Mourning the Age Gap

*I wrote this post in the summer of 2013 when I was in the thick of trying to get pregnant with my youngest son and we were approaching the 2-year mark. I was processing my feelings and writing them for a parenting blog I ran at the time. Since that blog no longer exists, I wanted to save many posts I’d written because writing them back then served as great therapy for me. This is one of them.

A couple of months after my son turned two, I was ready to get back on the baby-making train. We got pregnant with TJ very easily, so I had faith that it would happen for us again within a few months. Little did I know that the universe had other plans for us.

I’m the oldest of four kids, all born about two years apart. Sure, we had our fights when we were young; sharing bedrooms will do that to any siblings. But we were all pretty close and I think we had a pretty rad childhood.

Cut to now, we’re all in our late 20s and 30s and living pretty far apart from each other, yet we are emotionally closer than we have ever been. We constantly support each other the best we can, given our distance.

Even before my son was born, I wanted my kids to be around the same age gap as I am to my siblings. The quantity of children was undecided but I knew I wanted them to be two to three years apart. I felt that the closeness I share with my siblings was due in part to our closeness in age.

Do siblings who are further apart in age still have fantastic relationships? Sure! I just use my own childhood as reference.

We’ve been trying for almost two years to conceive a sibling for TJ. The age gap that I thought I wanted, that I thought was perfect, is now gone. If I were to get pregnant right now, my kids would be more than four years apart. And I have no idea how much bigger that gap is going to get…. whether we conceive a child of our own or look to adoption.

More than 4 years apart and they likely won’t be in high school at the same time, looking out for each other like I did with my brother. They may not like the same generation of kids’ toys and music. Heck, I don’t even know if I will be able to use the same car seats before they expire.

A few months ago, I literally had to mourn the childhood I thought my son was going to have with any siblings… hoping it would be just like mine. I know it’s a silly notion, but the pain I felt was real.

It’s embarrassing to admit, but I was really down about it for a while. One could argue that I have no right to feel so down about my “unexplained infertility” since I have been able to have one amazing little boy when so many women are still struggling to have their first child.

To some extent, that’s true. I feel incredibly blessed to have my son.

But you know what? I’m not done yet. My family isn’t done yet. I know it’s selfish, but I want to experience pregnancy again (even the crappy parts). I want to experience childbirth again. I even want to go through the newborn phase again, no matter how much I will think back to this very moment and say, “what was I thinking?”

As time heals everything, the pain of not having my children when I wanted has lessened. As TJ grows more independent and communicates more effectively, I am seeing more and more how he is going to make an amazing big brother some day. I hope he will be able to cope with the big change that comes when a new baby joins a family; a change that probably would have been much harder on him when he was just two or even three.

Does my heart ache when TJ asks me for a baby brother or baby sister? Hell yes. I still fight back tears when he tells me, “Mommy, try harder.”

But I feel more and more at ease with the fact that the universe will choose the right time, not me.

10 Fun Facts About Me

Happy New Year!! I have lots of fun things planned for 2022 in my little world of painting and drawing, and I cannot wait to see how they evolve in the coming months.

My oldest son is 12 and he has aspirations to be a YouTube content creator someday… like many kids his age. He occasionally watches videos that give advice on social media marketing and asked me if I’d ever written a “Fun Facts” post. I haven’t, but figured I’d start the new year with a blog post and see how many I could come up with.

So here goes…

1. My son and I both tested for a Kukkiwon 1st degree black belt in taekwondo in October of 2021 and we both PASSED! It was really, really hard; both physically and mentally, but I’m so proud of both of us. I wrote much longer posts about my taekwondo journey and the test itself that you can read if you’re interested. We’ll get our black belts and certificates some time in early 2022 since they come from Korea.

2. I never developed a taste for coffee; not even coffee ice cream, and it took me until my 40s before I could enjoy a Frappuccino without cringing at the coffee flavor that most don’t even notice. I do enjoy a Frappuccino now and then and actually like the tiny coffee flavor now, so I wonder if I will eventually like coffee?

3. I hate roller coasters. They are not fun or exhilarating for me and I hate the feeling of falling or being dizzy. I will never skydive or bungee jump willingly. I even get a little anxiety when I fly if there’s any turbulence, but I love to travel, so I don’t let it stop me from exploring when I can.

4. I took the class to become a soccer referee when I was 15 in an effort to earn a little money and maybe give me an edge as a player. I ended up being pretty good at it and the year I turned 17, I earned the title of Region IV Youth Referee of the Year; one of the top 4 female referees in the US under age 24. I got to travel to some big tournaments as a result; including the US Youth Soccer National Championships as a guest. I got to referee games with FIFA referees Brian Hall and Kari Seitz. Two years later, my brother earned the same honor and went a step further being chosen as National Youth Referee of the Year.

5. I spent 30+ years hating avocados; gross texture and flavor. It wasn't until I was pregnant with my youngest in 2014 that I started to like them and now I love them. Weird!

Goofy camp counselors. Made some amazing friends.

6. When I was 18, I had a job at a Girl Scout camp where I lived there all summer curating the arts & crafts program. My camp name was Batty; named after the cartoon bat from the movie Fern Gully. I have no recollection why I chose that name. I do remembering thinking bats were cool (still do) and maybe I couldn’t think of any other camp name, so it stuck. I had so much fun at that job that I dream of getting to do it again someday.... even though I would be 15-25 years older than ALL of the other staff members and the pay is pretty terrible. I even remember the words to most of the Girl Scout songs I learned growing up.

7. My maiden name is Tebow and my family is supposedly, distantly, related to the NFL player with the same last name. Not sure how we’re related, but his fame helped the rest of the country learn how to say Tebow correctly.

8. My husband and I dated for almost 10 years before we got married and it was mostly due to economics. When we both were in college, rent was already getting crazy in the San Francisco Bay Area, so we both stayed living at home well into our 20s. Neither of us wanted to spend a bunch on rent and have it keep us from being able to buy a house. Also, in 2001 we had 6 weddings to either attend or be part of, so we were OVER weddings for a long time. We finally got married in the fall of 2007.

Selfie in Lake Tahoe BEFORE there was even a word for a selfie… with a regular camera too!!

9. I am mostly left-handed, but ambidextrous with my feet; which comes in handy when playing soccer and in martial arts. I write, draw, paint, and eat with my left hand, but I brush my teeth and use scissors with only my right hand. I use tools like a screwdriver or hammer with both hands. I have never met anyone who has similar ambidextrous quirks.

10. I am a recipient of the Girl Scout Gold Award; the highest award someone can get in Girl Scouting as a youth. It’s the equivalent of the Eagle in Boy Scouting. My Gold Award Project involved painting a few murals in the hallways of my high school and polling the student body on whether they thought it could prevent vandalism and graffiti. I am also a Lifetime Member. These photos here show two of the first small wall paintings I did in the hallways of my high school. On the left I painted my friend Jamila and just across that hallway, she painted me. Then I did a version of Picasso’s Three Musicians. For my Gold Award Project I painted a really large piece of masonite (maybe 4x6 feet? I can’t remember) that ended up being hung in the main office. It had an earth in the middle and a bunch of faces of teenagers of different ethnicities around it. I'm kinda bummed I don’t have a photo of it finished… but also not that sad, because I’ve always been a better landscape painter, ha!

If you know me, were any of these new info to you??