How Do You Get a Baby?

That question.
The one every parent dreads.

I’d been expecting it, but I was especially nervous about hearing it from my son. His thirst for information is endless — once he’s curious about something, he wants to know everything. One question always leads to another, and then another, and then another. There are no shortcuts, no vague answers, and definitely no bending the truth. He’ll spot it a mile off. Which is funny, really. Because the two things he never questions are Santa and God. He’ll ask hundreds of questions about them, but never questions whether they’re real. I find that amazing — how he can be so logical and literal in one breath, yet full of faith and belief in the next.

Anyway, as is often the case when I write about our lives, it had been a long day. I’d spent what felt like hours negotiating bedtime. There are so many nights when he’s not ready for bed, but I am more than ready for him to go. It’s a delicate dance — waiting until he’s calm enough, comfortable enough, regulated enough to lie still long enough to actually sleep.

Finally, he got into bed. I was ready for quiet. And then he asked…

“How do you get a baby?”

My heart sank. This was not the conversation I wanted to have right then. Or indeed for a long long time. But I had my answer prepared — the kind of simple, safe answer you hope will be enough to satisfy the question without inviting fifty more. So I said…

“Well, you need a man and a woman, and when they’re happy, they decide they want a baby. And the baby grows in the woman’s tummy.”

A lovely story and not always strictly true but true enough for a 7 year old.
I waited. Silence.
No follow-up question.
An absolute result.

A few weeks later, my youngest brother announced he was having a baby. Then we found out the baby was going to be a girl. I told my son, thinking he’d be pleased — after all, it meant he’d still be the youngest boy in the family. He always said he didn’t want to be the youngest, but I’ve always suspected he secretly likes it. He smiled and asked…

“How do you pick a boy or a girl?”

Great I shouldn’t have told him. I explained that you don’t get to choose — you just get given one or the other. Sometimes people get boys, sometimes they get girls.  He paused, thinking it through, then said…

“So… you didn’t pick a boy when you had me?”

And I said, “No.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment and then nodded to himself.

“So God must pick, then.”

This made me smile as just the other day he had said God decides the weather too. And so that was that. No more questions. Just calm acceptance.

It’s funny, really — how the same child who questions everything from how clouds form to why life is so hard, never questions God. To him, God is the explanation. The answer to the things that don’t make sense.

And for that moment, I silently thanked God for God.