that I’m not meant to be anyone else’s mom.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to have her slightly older cousin spend the night with us and it was such a wonderful and HARD experience. The kids had conflicting wants and needs, were at times cranky with each other and with me, and were randomly competitive. I love both kids dearly and had a lovely time…and I still felt relieved when my sweet nephew went home.

I love giving my girl all my attention and not feeling like I have to let one kid down because what they want is fundamentally opposed to what another kid wants.

Having just one keeps parenting so joyful for me. I don’t think I could have more and still love being a mom, and I’m so grateful my girl will grow up with a mom who loves taking care of her, instead of a mom who is stressed and angry.

My husband got a vasectomy last week so we are very happy to be 100% OAD from now on! We have a 3 month old baby boy and have multiple reasons why we've decided to not have more children after him but I'm just so happy and content that with his vasectomy the whole discussion is off the table from now on. Our families know as well so hopefully we won't get harassed about more babies.

Needless to say you do not need to get tubes tied or a vasectomy to be OAD, I'm just very relieved that unwanted pregnancies won't be a possibility for us anymore. Yay!

I’m almost 8 months postpartum with my lovely, smiley little boy. It’s been hard getting to this point. Lots of tears have been shed, my marriage has suffered. Things have changed, and not for the better.

Almost the entire time since I gave birth in March, I have felt grossly under supported by my spouse. I went into labor in the evening and we arrived to the hospital around 9pm. Was admitted to L&D around 10pm after going through triage. From that point on, my husband was pretty much sleeping. They broke my water and he was asleep for that. I was laboring on my own for several hours until I gave birth.

For the first week, he was somewhat there and supportive but that changed. I was doing nights by myself, I was taking care of baby all day, rinse and repeat. He works a largely seasonal job as we live in the Midwest and work hadn’t started back up yet so he was home but not helping.

I went back to work at 12 weeks pp as my paid leave was ending. I make a pretty good wage and hold all of our benefits through my job. Still, all responsibilities continued to fall on me. Cleaning up the house, doing laundry, paying the bills, caretaking. The only thing I can entrust him to do is feed the dogs at night.

I originally wanted two children before I had one. But now? I laugh at that thought because I’ve made it this far with one and do not desire to ever put myself through it again.

Well, our 3rd embryo transfer failed last week. We are officially OAD with our incredible two year old.

She’s my absolute pride and joy, and I feel like I hit the lottery with our little trio, but I can’t help feeling sad that this choice was made for us.

Fellow OAD-ers: give me your positives about being a trio (or duo!)?

I think we’ll go on a weekend trip to help us move forward.

As the title. We're in the middle of our last IVF and it looks like it'll fail. Our eldest and only child has turned 10 by now, we started trying when he was 2,5 years old. Had three losses during this time, and needed emergency surgery for an ectopic pregnancy, accumulated a bunch of diagnoses I need to deal with but can't until I'm not trying to get pregnant. Not to mention all the money we've spent. And I'm 40 yo old, so it's not like I have a lot of fertile years ahead of me.

Anyway. We need to be done. But it makes me so incredibly sad that I'll never go through another (fullterm) pregnancy again, never breastfeed again, never have all those amazing little moments with a baby, a toddler, a young child etc. And I think most of all not being able to give my son a sibling. Partly because he wants it so much, he loves all his younger cousins and is always the favorite of his friend's younger siblings. He would be such an amazing big brother and now he'll never get the chance. An partly because he won't get to have nephews and nieces, his children (if he has them) will not have parternas cousins. And when my husband and I grow old and die he'll have to deal with it all by himself.

So. For those of you who really didn't want to be OAD but had the choice taken from you, how did you reconcile with it? Did you ever? Or will the grief and regret always be there?

I used to love scrapbooking as a teen but it’s hard to dedicate time for it.

For now, I have been printing off photos of my only and doing just regular photo albums until I can find time to use those photos for themed scrapbooks.

If you do photo albums of your only, are you using a service that sends you a photo book or doing it the traditional way? How do you selected what photos you chose?

I did 0-12 months in 2 photo albums but now that my daughter just turned 2 I am going back in my phone and picking a couple favorites/ fun/ funny moments from the last year to print off.

I’m 15 weeks postpartum, and I had an absolutely horrendous pregnancy. Coupled with permanent injuries I sustained from giving birth and developing severe PPD, I absolutely never want to do this again.

My husband is not quite on the OAD bandwagon yet, and I understand that. It’s so soon to be making permanent decisions, and I’ve also heard the “don’t make any decisions until at least 1 year postpartum” many times.

We attempted to be intimate for the first time since the baby was born, and I just burst into tears. The overwhelming fear of having to experience all of this again flooded my mind. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, and wept bitterly wondering if this part of our relationship would ever be the same.

I have tried so many forms of birth control and had side effects to all of them. Nausea, migraines (both were two different pills), even periods that lasted a month long (nexplanon). I have yet to try an IUD but the procedure of implanting / removing sounds awful, and I’m so done with medical trauma. I’m also worried about issues with condoms tearing / breaking / being defective.

What preventative measures have yall been doing?

Does anyone have good suggestions for family of 3 costume ideas?(I know we’re so late) My kiddo is a toddler so he has no opinion and when I try researching family of 3 costumes I’m still getting sent family of 4+ ideas.

Hi all!

My husband and I share a lovely 2 year old son. We are 99% sure we are OAD for sooo many positive reasons. More money (to spend and save), more time for our marriage and hobbies, more emotional capacity, and truly just no desire to have more children. I’m only starting to feel better in my body these days. I do LOVE being a mom, and love my son to death.

I still feel insecure at times with our decision to only have one. My husband and I both have siblings (I have one, my husband has two). My husband is very confident that our son won’t care about being an only and we can give him a good life. I worry we are being selfish by not pushing harder to have more children and give our son a bigger family.

I have read so many negative stories online about how terrible and lonely it is to be an “adult only child”. These people are talking like would be SO much more fulfilled if they simply had a sibling. But so many siblings aren’t very close?

I suppose I’m looking for some positivity and reassurance that I’m not setting my son up for a lonely life down the line.

Thanks all

I'm happily one and done since before pregnancy for many reasons, but now after having a very traumatic birth experince that ended in a c section (c section was not the traumatic part), I feel so sad I will never get to experince a natural birth. I wonder if anyone can share some uplifting stories about how they moved on from birth trauma and the sadness of not having the birth they wanted?

Thank you so much to everyone who has replyed, It means a lot to hear your stories. I'm sorry you all had to through what you did. Sending lots of love back ❤️ For those who asked, our baby is only 6 weeks so I know I'm in the thick of it. But I feel like time has helped a little already. I will talk to a midwife at the hospital to go through alle the things that happened, because for me I feel very let down by the hospital. But also share with friends snd considere therapy. Thank you for your stories and your advice 🌼❤️

I am SOOOO tired of being the babysitter. For some reason, whenever I go out with friends and their kids, I always end up watching and entertaining all the older kids while the other moms sit around and chat and hold their babies.

My kid needs friends, so I am going to keep engaging, but I wish I could spend time with more OAD families and not constantly be the “free babysitter” of the group!

We hosted my 6-year-old's birthday party at our house, with entertainment geared toward the kindergarten age group. Invites were addressed to the child, with a note that parents can drop off or stay. I thought it was a little mean to say "no siblings," and I thought addressing it to the child would be clear enough.

It wasn't. A two-year-old sibling shows up with both parents and his sister, runs around, and whines the whole time. Clearly, he missed his nap to be at this party. The entertainment is not entertaining him. I'm miffed. My husband thinks, "The more, the merrier," and is totally against saying no siblings on the invite.

A family of five dropped off their child. Like, what if that family did the same as the family of four and brought all three of their kids, and now we're hosting nine people for only two kids who actually know my child, on top of the dozen other people we had invited?

Or maybe I should just be more like my husband... what do you think??

My 8 year old son wants a younger sibling so badly. And I want to give him one. But my husband is refusing because he feels we couldn't handle it emotionally, and deep down I know he's right. I have severe anxiety and OCD, and my husband has depression. Plus we're both over 40, and our parents are too elderly to help much this time around.

The problem is - how do I explain this to my son? I've always just told him "I can't have another baby", but then he learned about adoption and is begging us to adopt. I'm afraid that any explanation I give him, will make him worry that our mental health problems are his fault.

I am someone who struggles a lot with energy, and my husband is a blue collar worker who operates machines so he NEEDS enough sleep. And so when we have a baby I will most likely be doing the night shift. That means for the next multiple years I am not going to be able to sleep at night. Now, because I am a homemaker I will have some little time to nap while my husband is at work, however if I had another children the I would never be able to sleep. And that's not okay, because if I never sleep I will not able to take care of my children.

This is going to be a long post. I’m going to begin this by saying I never wanted to have kids. I am the oldest of 4 on my mother’s side- I have other siblings but do not know them on my father’s side. I was forced to grow up and help raise them throughout my entire childhood. My mother was an addict (not anymore!) and I was constantly living with different family members when I wasn’t with her. This was the only break I would get. My mother decided to move from where the bad influences were to another state when I was 10. My life got worse from there. She married an abusive man who she had a child with shortly after becoming sober. I was verbally, mentally and physically abused until I was 17 when she finally got a divorce. My youngest sibling was born when I was 12. I was basically her designated babysitter and I did not have a life besides behind forced to watch her when my mother and her ex husband would go out. Even when I was an older teenager I wasn’t allowed to do anything besides sit at home and watch my sister or I was grounded. I really did not want to have any kids. I’ve never liked kids. I don’t get along with them and I don’t have the patience. I am now 21 and a ftm with an unexpected baby girl. I am 5 weeks pp. I love my daughter with all my heart. Nothing will ever change that. But I am really struggling with my mental health. I have had depression and anxiety my entire life as well as CPSTD. I become so unbelievably triggered when she is screaming and crying for hours on end. I feel like I am not good enough. She loves to be in my arms and sometimes I cannot mentally handle it and it makes me feel horrible. I often think back to how I never got to have a normal childhood and now I am missing out on having a child free adulthood like I so badly craved. I will do my best in raising her and trying to break the cycle of trauma that is generations deep at this point with my family because she doesn’t deserve that. And I will proudly say I am never having another child and I’m going to do what I can to avoid this again. I would love to hear anyone else’s perspective.

Holding my sweet baby and since this will be my only I find myself sometimes getting sad this will be the only time she will be 5 months, and so on. I know a lot of people would feel this and then maybe feel relief that they will raise more kids. But, since I have chosen to have one kid I find myself getting so sad and wishing I could raise her and then do it again someday. I’m not sure if that makes sense, but I figured if anyone understood it was this group. For example, sometimes I’m sad I won’t be pregnant again but not with another baby I’m sad I won’t be pregnant again with HER. Or experience birth again with HER. I love her so much I just want it to slow down 🩷

I’d have another if it didn’t involve signing up for 5+ more years of bad sleep. I miss sleeping in. I miss going to bed when I want. I miss spending a day in my bed. I miss being able to rest when I’m sick.
My kid is 3. She was up at 3am today for no reason. I’m tired. Another round of newborn days sounds impossible and I kinda think people who have more knowing they won’t get to sleep are built different than me.

Like shittt you don't think I could handle a second child

I have posted here before and this community has definitely provided solace to me on my 90% certain choice of being one and done.

The one thing I can’t seem to get over, is the potential pain and loneliness my daughter will have as she gets older, and the guilt. How do you explain your decision and your family choices as they get older?

She’s turning two in December and already learning “sister” and “brother”, and loves her baby dolls, so I feel the guilt impending (which i plan to work out in therapy 😅)

It’s funny I always struggled being alone as a child (and I have two younger siblings) and into my adolescent years, so leaned on my romantic relationships (aka I have never been single since like 13 lol), I think being alone and independent is such a valuable skill many do not have. I learned as an adult once I was already married, so a way different experience.

How do you teach if you yourself aren’t sure you know how?

Curious how others have navigated, even into your child’s adulthood. Thank you! 🙏

I teetered between one and two. My husband wants as many as I’ll give him but happy ultimately either way.

However I’m pregnant now and gosh I do not like it at all. The entire first trimester I spent most of my days wondering why people did this multiple times. losing myself in morning sickness and my body just not being mine anymore I realize I might be OAD due to realizing how selfish I’ve been feeling throughout the pregnancy, I’m thinking, if I feel this way now how will I be when the baby comes! I’m excited to experience motherhood but I also think I’m one of those people who will be happy with just going through it once. I don’t know if it’s because I’m not handling pregnancy well or what but the thought of changing diapers 2 years then resetting the clock gives me a headache. We’re also doing well financially and could really give one child the best of everything. Private school, multiple vacations, paid college, first home, wedding paid, trust fund, etc. two would make everything a bit harder. Maybe only the basic like college and down payments.

Anyway, fast forward to finding out I’m having a boy. I always wanted one of each, did not care who came first but now that I’m closer to feeling final about OAD i found myself having a bit of sadness around not being able to experience motherhood via daughter. I would have the option to choose (IVF most likely again). I wouldn’t say gender disappointment per se, I think I would have felt this way about a son had I found out I was pregnant with a girl as well.

Has anyone dealt with this feeling? Does the desire for a daughter outweigh all the beautiful things I could offer my son? Would the exhaustion make me a worse parent to both instead of being a good parent to one? Since I’m in OAD subreddit assuming most the responses would be from those who chose not to have another, how do you feel with your decision? Help lol