I grew up as an only child and for as long as I could remember, I wanted a sibling.  I remember begging and asking for one for every birthday, holiday, every day.  At one point I was convinced that in order to make a baby you had to have another wedding, and I was so excited at the idea of the white dress and flowers and then a new baby popping out.  A little later I thought babies came when mommy and daddy kissed on the lips, so for weeks I would try to shove my parents into one another so they would kiss and I would get a baby brother or sister.  Needless to say, neither of these methods were correct, and I never did get the baby brother or sister I had so yearned for throughout my childhood.

When the time came to start planning for my own family, I knew I would never have an only child. Don’t get me wrong — being an only child has a lot of good things like the sole attention of your parents (but that can be a double edged sword in some ways), your parents can afford to provide you with more opportunities, etc., but it can also have its downsides. When you are young it’s a lonely time on holidays, vacations, or even rainy days when friends can’t come over to play, and as you get older and fight more with your parents, it’s always you vs them with no one on your side who can argue along with you.

Then Drake was born and after his first year I had serious doubts about whether I could handle another newborn if they were all like him. When Drake had just passed his two year birthday, I found out I was pregnant again. Mr. Chocolate and I had been toying with the idea of trying for another since we had sold our condo, but I was still a little on the fence. I agreed to try for a month, maybe two, and if it didn’t happen, we would wait another year. It happened.

In the early stages of my pregnancy, I was mostly concerned about whether I would be able to survive another year like I did with Drake?  How would I deal with the sleepless nights again?  What if I couldn’t breastfeed again and Mr Chocolate and I fought about formula again?  How would my life change again with the addition of another child?  All these questions dominated much of the first two trimesters.

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But then as I moved into the third trimester and Juliet’s birth became more and more real, my mind shifted from myself to Drake. Drake who had been an only child for three years now.  Drake who was the only grandchild on both sides of the family, and had the whole family wrapped around his little finger for three whole years.  Drake who was used to being with mommy every waking second because as a nanny, he came with me to work.  How would he react to a baby in his life?

For weeks I worried about all these things. I could see Drake hating this baby, see him crying as I couldn’t spend time with him, see him ask us to take the baby away, and at my most worried… I could see him hitting the baby. All my reasoning for wanting a sibling in my own childhood didn’t seem to register in my mind, and instead all I saw was my little boy being hurt and mad at being replaced. How could I do this to my child whom I loved so much?  How could I disrupt his world so abruptly?

After hearing my worries, my best friend sent me a link to this NY Times article called The Gift of Siblings. After I read it I cried, but for a different reason. This article talks about the bonds of siblinghood, something forged in the backseats of cars on long roadtrips and commiserating about how awful your parents are, reminded me of why I was so lonely as an only child. As the article states, parents leave us at far too young an age, a fact I am too familiar with when my father passed, and the  families we create for ourselves happen much later in life after we have already developed a sense of self.  But siblings are the only ones who watch us grow, change, mature, and take those first steps into being the person who we eventually become. They are the only ones, in many ways, who are with us from cradle to grave and share in the same collective memories of childhood that we so treasure and hold on to. It reminded me that I was giving my son an unparalleled gift: a sibling. Someone to travel the roads of life with always.  And while the transition might be hard for him at first, in the long run this would be the best thing I could ever do for him.

When Juliet came home from the hospital I learned something else — Drake fell head over heels in love with his little sister.  He would run out of his room every morning into our bedroom to say hello to her.  When she cried, he would come over and say, “Don’t cry Juliet,” and give her a warm tap.  He would leave some of his toys in her swing so she would find them in the morning to play with. He would make up silly songs and riddles about her like, “Who’s cute and little and sits in a swing… Juliet!”  He would want to hug and kiss her goodnight.  He took her into our family better than I could have ever hoped, dreamed, or imagined.  And when I see him with her, the joy on his face, it melts my heart.  She truly is the best gift I could ever give him.