When my daughter Sophie was about one year old and we still lived in a tiny walk-up apartment in New York City, a good friend of mine told me that I should have another baby and soon. We had been battling Sophie's infantile spasms for the better part of her short life and to say I was exhausted would be an understatement. When I think back on those times of endless uncertainty and even more endless nights, when the only hope I had was that surely things would get better if I just did as the doctors said (HA!), I wonder just how I did get through it. I guess you could say that my friend was absolutely clueless when she suggested a remedy for the anguish I felt was perhaps another child, and I remember looking at the phone while her voice chattered on as if it were somehow the embodiment of the disconnection I felt at the time from all those mothers who weren't experiencing the hell I was. 

Because we never found out what the cause of Sophie's seizures were despite countless tests and trials of medications, I was terrified to have another baby. And because my husband's job as a chef took him away for ridiculously long hours and the general extreme stress we were both experiencing as we struggled to treat our baby made for what I'd say was the antidote to romance, it wasn't hard to not have a baby. I had gotten pregnant with Sophie on our honeymoon, so our marriage was really barely a marriage as we navigated pregnancy and then the shock of having a newborn. When she was diagnosed at three months, just about the time when new parents can take a breath and perhaps get to know one another again, our lives were so radically changed that survival, much less intimacy became our new norm.

So, when did we "decide" to have another baby? We didn't ever make that decision, honestly. I began to travel from New York to southern California with Sophie when she was about a year old for treatments with a famous osteopath in San Diego. I would be gone for periods up to six weeks and two months, living in a motel, driving a rental car and only communicating with The Husband by telephone as he held down the fort in the city. That, too, is a surreal time, especially since I was alone much of it, in a part of the country that I knew nothing about. Suffice it to say that on one of The Husband's visits, I became pregnant and soon after, we decided to pack our bags and leave New York for California where we could be closer to the doctor who was making such progress with Sophie.

Perhaps that's the best way to do it, after all. Make up your mind to not not try to get pregnant and see what happens. Frankly, it's nothing but the proverbial leap of faith. At least that's what happened to me. Getting pregnant seemed almost like an immaculate conception at that point, such was my focus on my daughter and her needs. I always chuckle, half-heartedly, and feel a tiny twinge of guilt when I hear the saying of how the best thing for one's children is placing one's relationship to one's spouse first. I put that adage up there with parenting advice to never use bribes and threats.

The birth of my first son, Henry, was a very random gift. While I lived a bit anxiously for the first six months of his life, constantly pushing back the thought that every little jerk was a seizure, his development was so smooth and effortless that I slowly relaxed. Wow, that's how a baby uses his hands, I would marvel. That's how they learn to go down stairs. And while my attention to Sophie and her endless needs didn't lessen, my focus broadened. 

While some might think it sad when the younger sibling quickly overtakes the older in language, mobility, and cognition, that wasn't the case for me. Watching the beautiful, almost effortless progression of my son as he moved from baby to toddler actually gave me a broader respect and wonder for the efforts made by Sophie. Every single advance that she made was heroic, in my eyes, given the onslaught of seizures. There were times when I realized that development was so complex, particularly language, that she really didn't have a chance given her terrible disease. And that made me sad.

Having Henry brought immense joy to my life and, I believe, to Sophie's as well. Her relationship to her now eleven-year-old brother is very intense, and he is one of the few people with whom she really relates, reaching for his face and gazing deeply into his eyes. Which leads me to...

Oliver. I became pregnant with Oliver when Henry was two years old. By that time, Sophie was five and despite the difficulties inherent in having a child with severe disabilities, along with a toddler and newborn, I justified it all by saying to myself that it meant more love for Sophie, more people, more family to surround her with love and take care of her. I still think that way and almost wish I weren't so old or I'd have another one! There's something incredible about the babble of voices, the activity level of normalcy that swirls around the ongoing chaos and grief and heightened emotions of having a child with disabilities. It sustains all of us, I suppose.

I hesitated to write this because I know of many people who for various very good reasons have one child and that child may or may not have disabilities. I don't believe for one minute that it's "better" or not to have more children when your first is born "broken." I believe more in the randomness of fate -- that what is just is. 

My friend's suggestion, during that long-ago telephone conversation was, at best, ludicrous at the time. I was not in any position to have another baby then, and it really would be years before I felt even halfway capable of dealing with another one. I would never be presumptuous enough to even encourage someone whose situation was or is similar to mine to do so. But I will say, confidently, that having more children might have been the best thing I did on this never-ending journey.

I'm filled with gratitude that I've been fortunate enough to have two boys who not only have each other as they grow up but also the beautiful presence and life of their sister. I'm smiling, most of the time happily exhausted, on the sidelines.

Elizabeth blogs regularly at a moon, worn as if it had been a shell.