Epiphany

This one might seem a little late in coming, but I had an epiphany this week. I realized that three children is enough.

You might think that I realized that before, say, back in 2001, when I had that little burning procedure done on my fallopian tubes.

No. Back then, what I - or, should I say, what WE - realized - was that three should be enough. We also realized that we could not be trusted to be responsible enough to stop at three. Given enough distance from newborn hell, we definitely would have given into the temptation to make just one more. And then maybe just one more.

So, we took matters into our own hands and put a stop to all that conception nonsense.

Since then, while I have felt that our family is complete, I have always felt that there is room for one more.

Always, until this week.

When I consider what it takes to coordinate the life of this family - of three children at different schools with different homework and different interests and different activities - I just can't imagine giving time and energy to one more person.

I'm all full up.