“Well yeah.  We’ve already decided we’re having at least two more.  We just have to be patient.”

I didn’t bring up the second part until the kids were sound asleep in their rooms, and we were in our kinky bed.

I was na**d and straddling him.  I’d just given him a h.e.l.l of a ride, and we were both still panting from our efforts.

He was rubbing the side of my thigh with one hand, my bad knee with the other, and looking at my body in a way that let me know he was quickly going to be ready for a second round.

“There’s a chance I can still produce eggs,” I told him.

He sat up, then flipped us both until I was on my back, and he was looming over me.  “I don’t understand.”  He started playing with my c.l.i.t, watching the action with enthralled attention, still half buried in me.  Clearly, this was not the best time to bring it up.

“Frankie said she’d be a surrogate for us, and there’s a chance I can still produce eggs.”

He pulled his hand back, looking confused.  “I don’t understand.”

“I guess they were able to leave my ovaries intact with my hysterectomy.”

“I didn’t know they could do that.”

“Yeah, me neither.  What do you think?  About giving it a try?”

“I’m happy with whatever makes you happy.  I want more kids, but I’m not at all picky about how we get them.”

G.o.d, I adored this man, every single inch of him.

Though a few minutes later, I might have loved several specific inches of him best.

Of course, there were a million ifs and plenty of odds not working in our favor.  All three of us were over thirty.  After a lot of stressful doctor’s visits and nerve-wracking test results, Estella and Frankie wound up being pregnant at the same time.  They even wound up with close to the same due date.

Frankie was carrying our baby, Estella theirs.  And coincidentally, Bianca and James finally decided to get pregnant around that time.  There were a solid twelve months in there where the four of us couldn’t be in the same room without talking about all things baby.  I loved it.

Jared Jeremiah Vega was born huge and healthy.

Tristan couldn’t stop crying when he wrote that name down on the birth certificate.

He was born only five days past his due date, but weighed in at a whopping eleven pounds.  Frankie blamed Tristan one hundred percent for that, and cursed him up and down every single time she saw him for nearly a year.

Maria Sosa-Abelli was born just days after Jared.  She was only five pounds, but healthy and beautiful.

Ming was in heaven.  “We have so many babies now!” she said, twirling her pink dress around like a mad woman.

None of the adults in the room could stop laughing about that.

Nikolaj didn’t care for the hospital, but agreed that his little brother was, “Pwetty cool.”

We’d had to buy a mini-van.  I was in heaven.  We had so many kids that I was officially a min-van mom.  We loaded them all up and took our Jared home.

We didn’t sleep the first night.  When I say we, I mean all of us.  Tristan and I couldn’t tear ourselves away from the nursery, and Ming wouldn’t stay in her bed.  Even Nikolaj couldn’t stop coming to check on his new brother.

“Why did we name him Jared, Daddy?” Ming asked between adoring glances at her baby brother.

He got choked up at the question, but eventually, haltingly, he started to tell our Ming the story of his brother, Jared.  It was an important story, and though she wasn’t old enough to really understand it now, I knew that we would be sure to teach her that, though those we loved may die, our love could keep them close to us forever.

Ming fell asleep halfway through his story, sitting on his lap in the rocking chair.  He just held her closer, kissing her on the top of the head.  Nikolaj had fallen asleep in his other arm a while back.

I was sitting in a rocking chair facing his, cradling Jared in my arms.

We shared a look.  What a journey it had been.  I had a whole lot of happy under my belt these days, but never in my life had I been so happy as I was in that exact moment.

“I love you,” I mouthed at him.

He flashed one ruinous dimple at me.  “Love you more.”