Hi, I'm new to this web site and absolutely delighted to find it and would love some advice!    I have had M.E. since 1998.  Up to falling pregnant with my first child I couldn't do much and really I sruggled to do more than an hour or two of work or study in a day.  We have two wonderful boys (aged 4 and 2).  Both pregnancies have been really hard, with me being housebound for the first half with really bad morning sickness and worsening of my M.E. symptoms.  However, from 20 weeks onwards everything improved.  Both of my boys were very refluxy demanding babies and it was really only when my youngest turned one that I haev been to the point where I am able to get out walking every day and for the first time in eleven years I am not exhausted and sick all of the time.  We had always planned to have a third child but now, with my youngest over two and becoming more independant I am not sure if I want to go through it all again.  I am doing okay looking after my two children and I am terrified of relapsing and not sure if a third child would be too much for me to cope with.  
Now the M.E. is more manageable I would also like to think about what I want out of my life apart from being a Mum.  I would love to travel and think about doing some work or study that stretches me intellectually (I adore being a Mum but I do feel like I have extruded brain matter out with the breastmilk.....) and do some of the things that I have not been able to because I was so sick with the M.E.
How do you balance what your head tells you is sensible with what your heart tells you is right.  When I look at my boys I see someone missing and my husband would dearly love to try for a daughter.  I have been wrestling with this for months and I feel like I am either grieving for the child I might not have or for the health and freedom that I have had over the last year which I would lose for at least another couple of years.
I would love to hear from any mums out there who have made the choice or are making it now!
Julie

I wish we had more support, then the decision might be easier.  If I wasn't feeling so well the decision would be a lot easier too.  Getting to the point where I am able to leave the house without wondering if I am going to make it to the shops without feeling too bad and having to come home has been fairly recent (just in the last year) and hard fought.   While I do feel I would grieve if we didn't have another child, I am also mindful of keeping the interests of the two beautiful energetic children I have first.   We are able to go out walking and swimming and are even thinking about going camping (eek!), which I couldn't have contemplated a year ago.  We still take things slowly but I don't feel they are missing out because of my M.E. any more.  Sometimes I look at my boys and think it would be a very selfish choice to have another child  because of what it will take away from them (at least for the next couple of years), but my husband is very keen for a third so it also feels like a selfish choice not to!   This M.E. thing does have a habit of making things so complicated and you just can't explain what it is like to anyone who doesn't have it.  I try to hard not to imagine the 'what if's' but every now and again I do wish that decisions didn't have to be so convoluted......
Rock and hard place.