Five And (maybe) Counting

No, this is NOT an announcement that I am pregnant. Although I'm sure such an announcement would hardly surprise anyone who knows me. It seems I am always pregnant. Jon and I are celebrating 9 years of marriage this weekend, and the following occurred to me as I pondered on our married life so far: Since we hit our first anniversary (which was the week we became pregnant with our first son), I have only been NOT pregnant or nursing for about 6 weeks. (Yes, I am ready to have my body be my own again!) The craziest part is that despite our rather large number of children we have 5 sons and no daughters!

I am the oldest daughter of an oldest daughter of an oldest daughter. When I was a kid and would imagine my future family, I always thought that I would have a daughter first. So when we went in for the ultrasound with our first in September of 2003, I was surprised to learn that we were expecting a son! Of course I imagined that our second would be a sister for our little boy, but he surprised us, too. We were glad to have two brothers to be a buddy to one another, and when we were pregnant for the third time, I thought they would for sure get a little sister. NOPE! By number four, I wised up. Despite the statistic quoted to me by my OB that the most common combination of four children in a family is three of one kind and one of the other, it was not a shock to me that we were getting another boy. So, one year ago this week, when we learned (to our surprise) that we were expecting our fifth child, I could not picture us having anything but a little boy. (I'm not the best guesser, but 2 for 5 isn't awful, right?)

I have several good friends and family members who are "done" with their families. They know somewhere deep inside that they have come to the end, that their kids are all here, that all is complete. I LONG FOR THAT FEELING!!! I would love to be done. And maybe we are. But then sometimes I see little girls' clothes or toys or accessories and I wonder whether I will ever get to buy anything pink for one of my own. I sure don't feel strongly enough about it to try for another one in hopes of a girl; I think I'd just rather be done. But I do sometimes miss the "daughter" feel. Like while holding a newborn niece this week, or shopping for a birthday gift for another niece, I wonder if I'll ever get to have a daughter. (Mindi or Andrea, do you guys want to trade recipes?) Really, I am NOT pregnant! Nor do I want to be. I just wonder, that's all. And I want to know we're done, when we're done.