Throughout our ten years as Hoboken residents, my family has changed from being a pair  childless renters with a dog, to homeowners with a dog, then homeowners with a dog and two infants crammed into a two-bedroom, and finally ending up as a family of four in a four-bedroom apartment (sadly minus our beloved dog).

This is the point where most people would stay put, both with their family size and living situation, but I always like to explore my options.

There comes a point after the arrival of each child where you wake up one day and realize, life is manageable. You have your childcare routine down pat, sleep schedules have stabilized, and the household finances have settled into a holding pattern after the shock of the additional expenses that come with a new family member. With our first child, that moment came when she was nine months old. With our second, it arrived on his third birthday.

This is usually the moment when I start thinking about getting pregnant again. I am a planner; that means that as I go about my daily life, I mentally image what it would be like to do so while pregnant or toting a newborn. Would I be able to get up in the morning to pack lunches and drive the kids to school if I had been up all night breastfeeding an infant? How would we handle transportation; would our existing car and strollers work with three kids? And what about my work? I am usually incommunicado for the first month after I give birth; would that fly now that I am a principal in three corporations?

There are three major issues that concern me about having a third child in Hoboken; family dynamics, child care/cost, and space. A friend once told me that parenting two children is like a game of one-on-one basketball. With three children, you go to a zone defense.

I managed to care for my two older children without hiring help during the baby years, but there is no way I can pull that feat off with a third child now that I have significant in-person work obligations. My childcare options are either daycare, a babysitter or an au pair. No matter which route we go, our child care expenses would skyrocket; I estimate the cost would be around $30,000 per year for the first three years. Ouch.

I am not sure where we would put a third child in our Hoboken condo, and hiring an au pair brings its own set of privacy and space issues. There is also the possibility that I will not get pregnant again since I am older now. But with two healthy, beautiful children at home, that's okay too.

To read more about what makes Kathy Zucker tick, check out her blog at http://momcondoliving.com/ and follow her at http://twitter.com/kathyzucker