Hi there,

I have 6 kids ( I had all 6 in 8 years) and 3 step kids that we have with us once a week for a couple of nights...My daughter Tay ( the oldest) has run off to live with her dad for the last couple of months but i did have all of them up until 2 months ago before this all took place.

As weird as it seems, I actually reached a 'stage' where my mind just said to stop, that i had done my bit and time to let them grow up instead of bringing more babies into the family! Even now i feel a bit nauseated at the idea of any more kids, and I did actually have tubal ligation done a few years ago to make sure that my baby was my last.

Having been made to feel guilty for being pregnant in nearly every pregnancy, had to be ashamed in my marriage of the fact that "I" just kept getting myself pregnant.. I realise the shame didnt come with having my kids but it came with being married to a very unsupportive man, and this, is the only regret i had.. althought, catch 22, if i hadnt married him i wouldnt have my gorgeous kids!

I would make sure that the amount of kids that you have is a joint decision that you and your partner make together and that he is supportive of what you would like to do, because being alone and pregnant isnt very fun, if you have a supportive partner then i believe you can get thru anything..

We take all 9 of the kids fishing and doing outdoorsy stuff all the time and they have a ball..sometimes they dont always get along with each other and sometimes they do.. its all part of it. But I have it in my head for some reason, reguardless of the fact that we arent very well off financially, we do cope, and I believe i wont have any regrets. You only get one chance at this, or at least thats what i believe (no offense if you are a believer in reincarnation!) and you cannot take material things with you when you check out...My feelings were that if i concentrated on having the house and the good stuff..then i would miss out on the family stuff that i longed for.. I guess I wanted a big family to begin with!

Hrmm when to know you've had enough.. well for me, my husband told me that we werent having any more kids when i was pregnant with Zak (our 3rd child) and i burst into tears!! I knew that i wanted to have more than 3 kids.. mind you when i was preg with Lacey, I was actually telling everyone I was done when i was pregnant and this was the last time round, and havent felt any different since her birth!

I hope that nothing I say here seems blahzayy and like i dont care what sort of life i give my children, alot of people ask me how can i support all the needs of 6 of my own and 3 of my partners! Rather than providing the finacial burdens on myself we find cost effective ways of entertaining them, most places have discounts if theres more than just a few of you.. and well birthday parties.. we hardly need to invite anyone at all outside of our own family coz we already have a party built in!! I did find it was much harder to spread myself around before my partner and i met with just my 6 here though.. it can be hard to pick up on troubles with them at school and all that if you are trying to look at them as a group and not individually..its a must to make time for all of them on their own individually.. and the car thing too, well once you have more than 3 children you have to buy a new one that caters for all the kids and the partner or get some dickie seats for a station wagon or something. Theres alot to consider when taking that baby number 4 step also!

Anyway, i hope this gives you some sort of insight into the life of a family with lots and lots of kids.. and helps you to find the answers you need to complete your family aswell. Basically, yeh , with lots of kids its full on.. but its fun to watch them all growing up and interacting with each other.. in amongst mine also is one child that has autism aswell, so perhaps its harder than it would be in this situation normally, i'm not sure because I dont really know any different...

All the best

Cheers from Mel xx

Yes I think everyone asks themselves that question. I don't think you ever know when to stop so to speak, and I don't think there is an off switch once you get to your destined amount of children. I have 6 and would love more, but are sticking with what we've got as we already made the decision to not have anymore about 2 years ago when hub got the snip. We don't actually know why we did it, as we have plenty in the way of love and provideing financially but we kinda did it on a wim, as our car wouldn't fit anymore kid's, so i guess for us we stopped because the world dosn't exactly cater for large fmaily's and we were worried about how it will impact the kid's we already have. Though now I don't think It really woudl have, I don't think it would have made a negitive impact as we have 6 and everything still runs smoothly and kids and us are all still happy, so who knows!! it's hard to know, and everyone is so different. I do family daycare now to keep me occupied and distracted from thinking about having more baby's LOL.

I think if  I could do it over I would change only one thing and that would be finaces.  I found I wanted more for my kiddies that we couldn't do in the way of lessons and extras.  We always made it, managed, had just enough, and they were my greatest joy, totally still are!  But the reality is that money wise here in Canada were there is little aid they were at a disadvantage.  But they are great kiddies and love each other dearly and the fact still remains that they are paying off student loans as we couldn't afford to help them other than what we struggled to do. So...for love???  Five very close together was the best!  It is a lot of work too!

i am one of 5 kids and i loved it we never had heaps of money but thats ok i mean we werent poor but just not super spoilt as a lil money had 2 go a long way... and anyway i loved havin so many silblings it was great as there was allways someone round 2 play with or talk 2 as we got older

i myself want 2 have 4 kids, everyone  says that i'm crazy and that it is 2 many but i dont think so i mean there r ppl with 10 kids and they get by dont they?

and as for spreadin your love thin.... i dont think its possible i'm sure you love all 3 that you have now and i dont think that it would be any different if or when the next one comes!!!

anyway its deffinatly up 2 you!

but good luck with whatever you decided!

xoxo jade

I dont know the pros and cons of having a big family, I only have 1 but am pregnant with number 2 who is due around my sons 1st birthday.
I understand not wanting to get rid of stuff though, Im going to invest in some archiving boxes and store everything "just in case" as well as coz I know if I did get rid of something one day I would want it and wouldn't have it.

If I can think of 1 pro though it is that the kids are never lonely :)