Sons and Daughters

As most parents will tell you - at least those parents whose daily lives are not entirely devoted to finding food and shelter for their children and themselves - the first child is a terrifying experiment for which we've had no practical preparation. If through some deeply obscure jumble of genetics and luck, Number One escapes death or serious injury or illness long enough for our selective memory to kick in, though, we start thinking about having another. (An even MORE lunatic notion: "We escaped calamity, so --- let's spin the wheel again!")

Of course, this questionable if not outright delusional behavior is why we're all here on this planet today. And I'm mostly happy about that.

But my happiness about our own kids' existence, and the lives their mother and I have lived while raising them, and the lives they are creating for themselves, is specific and conscious - perhaps not unique, but not just the result of a biological imperative either.

We in fact had to overcome a lot of serious obstacles to get Child #2. Six miscarriages. Three different really good OB/GYNs and a battery of tests couldn't tell us why they were happening or how to prevent them. Ultimately, their advice was, if you can stand to keep trying, you may eventually get lucky; or give up, spare yourselves  the anguish, and enjoy the one healthy living child you have now.

We were almost ready to throw in the towel - I was steeling myself to schedule a vasectomy - when Teri became pregnant again, and this time, everything went OK. Jackie is sixteen as of this writing, and going strong, knock on wood.

So, why was having a second child so important to us both (because it really was both of us wanting this)? Some part of the drive was hard-wired, certainly; and some may have been stubbornness in the face of Stupid Fucking Fate.

But I think it came down to two things - first, we both believed that having another person with the same parents as you can help you make sense of their strangeness, and of the uncharted Land of Childhood: you have someone to compare notes with, and someone who knows exactly what you've been through. And second, though of course this was pure gambling on our part, we were somehow sure that Child #2 would be a girl, and we would then be able to experience raising both a son and a daughter.

And why should that matter? After all this time, I still can't say, and, without a doubt, after what we'd been through, a healthy baby boy would have been perfectly beautiful in every way. But we were still especially pleased to have the chance to experience what I can only describe as the complete adventure.

So, how has it been? Like every aspect of marriage and child-rearing, more frightening, ecstatic, exhausting, and satisfying than I could have ever imagined.

I've read that there may be millions or billions of alternative universes, each of which embodies a different way all the variables of circumstance could have played out. But for the life of me, I'm incapable of imagining a world that didn't have my family in it, just as they are.

This may be one decent definition of happiness.