It's Not What I Intended

I checked an old classmate's blog this morning and received the news that she is expecting her fifth (5th!!!!!) child. Good lord. Now I'm not one of those people who goes around condemning others for having lots of kidlets (except MAYBE that crazy Octomom, though that's more about her craziness than the quantity of her childers). My mother is the oldest of six; my father is the youngest of six; my father-in-law is the fourth of six. I come in part from good German Mennonite farmer stock where children were churned out like the butter.

But it was a definite shock to my system. Part of this, of course, is the horror of thinking that I'm old enough to have a classmate who is old enough to have five children (who are NOT multiples, by the way) without having started all that early. I also can picture the insanity if I attempted to handle that many wee peoples running about creating havoc. It was all I could do to hold on to my patience last night with two sons who decided to remind me (like I can ever forget) that they have inherited my stubbornness and strong will.

I have another old classmate and dear friend who has three beautiful girlies and strongly desires a couple more. Her yearning for another child comes across as a soul cry. There are times when I look at my beloved boys and hold them close and feel their growing solidity and realize this could be the last time that...; there are times when I reminisce over photos from their baby days and remember the tiny sweetness of their helpless selves; there are times like Sunday when I cuddled another dear friend's wee six-month-old son and felt a faint tug in my womb. Perhaps it would not be a disaster to have a third child. But the likelihood is faint, even more so in the present uncertainty of my marriage.

Two is tidy. DramaBoy and the Widget are companions, friends, brothers: content in their twosome. A third child would throw chaos into our lives, make it difficult if not impossible to continue with both parents working, difficult if not impossible to cover our finances.

So why do I find myself in such confusion? I do not want five children. I do not want four children. I'm not at all convinced I would want a third. And yet while I began this post to comment on how this desire for large families is beyond my comprehension, I have drifted away into contemplation of What If.

Perhaps it's what that third child would represent: a new beginning, a joining of two lives to produce a third, a symbol of love made flesh. Regardless of past or present troubles and pain, our sons are products of love, vessels of joy.

I'm in confusion now. I've written and erased multiple sentences and paragraphs in the last ten minutes, uncertain of where to take these musings. I think I'll stop for now. I miss my boys.