Never Say Never

Come this mid-summer, I will be the mother of a ‘tween, a toddler, and a newborn. The age difference between my youngest two will be a little more than 15 months. What a lesson in “never say never”—when asked if we’d have more kids, I always offered my standard response, “I’m not the type to have two in diapers.” Well, didn’t I chew (or did I choke?) on every last word when the digital ClearBlue Easy hourglass turned “pregnant” in a sub par Target bathroom on a rainy Friday evening, on Black Friday of all days?! Yeah, I did.

Since then, I’ve come up with a list of reasons why it’s better this way. First, my husband and I were up in the air about whether or not we’d add to our small brood—a hot topic, considering my present age of 38. I mean, I knew that I wasn’t into chasing a toddler around in my late-40s like my mother did (she had my brother when she was 45.5 years old). So, we will officially be done after this one. As in, kitchen closed. Second, I still had (please note both the verb tense and disappointment) 30 pounds of pregnancy weight to lose from the last one—wouldn’t it suck to lose all that weight and get back into those size 8s, only to have to do it all over again? Definitely. Then, there is the career consideration. I recently wrapped up graduate school, with one make-up class to go, and was planning to look for a teaching position this fall. Well, wouldn’t it also suck to be several months into my career only to slink into my principal’s office to discuss my impending maternity leave (not to mention that I’d feel like an ass after lying on interviews about being done having children)? Uh-huh. Finally, I did the diaper thing all over again once. I don’t want to do it again. That all said, two in diapers it will be.

I don’t really have any expectations as to how life will be when I’m a mother of three. I’ve lived long enough to (sometimes) know better than to have expectations for how situations in the vast unknown will turn out. Do things ever really turn out according to our expectations? Rarely. Anyway, I have bigger fish to fry, like how to make boys clothing gender-friendly, should my husband have made an X chromosome contribution.

Next up: Did my husband make an X chromosome contribution?