We built a luxury dream home but can only afford to have two children. Most people do not understand this statement.

My husband and I purchased our dream home entirely on our own. Money wasn't gifted for our down payment nor did we expect that. There is a certain sense of pride that comes with saving up, living off canned food for an entire year, buying consignment instead of new, and then making your dreams a reality without any handouts. By our early thirties, we were able to sell our first starter home, to build the fully-loaded luxury home of our dreams.

With that said, certain sacrifices had to be made for this dream to come true for us. The first being that we can only afford to have two children. We are able to afford one family vacation a year (using a timeshare that we purchased in full as newlyweds). We kept to a budget for other large expenses that came with our latest move like a ride-on lawnmower, gardening supplies, a fenced in yard for our dogs, and a generator. Our happy children have everything they need (not everything they want) and I am able to stay home with them while they are young because of the carefully premeditated financial choices we have made. None of this just happens. We prioritize, stick to our plans, and are teaching our young children about self-control by living as their example.

However, our story comes with a deeply rooted secret. We weren't planning on this change of heart when we purchased our home but we would like to have one more child. My uterus literally aches despite the fact that logic suggests we can't afford it right now. After talking it over, and trying to adjust the budget, we have come to the conclusion that the decision to buy our dream home last year has eliminated the possibility of having any more children. Unless circumstances suddenly change, in order to have one more child, we would need to downsize. This would mean another move and tearing our two kids away from the house they now call a home. And it would mean that I would need to return to work full-time, taking away from the quality time our two children enjoy having with me and putting them (and the hypothetical third child) in daycare which my teaching salary would probably just barely afford. Our annual vacation would disappear because we would need to sell the timeshare to make up the difference.

Understandably, something has to give and unfortunately, in this case, it's our mutual dream of having another child. My husband is able to accept this, I am not, and to be honest, this has caused some heartache. I have begun to resent the dream house and our decision to buy it. It's a strange mourning process I can't really discuss openly with others, mainly because people our age often don't plan as meticulously as we do. I certainly don't expect others to understand and I am beginning to move past it, but then a beautiful newborn is set in my arms and I have to start the process all over again. Sometimes, I can see us living in a smaller, older home somewhere, selling this one, and adjusting to accommodate life with a third child in a home that is definitely anything but a dream, but then I overhear our boys having a blast playing in our big, beautiful, safe backyard, or listen to their laughter billowing out of the colorful playroom space we have created and designed just for them, and I know this was always meant to be our forever home. This is the American dream and we are in it, living it, every day, just the four of us.

With that said, the sacrifice has been made. Because we live in this dream home, we can only afford to have two children. It's our quiet sacrifice but it's also our beautiful life, well-earned, and fully-lived.

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