This one isn't a weight loss post.

I'm scheduled to get a vasectomy in 3 days. It's something that Dayna and I have talked about for years. We had always talked about having a smaller family so we can go on trips and not have to live on an involuntary budget because there are so many mouths to feed and butts to cover.

I should be excited, except the other day I had this annoying thought.

Max will never have a brother, ever. Nora will never have a sister. 

And I really, really hate those thoughts. They're unfair, honestly. I could do the exact same thing later. We have one or two more kids and then say: Nora only has one sister-- what if they don't get along? Max only has one brother, but they're 8 years apart! That's not fair.

Yet I feel a little panicked right now. Maybe it's a common reaction to something that's mostly permanent. It's reversible, but it's $40k to reverse, which feels permanent.

We could have another kid, and then the boys or girls outnumber. We could one more after that, and then we might go even further with the imbalance. At that point we have to drive a van. That's the only vehicle that fits us. Vacations are like a Broadway production involving cargo transport for the whole cast, crew and ensemble.

This topic is hard. Dayna doesn't really believe me that I have considered it, but I sure have. I think about it all the time, wondering if I'm being selfish, wondering if it's selfish to make choices that make sense. I worry about Dayna, who claims that pregnancy wasn't that hard, but she's wrong. They were horrible on her. Shots, anxiety, crying, literally thinking she was going to die every day and her kids would grow up not knowing who she was. I also wonder if I'll feel differently in a few years.

It seems like a fallacy. What if you didn't have Nora? I did have Nora. What if you were supposed to have one more? What if we asked that question until we had 19 kids? You'll never know when you should be done, but I just love my kids so much that it's a hard thing for me.