Gratitude #2: Other People's Babies

Last Saturday I was busy sewing this:

 

(Sewing a whole-cloth baby quilt for my new nephew.)

My sister-in-law had her baby on Halloween, and I can't arrive at a new baby's house without something soft and warm! While I sewed, I thought about my sewing machine. Kendell surprised me with it on the Christmas morning I was pregnant with Kaleb. I burst into tears. Like—real, live sobbing. Like I had to leave the room I was crying so hard. Not just because he had surprised me with something so awesome, but because I had visions of all the quilts I'd make for my own babies.

Except there wasn't going to be more babies. Just one more. Who I love desperately, of course.

But for a long, long time, I wanted one more.

So sewing baby quilts became a way to feed my baby hunger. I couldn't seem to make another baby happen in my family, but I could still celebrate someone else's baby by sewing for them, and that eased my ache a little bit. Holding their newborns did, too.

Eventually my baby hunger began to fade. 

On Sunday, we stopped by my brother-in-law's house. His sister, who is the person I was making that blanket for, was there with her new baby, and his daughter, who also has a new baby. Two brand-new babies at once! I was in heaven.

As they always do when there is a new baby around, my family members started joking with me about when I would have another one. I pointed out that I am 41, and did my standard joke about needing a younger husband before I'd be willing to have another baby. But I realized (again...as this is a knowledge I must continually reaquaint myself with) that I really am not baby hungry.

I don't want a baby.

That ache is gone. I am left with another sadness. I hear friends say things like "when I had my last baby, I knew I was done." I never had that feeling. Even though I don't want another baby, I still feel like I missed a baby I was supposed to have. Either between Nathan and Kaleb, or after Kaleb.

I wish that I had a six-year-old as my youngest, so that Kaleb would have another kid his age to play with, instead of having only teenagers to hang out with.

I don't know what else I could've done to have called that missing child into existence, but I missed the opportunity. And while the baby hunger has gone away, I don't know that this other feeling will ever leave me. It is a strange sort of missing—a person who never existed. And yet I do feel this continuous loss.

Sometimes, when I am counting my kids at, say, Disneyland, I find myself counting to five and looking for the one I'm missing. Then I remember it's the one I never had.

So I held my latest nephew. And I held my latest great-nephew. Holding babies without feeling baby hungry is sort of a strange thing for me. It doesn't heal anything because the sore is scarred over. Instead, it's just a baby: sweet, and adorable, and precious. A new person!

 

holding Eli, the twentieth kid I am an aunt to.

They don't alleviate my feeling of having missed one of my children. But other people's babies remind me that babies still are born. That babies are awesome. That one day I'll maybe have my own grandchildren.

So I am grateful for other people's babies. To sew for, to hold, to coo over. To drench myself in that newborn smell. To stretch out my heart and to give me hope. 

Comments

[Vickie]

I, too, have that feeling that someone is missing.I can't seem to get rid of that baby hunger and I'm 61! My baby is 19. No signs of any new grandchildren in sight. (I do have 15 and I love them dearly but the youngest is 2- I need a baby!)

[Stephanie W]

I too have this feeling. You are not alone. We are the same age, but my youngest is 15.

[Brenda]

I totally understand this feeling! I have 3 kids (almost 22, 19 and 12) and always felt guilty that my youngest (the only girl) only had older siblings to hang with and now is the only one still living at home. It's not that I want another baby cause at 49 I don't I am satisfied with holding and playing with other people's babies but I miss the one that should have been there but wasn't (my sweet hubby thought after the first 2 we were done and then finally felt the same as me after 6 years).

[Wendy]

Your words made me cry.

Beautiful picture.

Sorry to be so brief in my comments lately!