I didn’t plan to have 5 children. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to get married.
I envisioned a life modeled after my childhood heroine, Mary Richards, the fictional associate producer at WJM-TV, played by Mary Tyler Moore. Yes, I was the girl who stayed in her dorm room on Saturday nights to watch each episode. That served me well because I did work for several years in television and eventually landed in Hollywood.
That’s where I met my husband, a recently resettled Cambodian refugee who worked with me on translating a film. We got married a year later, and I got pregnant just about immediately.
Of my 5 children, all but 2 were surprises
I was not expecting to be expecting so quickly. But pregnancy did not upend our plans to move cross-country and resettle in Boston.
I was six months along when we drove the 3,000 miles from California to Massachusetts. My enduring memory of the journey happened on our third day in the restroom of a McDonald’s in Texas on Prom Night. These cute teens were touching up their makeup when I entered and immediately vomited into a sink. Instead of acting horrified, they were sweet and sympathetic to my condition. I’ll never forget that.
Three months later, I gave birth to my first son, and it was love at first sight. When he was 2, we started talking about having another child. I was unaware that I was already pregnant. When my period didn’t stop, I found out I’d lost that baby that I didn’t even know existed. Within a few months, I was pregnant again and at week 12 lost that pregnancy as well.
Undeterred, we tried one more time and conceived our second son, the only one of our four biological children who was planned.
It was easy to get pregnant
I got pregnant again and delivered my third son just a year later.
I loved these three boys, but I really wanted a daughter, too. We adopted a baby girl who came to us at 6 months through the foster care system, and then I thought we were done.
I gave away all the baby clothes and equipment and settled into raising four kids. My husband had a different idea:ย leaving our familyย to create a new one. Wracked with guilt for abandoning us, he returned, and I got pregnant again. I was 42 and reeling from the emotional roller coaster of my broken marriage.
It took the full nine months to come to terms with having another child. I can still recall the look of disbelief on my oldest son’s face when we told him he’d have another sibling.
My kids made it easy to parent them
When my youngest was 8 months old, my husband left for good. I told the kids that even if he asked to return, I would not welcome him back.
During much of our time together, I felt like a married single mother. Now I was one in earnest, but I relished the role and loved managing our big household. I credit my children with making the job easier.
They were a united front, supporting each other and me. Those with driver’s licenses would ferry the younger ones to their various activities. The more mature boys would cook, clean, and even do laundry. It was a blissful existence despite the circumstances until they started leaving for college.
Now that they’re adults, I miss the chaos
Two enrolled in schools within five miles of home, and two chose campuses in California. With fewer visits home, I sold our house and moved west, too, knowing the youngest would eventually be resettled in California.
I envisioned replicating our large family gatherings with my adult kids, but that’s not happening nearly as often as I’d like. Although four of them are now on the West Coast, only one lives nearby. My son, who’s the father of my two grandchildren, is in New York.
Since the pandemic, the whole family has only gathered together once for my youngest son’s wedding. Although I meet up with them and their partners in their personal pods whenever I can, we don’t bring the whole tribe together often enough.
I miss the energy, the noise, and the intensity. I loved the constant activity. I even loved the mess.
That’s all gone now, which is why I tell young couples contemplating having large families that this day will come for them, too. While they may enjoy the controlled chaos of raising a lot of children, one day those kids will disperse, and it won’t be simple to maintain the bonds we work so hard to forge when they’re young.
Sometimes I think that if I had only one child, this time of life would be easier, but that’s not true. I love the whole lot of them and can’t imagine life without this crowd.
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