The Birth Order Book (41 page)

When we sat down with Kevey, I was really worried. I considered not telling him. Perhaps we could do it later—maybe when the baby was 3 years old!

As Sande and I faced Kevey, I said, “We have something to tell you.”

“What is it, Dad?”

While I stuttered around trying to handle the situation as a professional psychologist should, Sande broke in and said, “I’m going to have a baby.” (Firstborns always like the direct approach.)

I steeled myself for Kevey’s explosion, but all he said was, “Hey . . . that’s baaaaad!”

“Baaaaad?” I said, puzzled.

“Dad, you know . . . that means goooood.”

“Oh . . . right, of course,” I said, acting as if I were current on the latest “in” terms of Kevey’s generation.

Giving his mother a hug, Kevey said, “This is great—hey, Dad!”

“Yeah?”

“Can we go to the store and buy some Pampers?”

Kevey was disappointed when he learned we wouldn’t need Pampers for at least six months, but he was totally cool about no longer being the baby of the family. And in a matter of days, Holly and Krissy began talking to us again. When Hannah Elizabeth arrived, they couldn’t wait to get her home from the hospital and start helping with her care.

And their interest wasn’t just fired by momentary curiosity. They were always there and ready to help Sande with Hannah, and I really mean it when I say that this little girl had five parents who loved her very much. One of the really poignant proofs of that hangs on our wall in the family room—a framed copy of a poem that Holly wrote to Hannah when she was only 2 months old:

To Hannah Elizabeth Leman

Born June 30, 1987

A child with warm and tender skin, soft and smooth without a flaw,

The small body hasn’t experienced life yet . . . just being born into it . . . but this is God’s law.

The innocence of a child, something we should all have . . . something we should strive to be, An innocent child, fresh in God’s sight, as she ventures out to experience life.

—Holly Leman, age 14

But you’ll notice that I keep saying Hannah was the firstborn of our second family. This suggests that there would be still more children even though Sande was 42 and I was 44 when Hannah arrived. And, of course, there may be some readers (particularly wives) who are wondering,
Leman, you jerk, why didn’t you get fixed?

Well, let me explain. After Hannah was born, I went in to the doctor to inquire, and he said that it was a rather simple procedure, and he was sure I knew all about how it was done. Actually, I didn’t, so I asked him for a very short course in Vasectomy 101.

“It’s very simple. All we do is put a little metal clip here, and a little metal clip there . . .”

Metal clip?
That was it for me. Surely we could try to rely on our usual methods of birth control and take whatever God gave us. I say to my shame that as a husband and father, I’ve left birth control matters to my wife, as many (most?) men do. I should have been brave enough to endure the metal clips, but as I look back, I’m glad I didn’t because we have these two wonderful little girls who have brought such joy into our lives.

“Tell Me You’re Not Pregnant!”

Five years went by, and it looked as if little Hannah would be a princess of the family with some firstborn—actually, quasi–only child—characteristics because of that large gap between her and her older brother. In actuality, she functions as a sweet, gentle-spirited baby—embracing many of her mom’s best qualities—because we all doted on her. She was our “family mascot” for a good five and a half years until Lauren was born.

In February 1992, I drove the entire family over to California for a weekend at Disneyland. As we enjoyed the “happiest place on earth,” I noticed that Sande, who is usually full of life and all smiles, was just a little distant.

We left Disneyland late Sunday afternoon, and being a typical male, I had visions of “driving straight through” and making Tucson by midnight. We dropped south to Interstate 8 and headed east. As we got to La Mesa, a suburb of San Diego, Sande announced, “We’ve got to stop. I need something to eat.”

“Okay, we can grab something at a drive-through. I’d like to keep going.”

“No, I don’t feel so good. I need to stop at a restaurant.”

As we pulled into a Coco’s restaurant, I wasn’t real happy because I hated the thought of having all those cars I’d worked so hard to pass go on by while I was eating! We placed our orders, and we were sitting at the table waiting to be served when Sande started to cry. Bewildered, I asked her, “What’s wrong?”

All she would say was, “I don’t feel so good.”

Our son, who was now 14 and preferred to be called Kevin, observed perceptively, “She’s pregnant!”

“Your mother is
not pregnant
,” I said as I glanced at Sande with a look that said,
Tell me you’re not pregnant
.

But Sande nodded in the affirmative, and more tears began to flow. My wife had announced that another baby was coming, but this time no whoop of joy escaped my lips. It was more like a gasp of dismay, and maybe a bit of angry frustration. It turned out she had been pregnant a couple of months, and here I was finding out about it at the very same moment as our children! And things didn’t get much better when Sande said firmly, “I want you to call the doctor
now
!”

“Doctor who?” I wondered aloud, and she gave me the obstetrician’s name and instructions on what to ask him. She was spotting and was afraid she was going to lose the baby. I went to find a pay phone and made the call. I was lucky enough to connect with the doctor, who was very concerned and very direct: “Get her off her feet immediately and to a motel. She needs to rest in bed tonight, and then get her here tomorrow just as soon as you can.”

I came back to the table, and Sande was sitting there— alone. All the children were missing. This thought flashed across my mind:
Have they all run away?

Later I learned that Kevin had taken Hannah for a walk, and the two older girls had retreated to the restroom, where Krissy spent some time crying and Holly thumbed through the pages of a greater San Diego phone book with no particular purpose in mind whatsoever.

Somehow we finished dinner and went off to find a motel. Even though it was a Sunday night, most of the motels were filled, but finally a Travelodge took us in with only one room and two double beds to spare. I can’t say I slept much that night. I kept doing a numbers game in my mind and saying,
She can’t be pregnant. She can’t be pregnant. . . .

I kept mulling over what the doctor had said—the possibility that she could lose the baby if she wasn’t careful. And what about being parents at our age? Sande was 46, and I was 48. By the time the baby would arrive, she’d be 47 and I’d be 49! That meant I’d be almost 70 years old by the time our child graduated from high school!

The next morning it was a somber ride home, as each of us pondered how Sande’s pregnancy was going to impact our individual lives. Our two younger ones, Hannah and Kevin, were taking the news in stride, particularly 4-year-old Hannah, who did not appear to fear dethronement at all. She was already looking forward to having a baby sister to mother.

But Holly and Krissy, 19 and 17 at the time, weren’t taking this news any better than they’d taken the announcement about Hannah five years earlier. They just stared out the window, and I was sure they were probably thinking,
Hannah was bad enough, but Mom and Dad are
still
doing it even at their age!
I imagined Holly and Krissy getting together and collaborating on another poem, something like:

Oh, Mom and Dad,
We love you so,
But don’t you know
How babies grow?

We got home in record time, and immediately I drove Sande to the doctor. After several days of bed rest, we went back in and talked to the obstetrician. By this time I was in a little better frame of mind. Because of Sande’s age, this was a high-risk pregnancy. The doctor started going through all the statistics about the odds of bad things happening to the baby. In her classic firstborn style, Sande just looked at him and said, “Why are you telling us these things?”

“Can you think of a better family for that little baby to grow up in?”

The doctor looked at me in a helpless way as if to say, “Can you help me out here, buddy?”

Then Sande quickly made the doctor understand that it didn’t make any difference. Abortion would never be an option; she would go ahead and have this baby.

Only One Thing Remains Absolutely Necessary

Not long after we got back from Disneyland, I had to take a business trip east, and on the way home I stopped in Buffalo as I frequently do to check on our summer home at Chautauqua Lake, New York. While there I dropped in on my lifelong friend Moonhead and his wife, Wendy. Although the initial shock had worn off, I was still stewing and saying things such as, “Holy crow, I’m going to be 67 years old when the child’s a senior in high school!” And then Wendy said it all—for me, for Sande, for everyone: “Can you think of a better family for that little baby to grow up in?”

That stopped me in my baby Cub tracks. I knew in a moment I had to stop holding my own little pity parties. Oh, sure, I had been joking, of course, but behind the jokes was a feeling of, “Why us? Why
me
?”

As for Wendy’s question, I had to think about that for a few moments before answering. Surely there were parents who were younger, with more energy, and equipped with strong nervous systems that didn’t need a 100,000-mile recall. But could any family love that little Cub more than Mama and Papa Bear Leman?

The irreplaceable secret weapon that no parent can do without: unconditional, go-for-broke, no-holds-barred, sacrificial love for your kids—and your mate.

I said to Wendy, “You’re right. You are so
very right
. Thanks—I needed that. I really did.”

Wendy had referred to the irreplaceable secret weapon that no parent can do without: unconditional, go-for-broke, no-holds-barred, sacrificial love for your kids—and your mate. From that moment on I began telling myself,
I’ve got to suck it up. I’m Sande’s partner, her helpmate. It’s going to be tough on her. She didn’t expect this either.

On the flight home to Tucson, I kept trying to think of a way to tell Sande about my new attitude toward the pregnancy. When I left on the trip, I hadn’t been that positive or supportive. In fact, I had been downright grumpy, and I wanted to make it right. When I got home, I found Sande still concerned about the wellbeing of the baby. I reminded her of the positive report from the doctor after we had gotten home from Disneyland, and then I said, “You know, I’ve been a jerk about this—feeling sorry for myself and not being there for you as much as I could have. But when I dropped by Moonhead’s place, Wendy set me straight. She really got my attention when she asked me if I could think of a better family for that little baby to grow up in.”

For a second I wasn’t sure how Mama Bear would receive Wendy’s wisdom. But then she smiled back at me with a twinkle in her eye, and I knew that I was forgiven for any self-pitying misgivings I’d had. And I also knew the joy we would experience together was among the greatest gifts we could ever receive.

I never thought I’d be glad I was such a chicken about metal clips, but in the end my lack of courage paid off. Lauren arrived whole and sound, and she’s become the capstone of five incredible blessings.

No, I’m not going to claim that having Hannah and then Lauren was a piece of cake and that Sande and I were both so blessed that we wouldn’t trade a moment of any of it for a little peace and quiet. There were plenty of times when we weren’t sure we would make it through the night. But make it through the nights we did, and once Lauren was 6 and into school, Sande was once again at the place in life where she could see a little daylight and have a little freedom during the day.

As for me, I have that date with history. It will be 2010. I will be 67, and Lauren, 18, will be striding down the aisle to pick up her high school diploma. I confess I try not to think about it, but every now and then I get reminded in interesting ways. Like the time Lauren and I were walking up to the school door when she was in kindergarten, and a grandfatherly-looking fellow was leaning on the fender of his car, obviously waiting for someone. He smiled at us as we passed and said, “I’ve got a grandchild in this school too.”

Thinking I would gently correct his error, I said, “Actually, sir, this is number five.”

“Oh!
Five grandchildren!
Aren’t you lucky!”

As I walked into the school with Lauren that day, I couldn’t help but chuckle. Yes, I could have argued with him about “looking like a grandfather” (although I probably would have lost). But one thing was for sure. I
was
very lucky, and I still
am
very lucky.

The 6 Keys to Birth Order

1. As important as a child’s order of birth may be, it is only an influence. It is not a final fact of life, forever set in cement and unchangeable, that determines how that child will turn out.

2. The way parents treat their children is as important as the children’s birth orders, spacing, sex, and physical or mental characteristics. The key question is, was the environment provided by the parents loving, accepting, and warm, or was it critical, cold, and distant?

3. Every birth order has inherent strengths and weaknesses. Parents must accept both while helping their children develop positive traits and cope with negative ones.

4. No birth order is “better” or more desirable than another. Firstborns seem to have a corner on achievement and the headlines, but the door is wide open for laterborns to make their mark. It is up to them.