Down to 4mg

I have another cold so I'm holding off on any more Methotrexate treatments for another week, but at the start of May, I dropped my prednisone down to 4mg. Whoo-hoo.

An Only Child

I am an only child and I loved it growing up. It has only been since I became an adult that being an only bothered me at all.

Being an only child made me more creative. I had to be able to entertain myself when I was growing up and now I am always in the middle of 6 different projects. :) It made me more of an achiever because my parents were able to give me so much undivided attention and structure. I am sure I cared more about pleasing my parents than I would have if I had had siblings. I think I stayed out of trouble and worked harder because there was no one else to hide behind. I also think it fostered a love of learning.

The only thing that was difficult about being an only child was defending my parent's decision to other people. I was often asked why I didn't have any brothers or sisters. For some reason a lot of people really frown on only children. Only children have a (IMHO undeserved) reputation for being selfish, antisocial and greedy. People would often backhandedly compliment me, "Oh, I am surprised you share so well since you are an only child. Was it hard to learn how to do?"

As an adult however, being an only child has been harder. My parents are divorced and my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer about 5 years ago. It really fell to me to take care of her. I really wish there had been someone else to share that burden with. Now that both my parents are aging, I am even more worried about taking care of them alone as the years go by.

Sometimes I also feel like I'm in a spot light. Everything I do is magnified and my parents pay a lot of attention to every little thing I do. If I had siblings, I think they wouldn't be so focused on me because their attention would be divided between us.

I had mostly decided I wanted more than 1 child for some of the reasons listed above, but I became sick soon after Amelia was born and the treatments have damaged my ovaries. There is now very little chance that I will be able to have more children. I didn't think about it much before I had Amelia, but now that the decision has been taken away from me, I think about it all the time.