2 and Beyond

Me, battling post partum depression, handling motherhood and somehow finding the energy to organize a photo session

Growing up, I wanted seven children.

Seven healthy children.

Some twins, some triplets, and a couple of single arrivals, just to keep things interesting. I fantasized about them often. In that imagined world, money was never tight, laughter was never rationed, and the future unfolded exactly as planned. I could see the house. I could see the table. I could see success, measured not in numbers, but in fullness.

Then I got married.

Then I got pregnant.

I had a baby girl. And two months later, I was pregnant again.

I remember thinking, “This is really going to happen.”

This dream of abundance. This vision of many.

I had both children in the same year, January and December, a fact that has since become a light joke among my inner circle. But jokes soften with time, and reality sharpens. As I write this, my second child is turning seven. And even if I never had twins or triplets, even if I had given birth once a year with military precision, I would have had eight children by now.

Yet they remain two.

after school memories.

What no one prepares you for is that children do not grow in isolation. They grow inside systems. Inside villages. And villages are not all warm hands and open arms. Some are made of love, care, encouragement, and support. Others are built from doubt, envy, misjudgment, malice, stereotypes, and quiet cruelty disguised as advice.

Raising children takes a village, yes, but not all villages are safe.

Children need both parents to thrive. Or so we are told. But the truth is more complicated. Successfully built children do not fall from the sky or off palm trees. They are assembled slowly. With time. With patience. With pieces of you that never grow back the same way.

They are made from sweat and exhaustion.

From absorbed pain.

From sacrifice that no one applauds.

From prayers whispered into pillows at 2 a.m.

Hair day

They are made from routines, and routines alone can feel like a full-time occupation. And even that, too, takes a village.

They are made from mothers who suffer postpartum depression while still being told they are “lucky.” From women who were loved, yes, but also expected to be grateful enough not to break. From husbands who were meant to be insurance policies against collapse, not always realizing that insurance does not prevent storms, it only helps after damage has already been done.

Some children arrive with needs that change everything.

A child can be neurodivergent.

Autistic.

Chronically ill.

Emotionally demanding in ways that drain entire households.

One child can consume the time, energy, and emotional reserves of a whole family and still not be held accountable for what they take. And they shouldn’t be. Because children are not debts to be collected from. They are realities to be carried.

Children are a gift. That is true.

But gifts also come with weight.

As I once wished for seven, somewhere a woman is wishing for just one. One pregnancy that sticks. One cry in the night. One child to hold. And so the question creeps in, uninvited and uncomfortable: is it fair to ask for seven while another cannot have one? Is it selfish to imagine abundance when scarcity lives next door, even when money is enough to buy a house and a car but not a heartbeat?

A random school day

I don’t have answers that resolve neatly.

What I know is this: dreams evolve. Bodies change. Capacity shifts. Courage looks different in each season.

Growing up, I wanted seven children.

For now, I have two.

And I am still learning whether looking beyond them is an act of faith, or simply an acceptance of what this life, this body, and this village will allow.

For now, two is not a failure.

It is a beginning.

And maybe, just maybe, beyond two does not always mean more children, but more truth, more grace, and more honesty about what it actually takes to raise human beings.

And that, too, is a kind of abundance.

Marcia Rich Lee, In her mother’s belly. Credit: Annie Lee.