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I grew up alone. I was a caboose baby, 10 and 12 years behind my siblings. My parents worked and travelled a lot. My sisters were busy all the time being teenagers that played sports and were in band and oral interp and drama and cheer leading and flag corps and worked part time and...

Even though I had three siblings, I wished desperately for another. How very much I wanted, for all the annoyance and struggle of it, to share my bedroom with a sister. I wanted matching Easter dresses and whispered secrets and someone who walked the same path to the same school.

Instead, I had three extra mothers in my sisters. People who babysat me and were annoyed by me and sent me outside to play when they had boys over. And who were gone by the time I was eight anyway, when suddenly, so suddenly the house was too quiet.

I can't really describe how happy it makes me to see how close my kids are. Not just in age, but they are so very connected to one another. They play and share and their experiences are all colored by the other having been there.

Any time they are separated, they miss each other. E isn't so sure she wants to go to school in the fall because she'll miss us, including her brother.

And it makes me want to have another baby. But I know that, no matter what, there will always be a last baby. And there will always be the baby we didn't have.

And how very, very blessed we are to have choices like these.