September 21 is the ten year anniversary of the birth of my first babies. Five babies who were perfect and tiny and too early to survive. Their conception, pregnancy and birth was perhaps the defining moment of my life, and I wrote about it here: How I Became a Mother, or How Earth, Wind & Fire Saved My Life. 

I am who I am because of those babies. And I miss them every day.

Everyone wonders about what their lives would be like if things had gone just a little differently. I’ve done a fair amount of wondering myself this year. What if I had gotten a mammogram earlier? What if I had ignored the lump? What if the Patriots hadn’t traded Wes Welker to Denver? OK, maybe more the first two questions and less of the third.

Dwelling on “what ifs” and “I wonder” won’t change what is. I try not to indulge in that kind of thinking too often. I’ve got enough to keep me busy in the here and now.

When I do allow my mind to wonder, it doesn’t take long to wonder what would life be like if I hadn’t lost the quints.

If the babies had been born when we had hoped, namely, after about 30 weeks, they’d be in fourth grade this year. I look at the fourth graders I know, and I wonder. Who would my kids have been friends with? Who would their teachers have been?

I wonder about what kind of super-multiples discount they’d give on five football, basketball, t-ball, softball, cheerleading or swimming registrations.

I wonder if my eight year old daughter is like her sisters. Would they have loved to read like her? Would they have been as talented at twisting the truth? Would they have her red hair and freckles and inability to ever. stop. talking?

I wonder whether my boys would look like their father, like their 8 year old brother does, or would be more like their 6 year old brother, who favors me. I wonder if they would love football, cheesesticks and summer with the passion that their brothers do. I

wonder how much more I would spend at the grocery store with a few extra mouths to feed.

I wonder how we would have handled the first year of five babies. How we would have dealt with that kind of sleep deprivation, whether we could have gotten a bulk discount on formula, just how many diapers we would have changed.

I wonder what it would be like driving one of those 10 passenger church vans, because no minivan would have fit five kids, five car seats, a double stroller and a triple stroller.

I wonder what they would have grown up to be, whether they would have my family’s genetic predisposition for dry wit, whether they would have realized just how extraordinary being one of five is or whether they would have resented being born in a crowd.

And even though I don’t want to, I wonder how I could have been given such an amazing gift as these five babies, only to have them taken away before I even got a chance to know them.

What I do know is that I have the children now that I am meant to have. And I also know that it is highly unlikely that I would have them if the quints hadn’t been born so early. Because, really, who would have time for fertility-aided romance with five babies running around.

So I know that I am where I am supposed to be, with the children that I am supposed to have.

But it doesn’t stop me from wondering.