I come from a large family; there are seven kids: four older and two younger than me. It's comforting to know that six other people had a childhood remarkably similar to my own. When we get together, we sometimes laugh about memories or analyze the roots of certain shared behaviors. We fought often when we were younger, but now, for the most part, we share close relationships.

Elizabeth and I had a hard time getting pregnant. It took us over four years. Right now, Sonora is our only child. I think we are providing her with a good childhood. We are patient, do a lot of educational activities with her, feed her well, smile and laugh with her often, fully adore and love her. But we don't have any siblings for her.

We are trying again, but we are also in our thirties. Even if we could churn out a kid every two years (and our record suggests this is unlikely), our grand total would be about four siblings for Sonora. A full two less than what I grew up with and five less than what Elizabeth enjoyed.

Besides the biological obstacles to having more kids, I don't think we really want five. Three, maybe four. But I can't help but be sad for Sonora. She'll have more individual access to her parents than Elizabeth and I had to ours, but her world seems kind of lonely to me, so non-magical, so real. Adults don't have the same capacity for wonder, for backyard adventure, that siblings do. Hay bale forts aren't as cool to me as a thirty-year old as they were when I was ten. When I tell her about Santa and the tooth fairy, I will know that I am lying. I know that, no matter how hard I reach, I won't be able to touch the jet liner above me. Some of that lack of imagination will likely come across in my voice when Sonora asks. A sibling would be able to share in her illusions, co-inhabit a world that exists according to their changing rules. I am afraid adulthood has made me a permanent skeptic. I still love to wonder, but rationality consistently tempers my dreams.

Perhaps, though, Sonora's is simply the plight of oldest children everywhere. Regardless of whether or not Elizabeth and I are able to have more children, Sonora will never have an older brother or sister. She came first, is the John the Baptist to any possible others. Her sacrifice will be that the others will have what she did not: a young world ready for new members.