My husband and I have always pictured multiple children in our family and we have a wonderful daughter who’s just over a year old. So naturally we’ve begun thinking about a second child.

But as the time we had planned to start trying again creeps closer, we’re wavering. If we have a second child, it will mean I’ll have to leave my job because we can’t afford quality childcare for two young children. My daughter also really seems to like “school”. Would we be doing her a disservice by forcing her to stay home with a little sibling? Can I handle switching to being a SAHM? Will our family weather the additional stress of my loss of income? We’d be able to pay the bills and the mortgage, but there’d be very little in the way of date nights out, vacations, or other little luxuries.

We also feel like we got really lucky with our daughter. My pregnancy was easy and she’s always been super healthy. Are we tempting fate by trying a second time? And even though our daughter was more or less a “good” baby, no one in my household enjoyed the newborn and young infant stage. Do we want to do that again and this time with a toddler in the mix as well?

On the other hand...we’ve set up our budgeting for the next few years in such a way that we know our debt and bills will start to ease. While the baby stage was terrible for us, we’ve also seen now that it doesn’t last forever. Will we regret not having the additional child or two while we’re still young enough to chase them around? Should we just have the other baby now and accept life will be really tough for a couple years? Or should we wait to have another until our daughter is in public school and we can afford good daycare for the infant?

I’m sure I’m not the only mom wrestling with this so I’d like to hear what other people think or decided.