I told myself I was done. After my son was born, I felt like our little family was perfect. It wasn’t easy—I went through postpartum, sleepless nights, and career juggling—but we made it. We made it through the messy, sticky, beautiful chaos.
Then this summer, I started waking up with this strange ache. Not a physical one, but this little tug inside me every time I saw a stroller at the park. Or heard a newborn cry in the grocery store. Or watched my son fold his laundry by himself without asking for help.
He’s growing up. That’s what I wanted, right?
One afternoon, I took him to the botanical garden. Just me and him, the same as always. We sat near the koi pond, and I asked—half-joking—“Would you ever want a little brother or sister?”
He blinked. “Like… a real one? From you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe.”
He thought for a second. “I’d share my LEGOs, I guess. But why now?”
I didn’t have a real answer. Not one that made sense.
Later that night, after he fell asleep on the couch during a movie, I sat in the kitchen just staring at the counter. I had Googled “signs of a midlife crisis” earlier that day. According to the internet, I was basically on page one.
But then I opened the bottom drawer to put something away—and found a tiny, half-used pacifier. Blue and green, slightly dusty, and still shaped like a memory. I hadn’t seen it in years. I didn’t even remember keeping it.
And yet, there it was. Sitting like a soft little ghost of the past.
I held it in my hand and felt my chest tighten. I remembered those 3 a.m. feedings, the tiny hiccups, the way his entire hand once wrapped around just my pinky. I also remembered the anxiety, the exhaustion, the way I lost my sense of self for a while.
