The Flip-Flop

We agreed in our youth, easily and companionably, that we weren't going to have children. It was 1975 when we married, and our no-child avowal needed little defending in our circle. The one couple with a toddler seemed the odd pair out. "We had her during the baby bust," they liked to say, smiling in what I now recognize as insider knowledge, i.e., parental bliss. Bob and I did nothing rash - no tubes tied or vas deferens cauterized - but when we bought a house, our purchase and sale agreement stipulated that the backyard monkey bars would go with the seller.

In 1978, Bob's brother and his wife had Erica, our first baby relative. We spent vacations in California at her side, and photos of her - a miracle of recessive genes, her blond curls and blue eyes - appeared in every room of our house. Like grandparents, we had the best of all worlds: a baby to dote on whose shrieks of hunger were someone else's job.

In 1980, one of my best friends had an unplanned baby girl. She was single and a lawyer working long hours, so none of it should have been easy. At 30, I found myself visiting often after work, with a fascination masquerading as moral support. Motherhood began looking less tiresome and more enviable. During one visit, baby Julia was slumped sideways in her high chair, her mother laughing at nothing more than her adorableness, when I blurted out, "I've been thinking a lot about doing this." My friend turned sharply toward me, the baby spoon and cereal on its way to the little mouth, and she who was usually ironic and self-deprecating said solemnly, "It's the most wonderful thing in the world."

Not a week later, Bob and I were driving up Woodcliff Road toward Centre Street in Newton Highlands, a moment and place frozen in memory, when he said quietly, "I've been thinking a lot lately about having a baby."

"Me, too," I breathed.

And besides that simultaneous reproductive lightning bolt, here's where more luck came in: We didn't know if we had the physiological goods. We said, sitting on the edge of the bed, "OK. We'll try. We'll give it a year. If it doesn't happen, we won't go crazy." Cyclically speaking, the first opportunity came in two weeks, so we did what was medically required, then did it again the next night for good measure. I took my temperature as follow-up, which might have told the tale if I'd known what I was looking for. Two weeks passed, then a significant third. I was late. This was before the days of home pregnancy tests, which now seems prehistoric - a visit to a lab, a blood test, the wait. At the appointed hour, I dialed the doctor's number and stated my name. The nurse paused, then, in a buoyant singsong I remember to this day, whispered "Congratulations."

A few hours officially pregnant, we made phone calls: to our parents, to siblings, to Aunt Hattie in West Palm Beach. My father reportedly slid to the floor in ecstasy. That phone bill, with the pertinent calls of May 20, 1981, circled in felt-tip pen, is the opening souvenir in what became Benjamin's first photo album. Below it: me in a pink sundress, not showing but grinning, and the Polaroid of my first ultrasound.

I'll stop there, because every parent has a birth story, and everybody loves their children. My larger point is this: We almost made a huge mistake. Until now, I haven't proselytized in print out of respect for those who can't and those who don't want Pollyanna promoting parenthood. But January is Ben's birthday month, and because I'm convinced he's the best idea we ever had, such sentiments move a mother to write about what she might have missed.

What if we'd been the husband and wife in my cautionary tale, a true one, about a childless couple who stuck to their guns? They spearheaded a support group called Nonparents Anonymous and were quoted in the Globe decades ago describing the freedom, the spontaneity, the money saved, the creativity nurtured, blah blah blah. Today, I know through mutual friends, they are divorced. But not just divorced; divorced and furious. She claims he ruined her life with his non-parent nonsense. He says it's her own damn fault. She left town, post-menopausal, never to be heard from again. He's single, eligible, and searching for a wife of childbearing age.

Elinor Lipman's new novel, My Latest Grievance, will be published in April. E-mail comments to coupling@globe.com