Last night on Josh’s lunch hour, we were having one of our conversations about children again. Sometimes we discuss how many we’re going to have; sometimes we discuss names, for whether we have boys or girls or both; and sometimes, it gets a little more serious.

Like last night, I asked him how he felt about termination in those situations where doctors are able to detect certain mental or physical deficits within the first trimester. Usually, he would ask me for my opinion on questions I ask before he answers. I suppose he then decides how he’s going to answer based on whether or not he thinks he’ll piss me off. But on this particular subject, he didn’t hesitate to answer, and was very clear.

“No. No matter what would be wrong with it, it’s my kid and I’m going to love it just the same.”

But then I asked him about those situations where it’s a disease or deficit that would be 99% likely to kill the child within a certain amount of time of being born - say one year or less. See, I’m still on the fence about this. First of all, in general, I don’t think it would be fair to the baby or us to see it to full term in this situation. We’d just be putting ourselves through a lot of pain, and a waiting game, to see when we’re going to lose our baby. And most likely, the baby would suffer, and wouldn’t even get to live long enough to appreciate its life. But at the same time, there’s always that 1% chance the baby COULD live to be much, much older. And, people die. It just happens. So if I had a baby with a deficit that caused it to die after one year, how would that be much different than if it (Bob forbid) got hit by a car or something? The difference is knowing… but again, everybody dies. So should we deny that baby the right to live for at least a short time, regardless of the psychological impact it would undoubtedly have on us?

Josh, again, didn’t hesitate.

“I’d still want to have it. Unless it was putting you at risk.”

I absolutely love how excited he is about having kids. And he keeps saying things like, “I can’t believe I found a woman that wants to have my babies.” Seriously. Who WOULDN’T want to have babies for someone that adorable?

We have not yet decided how many we want to have. We’ve already picked out two girls’ and two boys’ names, though. (Yeah, we’re that crazy.) (In case you were wondering: Joshua Andrew for first boy, Benjamin Ace for second; Layla Marie for first girl, Samara Michelle for second.) But supposedly, having twins runs on my mom’s side of the family, and that she had twin sisters. However, she was separated from them when she was really young, so she doesn’t remember if they were identical or fraternal. Only fraternal twins are hereditary; identical are purely accident. So if they were identical, then that has no bearing on whether or not I’m likely to have twins. But if they were fraternal, not only does that factor in, but it is my generation’s turn (as it also supposedly skips generations in her family). (Can you tell I don’t always trust my mother’s anecdotes? *cough*)

My sister had two pregnancies, neither were twins. Of course, she did have them very young. The older you are, the more likely you are to have fraternal twins. I want to wait until we’re closer to our 30s, so that Josh and I have a few years to ourselves to enjoy. This means I’ll be more likely to have twins, regardless of genetics.

Josh and I both think it would be cool to have twins. And we both agree that two kids is the max we’d want, so he’d get snipped up after that. The problem is, what if we have one the first time? Do we stop there? Because what if I ended up with twins in the second pregnancy? Then we’d have three. And while we would OF COURSE love them all, that’s just not what we want.

We might end up with just one in that situation. Then we can spoil it and I can spend all my time reading my Abnormal Child Psychology book trying to figure out how not to screw it up.

And if I do screw it up, then hey, maybe we’ll try for another one ten years later. I can start all over!

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