Five's Mis-Conception

We have reached the end of the line. Today is Five's birthday. Yes, the boy who is so special he earned his own blog column, is eight years old.

The Captain and I are still unsure how he came to be.

Obviously, we understand the mechanics of how children are created. We managed, with very little effort I might add, to bring four of them into the world before Five arrived. One and Two were the only ones we scheduled. And Two happened easily enough that we realized we probably hadn't needed to try so hard. Not that the Captain was complaining.

After Two joined us, I went on birth control, but it made me fat and crazy, so I stopped. Hence, Three. Then the Captain and I finally figured out that if we stopped being so sexy and paid attention, my body would give actual biological signals that would help prevent pregnancy! That method worked for three years.

Then one December night, the Captain and I were addressing Christmas cards, he was drinking wine, we were full of the holiday spirit, I lost track of when I last received a biological signal, and...Four! For weeks, the Captain spent nights re-imagining our future, wondering why he hadn't listened when his doctor suggested that perhaps medical intervention might be the only way to stop his super-sperm.

But Four was adorable, and after a few months, the Captain grew to like him. Our world, inside and outside our home, was changing. We were busy, time passed, and the Captain forgot to have that surgery. But we remained diligent about obeying the signals.

Which is why we don't know how Five got here.

We can both swear that there were no mind altering substances involved in his conception. I mean, the sex is always mind blowing, but not so much that we lose the ability to count, or read a calendar. We blame it on L.R.R.P.S., or Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol Sperm. They must have traveled far, set up camp, and waited for one of my lazy, old eggs to drop. Trust me, after thirty-eight years in my ovaries, those gals weren't putting on make-up and running down to see who was knocking on the door. They were semi-retired at that point, sitting around in their flannels and fuzzy slippers, gossipping with their BFUYS (Best Friends Until You're Shed). We figure one of them finally went out to get the paper, and a L.R.R.P.S must have pounced.

The Captain was the fourth person to find out I was pregnant. My friend Janet had the unfortunate timing to call right after I'd done the pregnancy test, so she got the news first. She was speechless. Then my mother called, and I shared my genuine fear that the Captain might drive off a bridge when I told him. But he didn't. He called his doctor instead and scheduled the surgery.

Five was born two and a half weeks early, on September 13, 2003. I knew he wasn't going to cook all the way to the end of his recommended gestation, but I prayed to make it past the 11th. It was only two years after the attacks, and we were all still very raw. The delivery was fairly easy, because he was small. He had some minor bilirubin issues, so one day the pediatrician was reading his blood results, and he told me his blood type was B+.

"Really?" I asked, perplexed. "Huh. I'm O+."

"Well, someone is B+," he answered. "Do you want to ask your husband, or is that going to be an uncomfortable phone call?"

Turns out, that's the Captain's blood type. He confirmed it when I called him.

"But if it hadn't been," he added, "that would have explained a lot."

Five. We don't know how we got him, but we wouldn't give him back.


P.S.: If you read this earlier, it had a different title. I changed it after realizing that the next time some person googles the word "conception," I'm going to be number three on the browser list. This happens all the time--usually when someone in Indonesia or Russia does a search for "penis," or, my favorite from the other day, "hot woman diaries."  So, sorry if this popped up as a new post in your blogroll. It's not. I'm not that prolific.