Brother Where Art Thou?

After a huge antibiotic-induced tantrum when leaving gym school, PB moaned through his tears today, "I'm not a brother."

"No, you're not. Not everyone is," I told him.

He seemed okay with this at the time, but it's something he brings up more and more frequently--usually out of the blue like this. Probably because he was playing with someone who had a brother.

I wish he was a brother, but the fact is that he probably never will be.

PB was born at 27 weeks. He weighed just 1 pound, 15 ounces. It was a scary, scary beginning that could have had a lot of scary consequences, but thankfully didn't. He recently turned 4, and we've seen no problems, no delays. In fact, he's really bright. He can read like you wouldn't believe--not just three and four-letter words; he can really read. He's curious and loves to learn. Of course, ADD is also often linked to prematurity... (I'm really just kidding, and don't think he has this. He just has an abundant amount of energy! I think...)

Anyway, immediately after he was born, I wanted to be pregnant again. I was afraid to let too much time go by because it had taken so long to get pg with him. I was scared that if I waited too long, I would be too scared to go through it all again. So again we started with all that goes along with trying to conceive--the clomid, the thermometer first thing in the morning, the hundreds of dollars (literally!) spent on pregnancy tests.

And we did get pregnant, but it ended in yet another miscarriage (We had one before PB).

At that point I was so distraught, so emotionally drained that I didn't think I could go through anymore, so we we quit trying. Since then we've bounced between degrees of adamantly not trying, to leaving it up to "the powers that be", to semi-trying. Nothing has worked (I was convinced that adamantly not trying would probably end up with a pg, because isn't that how those things are supposed to go?).

Most of the time I'm okay with it. I wanted more children desperately, now I just want them. Our life is good with just the three of us in many ways. But I have two brothers and a sister, and I can't imagine life without them. They're some of my favorite people in the world.

And I hate all the only child stereotypes--both positive and negative. I'm very defensive about them (more later on this topic I'm sure).

Still in the back of my mind, I'm waiting for the oops baby. The one that comes after you've given all of your baby gear away. The one you really had moved past. I still hold out hope that one may be coming. But the fact is we're probably going to be the parents of an only child--something I never in my life imagined, but something that I'm beginning to realize is plenty for me (most of the time). Because, as I've said ad nausea, I got the very best one in the bunch, and it would be really hard for anyone else to compete (and yes, I know that all people who have one child feel that way, especially when they find out they're expecting a second).