My young (26) brother and his girlfriend were together for 7 months, and around Christmas found out that they were unexpectedly-- she was on the pill-- pregnant. They adjusted very well and were planning a life together with the baby, checking out housing, deciding to get married after the baby was due in August.

Today they found out via amnio that the baby has Down's Syndrome.

Maybe this is normal. Maybe not. Either way, this seemed like a good place to ask.

My girl has an iron will. It's something I like about her and something I recognize in myself and remember from childhood. She's 2 1/2, so I understand it's a difficult time for most people (ha), but this morning really took the cake and worried me.

I was out of town when the Who Are You thread popped up (which was great!) and although I chime in once in a while I've never really done this... Miles' momma's entry reminded me!

My name is Thais (I'm just about 30) and I live with my husband (27yo musician) and nearly-2-year-old daughter Sparrow in southern Louisiana. She was a Katrina baby. It's an interesting and long story, but the short version is that she was concieved in the lower 9th ward of New Orleans, inspired us to sell the house and move to the northshore 2 weeks before Katrina (luck), and then at 2 weeks overdue we had to evacuate to my mom's house a little further north and she was induced (they were running out of room) and born in a strange hospital and brought home to an air-conditionless house sheltering 13 family members and 14 pets.

So much for the birth plan.

I know, I know, it's JULY.

So why am I already thinking about this? Well, last Christmas was a complete and total fiasco for my family, who run the small spectrum from adamant athiest to undeclared. We are all environmentalists and powerfully repulsed by the overarching Southern Baptist culture down here -- my parents run the only organic farm in a 100 mile radius and I'm a wetlands researcher-- but having grown up without alternative ritual we were just totally unprepared for the Great Christmas Collapse of 2006. It came with stress, crying, guilt over having spent too much money, etc.  I got so worked up we thought I must be pregnant (I wasn't).

So we're having a dinner to make plans to fix it, and I need your advice.

We're at a watershed moment here, whereupon it works out to have a second child (a) now or (b) four years from now. Basically, DH is completing a degree program in a year and will have a summer off, after which he will get a (drumroll) paying teacher position, enabling me to go down to part time. Alternately, we can use that time to make a dramatic move to somewhere like Austin, which means a big job search for me and then needing to work a while before knocking back enough leave to have a second child.

All signs point to doing it now, as in getting pregnant in the next month or so. The first time we had a 'lapse in judgement' it only took us the once to get pregnant so I'm assuming (perhaps faulty logic) that it will be equally easy this time.

On one had, the baby years are really trying and I'm looking forward to what happens on the other side once the kids are older (more time to paint? write? play music in public again? no time now as a working mom). This is an argument to have another child now.