Okay, I realize that I have more than plenty of time to make this decision, but it is something that I have thought about a lot. I know that things will definitely change between now and when I am ready for kids, but this is where I am at right now.

I voted "Yes" to the poll. I've wanted to be an OB for such a long time, and will definitely be doing things MUCH differently than many do nowadays. I plan to be by my patient's bedside for the majority of her labor using doula techniques and deliver every one of my patient's babies, as well as offer free clinics to those who need them, have some sort of natural childbirth classes and still maintain normal office hours for both OB and GYN patients.

I don't see how I could have all of the above and still be a good mom. I totally expect to live at the hospital, and I am completely okay with that, if I didn't have a family life to come home to. I worry that I could be inclined to deliver someone quicker because I can't miss a kid's soccer game or piano recital. This is something that I would never ever want to do, but I'm not sure I'll be able to find that balance.

Of course it's possible to achieve that balance, but for me to have 4 kids would just be unrealistic and very unfair to them. I think 1, maybe 2, is more reasonable. Obviously all of this depends on so many factors, but that's my take on it!

No, having kids is really important to me. As well as being a great mom. Ill have a career someday.

Well, I had my first child while I was still in college and then I worked when she was younger. I did wait to have another (7 years) until I knew I could stay home and we could financially make it.

I did forsee having a career again at some point although I've been a SAHM/WAHM since my almost-15-year-old was 5. My youngest (I only have 2) is 7 years old. I wouldn't say that a career was the reason we only had two, but I knew that I didn't want to be in the baby stage of my life forever and that one day I did want to have a career and I went back to school when my youngest went to Kindergarten because I had my days free. I am definitely glad that I have some freedom and flexibility with my time now that my kids go to school most of the year so I can work.

Would I limit my family size for my career?
I answered "no", because I consider motherhood my career. I seriously use every skill I've ever considered myself to be good at... and motherhood challenges me every day to grow and improve.

After the birth of our first child, we had a period of infertility for over 6 years. I remember telling my husband something like, "Oh, no! If we never have another child, I'll be out of work when I'm 40!" Thankfully, God opened the womb for us and has blessed us with 4 stair-step sons.

I might, but that reason would be in tandem with preserving my own sanity. I have three beautiful girls already, and I'm at least taking a break from childbearing temporarily to focus on birth work and my family. I guess that makes me a "maybe".

I chose maybe, but maybe I should have chosen other. We'd like more children. But due to my doula training (and another smaller factor), we're putting it off at least a year.
I would however, give up my career for my children. I love my daughter and if I ever thought for a moment that it was negatively impacting her, I would stop in a heartbeat.

I love a good post. =D

I voted No.. because even though I never wanted to be a mom (I always saw myself as a business woman), I am now and I whole-heartedly embrace it. I LOVE being a mom and after having to have a career and be a mom, I QUIT. It totally sucks having to do both and I will never, ever do that again. I've missed so much of my firstborn's life - I've learned my lesson.

So now, I just wait til we conceive our next, enjoy the time with the kids as they are now, and working as a doula satisfies my needs to learn, socially interact, and contribute to the community.

SIGH. Now I'm all sappy and lonely cuz the baby's napping and I have no one to snuggle.

I was never the girl who wanted to be just a mommy when she grew up. i feel that i have a calling and oddly enough it has ALWAYS been to welcome babies into the world.

I suppose I did both! I put off my career for several years to have kids. But we made a very conscious choice to stop at 4 so that I can start training and working away from home as the youngest gets a little older.

I'm sure you did not mean it this way, but the way you said that sounds a little hurtful to full-time moms. Being "just" a mommy can involve as much or as little effort as you want. You could be "just" a mommy that has a nanny and does very little as far as child rearing and education. Or you could be "just" a mommy that spends every moment of your life raising and educating your child(ren), getting them involved in lots of extracurriculars, home-schooling, etc. You could also be "just" a doula and show up for your clients' births but do little else. This applies to anything. Obviously being successful at anything takes a lot of effort, knowledge, and time. This includes being a successful mom. There are lots of times I feel like I could be a much better mom if I didn't have a career and other obligations. I feel a lot of guilt at times for this. There really is no such thing as the "Superwoman"-- that is just a myth that some people pretend to live up to. When you are doing lots of things at the same time, you are really not giving any one thing your all.

23 years later....I regret being 'just a mommy'. Sadly kids grow up, and I guess we could have kept having kids so that I could have had small ones at home until I was near 60. But I didn't.
I do wish that as my kids were growing up, I would have focused on more of a career instead of just being a mommy. Now that they are grown, I really don't have anything of any importance to do, and I am not really sure where to start.

What an interesting topic! I've really enjoyed reading the responses. I answered "no," and that is the answer for this time in my life, but that was not always the case. I grew up in an Anabaptist intentional community where everyone tends to have a lot of kids. Most of my childhood peers have 6-8 kids already, and families of 9 or 10 are not unusual. Now I think this is wonderful, but in my late teens/ early 20s, I knew that I did not want to get married young and start having a lot of children before I knew who I was in my own right. (I'm sure my thinking was influenced by watching my mom, who didn't have me until she was 30, and I always felt she was very secure in her own person-hood, if that makes sense.) Anyway, I had a career I adored for several years, but I quit that job when I realised my dad was dying, so I could help take care of him and spend time with him during his last months. That changed my life, and I am grateful I made that decision, because it was the right one for me/us. After he died (right before I turned 25), I got a different job, which set me on a somewhat different career path (administrative assistance/bookkkeeping); I had a real love/hate relationship with that job, for sure. I love challenges, and that job did stretch me and help me learn and develop in many ways, but it was also extremely high stress, and there was some really crazy crap I had to deal with, that I still feel was not right. Anyway, at some point I looked around and realised I really was ready to change courses again and start a family, but that didn't happen for a while.

When I was 32, I met the man I ended up marrying, quit my job, and moved from Texas to Chicago (I also left the community where I grew up at that time... those of you who have seen me in person or have seen pictures... you should see what I looked like 3 years ago!). I couldn't find a job in the field I had been working in, despite my experience and great references, so it seemed time to rethink things. I had always had a passion for birth (probably 90-95% of the babies in the community where I grew up are born at home... I was a postpartum doula from the time I was 14... long before I ever heard the term), and after some discussion, my husband fully supported my plan to become a doula. It took me about 6 months to certify, and I truly feel a "calling" to this.

At the same time, we were trying to get pregnant for about a year. Now I am 34 years old and about 2 months away from giving birth to my own baby, and so I'm taking off from doula work for a while. I do also have a part-time (10 hours) job working with the children's ministry at our church, and I will probably continue that, if things work out the way we hope with my husband's work schedule, but the time commitment of birthing is something I don't want to do until my baby is 6-9 months old, probably. I'll stay plugged in to the birthing community, though.

As far as further kids, we plan to have 2-4 (I want 4, he wants 2, we may compromise at 3), and that's based on our desires for our family, not on my career. We'll probably try to space them a bit, and I will work as I can, and also be the best mom I can be for my kids. This is what works for us now, and we'll continue to re-assess as time goes by and our family grows and changes.

Personally, I think it's important for moms to feel fufilled as women, to be able to pass on that strong foundation to their kids. If this means working outside the home or being a SAHM or a WAHM, that's great. For me, I have done the full-time job thing, and now I'm happy to be mommy and work the rest of my life around that.

I put off my career to have my daughter- my kids are 13, 9 and 3 so quite an age gap. I wouldn't do it again.

I think I could have easily chosen to have three kids instead of 2. But as the youngest grows older I am realizing how much easier my work is without a baby. I'm choosing to stop at two in part because of that. I am also enjoying other aspects of not having a baby so it isn't just my career.

For example: I enjoy..... staying up late, traveling more, eating out more, having sex more, being able to stay later at parties, not having to deal with diapers, sleeping, sleeping and did I mention? Sleeping.

We all work with women having babies. I know that I definitely notice some women are happier with small children than others. Babies do seem harder on some people, who knows why. I'm not sure I could midwife with a small baby. Apprenticing was hard enough.

I chose no.
My children are 12, 7 and 17mos. I didn't space them 5 years apart because of any career choices, it just seemed to happen that way. After 5 years babies are cute again and diapers don't seem so bad. My first two are 5 years apart, then I had a T- 13 baby 5 years later and the youngest right after that. The 5 year mark seems to give me enough time to recover from pregnancy/birth, to enjoy the little baby stage, lower my anxiety, catch up on sleep and feel ready again.
I am glad I seen this post because I am in a bit of a personal delema atm. I know it hasn't been 5 years yet but I'm starting to think I want to start trying. My only hesitation is that I just started the RN program at school and at our orientation the instructors specifically said not to get pregnant because it would be to much stress, because of the high work load.... Wait... maybe I just want a baby cause they said not to!
Either way, I would like 6, up to 8, but the ol man only wants 2. That is 2 total that are his, not counting my 2 from a previous relationship.