The "perfect" family...

So like I said in an earlier post, this is often the reaction I get when I tell people that we are expecting identical twin boys and we have a 3-year-old daughter. And like I said, the comment always causes me to pause.

Why?

First of all, what causes this comment?...I think there is some overall idea that having a both boy and girl genders is nice. I think a lot of people, for whatever reason, think three is a nice number. Our daughter will be 3 1/2 when they are born, and I agree - that's a nice spread. And finally, I think the idea of identical twins is just intriguing to some people.

But never, not once, have I ever thought that these elements somehow constitute a "perfect" family. I have never said "I want this or that gender". I have never put a number on how many children I want. I sure as heck didn't think of "ideal age spreads" ...and identical twins? Are you kidding? With a something like a 3/4000 chance...yeah, that one was never a thought either.

The only thing I ever found myself wishing for was a child. One. And that wish didn't even become strong force until we realized that it may not happen.

And then it did happen. And to me, I had it - I had the perfect family.

I even said those words to my husband about a month before we got pregnant with the twins. I could see how our situation may not be "perfect" for some...I could see how people could fantasize for something different. But for us, for our situation, from our perspective, "perfect" was the word I used in our conversation.

And here we are.

And the bottom line is that for whatever reason, people see our current situation as more "perfect" than our past situation.

And I get it. I understand why it's nice to raise both genders and have more children...when the oldest is becoming more and more independent. And yeah, it's going to be a unique trip raising identical twins.

I'm sure once they are here, I will agree that it is the "perfect" family.

But the three of us were perfect too. And I venture to say that at some point, maybe farther down the road, there would have been perfection in the two of us if Emmeline never came into our world.

If there is one I've learned through this crazy process of infertility to natural twins, it's that if you are lucky enough to be somewhat stable and have a burning love for life, you will adapt. You will plow through your struggles and surprises and in the end, find the perfection in the situation you've been handed...regardless of anyone else's definition of "perfect".