TWO DAUGHTERS: ‘You should try for a boy next’

JUDITH WOODS, 52, is married and has two daughters, Lily, 16, and Tabitha, ten

Having had my elder daughter through IVF (thanks to flukey first-time luck), conceiving a second child proved to be a real struggle. I had always dreamt of two children and, despite a horrendous labour, I knew within 48 hours of giving birth that I wanted another – and soon.

As the weeks and months passed I felt that need consume me. Why? It was partly because I am the youngest of five girls and value my sibling relationships, but I also felt such a tsunami of emotion for my first baby that I was afraid of overwhelming her. It was as though a tap of mother love had been turned on and I worried that she was at risk of being engulfed by the rising tidewaters. I convinced myself that two children, however, could safely share the burden of being loved so fiercely.

After six years and many gruelling rounds of failed treatments and heartbreak, my second daughter arrived. I was giddy, grateful, elated; my little family was complete. Weirdly, though, other people (not close friends, but busybody acquaintances and strangers) seemed to disagree. ‘Two girls? Are you going to try for the boy next?’ Note: not a boy but the boy – as though our happy little setup was glaringly incomplete without one.

I laughed it off but didn’t grasp why it was anyone’s business how many children I had, never mind what their gender might be. As it happens, I come from a veritable female dynasty: my mother was one of two girls and went on to have five girls who had two girls each, so the chances of me popping out a boy were slim. And a third child was simply not an option; I felt blessed to have two and that was enough.

Yet I’m sad, indeed baffled, to report that over the years other women have tried to assert some kind of one-upmothership because they have three or four children. I mean this in the nicest way – I really don’t care. So what if their husbands earn enough for them to afford a larger brood. And that they are fertile enough to achieve it. Good for them. I smilingly refuse to be drawn on the subject – which I suspect they find annoying as hell.

Bringing up nice, healthy, emotionally resilient children in the 21st century is tough enough without making it into some sort of competition. Having babies is joyous and transformative; nothing is the same afterwards. The flood of love hormones can leave you drowning and you need friends and confidantes close by. It’s just such a shame that some women need reminding that motherhood doesn’t mean you abandon sisterhood.