The 1 Thing I Was Doing That Made Me Realize I Wanted Another Kid

Get the Full StoryLong before my son was born, my husband and I had agreed having only one kid was right for our family. After my son's birth, surrounded by the chaos and engulfed by the sleep deprivation brought on by an infant, we became even more firm on being "one and done." Even though I could definitely see a benefit to having more, I was happy with the decision - or so I thought.

It wasn't until recently that I realized my position on the subject might be more up for debate than I had thought, all thanks to an app on my phone.

In my notes section of my phone is a list of baby names; even though most of them were accrued during my pregnancy, I've been adding to the selection, curating names for a possible person that I had thought I didn't want.

RelatedBased on Last Year's Trends, These 30 Names Will Be Among the Most Popular of 2018

Certainly, naming a child is one of the more interesting and fun aspects of being pregnant, but this is more. These new names were developed, combined with middle names, and in my head already ascribed to a hypothetical child. Having seen what our DNA combination looks like, it's easy to craft a fantasy of a whole image of another baby, complete with a name and a defining trait.

Maybe everyone does this and I'm not alone. When I asked my friends who are done having children if they did anything similar, I was given an emphatic, "No." Either they're lying to me or I'm lying to myself about my desire for only one.

Even knowing this, I still scour the top baby names list of the year, mostly in hopes that my son's name is still out of the top 100, but also to keep an eye out for anything new and interesting. As I read the lists, I'll make note in my phone of anything that seems right for this hypothetical child I'm not even sure I want.

RelatedThese Are the Most Popular Baby Names of 2017 So Far

It's a good thing I'm not a betting person, because I have no idea whether or not 2018 is going to bring us another child. If my phone was into gambling, though, I think I know how it would bet.

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