The Dog Ate Your Baby Book : Making Room For Peter

I thought I was clever having Scarlett a few days before turning forty. I was convinced she was my last, and I congratulated myself for sneaking her in before hitting my next decade. Forty, as any OB will tell you, is when an expectant mother enters in earnest the danger zone. Sure, Hollywood at forty is just getting started having kids, but when an average gal talks to her OB about having a baby in her forties, the doctor talk tends to get gloomy. They throw numbers at you, scary numbers that left me resolute about one thing—child birth after forty was out for me. And I was resolute, fixed in my opinion. It was time to focus on raising our six children.

And so that’s what I did. For two years I focused on raising the kids we had, until one day Rich said, “I think we should have another.” W-h-hat? Now don’t get me wrong. I thought it was sweet that Rich loved our kids so much he wanted another. It annoys me when guys put the brakes on having more kids because, Hey, you can’t fit a car seat in the back of a Corvette. Yeah, pal, that car only has room for you and your ego. But sweet as it was to hear him say he wanted another, it was also infuriating. I had crossed the threshold! I was now forty-two! There was no way I should try to have another child. I showed Rich the scary numbers, rattled off all of Science’s arguments against such an attempt, and still he was convinced we should have another.

There was only one explanation for this: Rich was delusional. He wasn’t seeing things clearly. I had the doctors on my side, some with open slots in their schedules to squeeze me in for a tubal ligation. Not that I took a poll, but if I had, no one would have thought having another baby at my age was a good idea, no one but Rich.

I dug in my heels and told him to be reasonable. It was too late! He remained convinced it wasn’t. Some may say I was nuts to relent, but a marriage isn’t a cold-hearted corporation, making decisions that only make sense on paper. It’s a pact, including not just the two who are married, but their God on whom they lean as they, hand in hand, navigate their way through this life. With this understanding, I had to stop and ask myself if it were possible that Rich wasn’t just wanting another baby, but that he was sensing that another baby wanted us, to be a part of our family.

It seemed to me madness, but I knew that sometimes God’s ways appear so. As Zechariah would have said (if he’d been able to speak) it was madness to assume his wife Elizabeth would have a baby boy named John. And what sense was there in Sarah thinking she’d ever give birth to a boy named Isaac? And so, though I didn’t agree, I consented to try, and when one miscarriage was followed by another, I still consented, for just a little longer, just in case there might be someone trying to make it here.

Peter made it here. At forty-four, I gave birth to our fattest, healthiest baby ever. The biggest danger to his life as a newborn was the constant threat of his siblings smothering him with love. Yes, seven kids is a lot. It’s expensive, it’s loud, it’s hard to fit in a car or vacation home. But we’ve made due, made room, and Peter is here, just like his father knew he should be.