The white wall of the pacifier slaps against Will’s four-week-old lips as he sucks. The edge of the tan nipple slips in and out of his mouth – slurp, release, slurp, release – in a comforting motion. His still too tiny fingers fumble past the button shaped handle on the backside. In five month they will fit, grasping the bottom firmly.

For now Will’s six-year-old sister, Erin, is the self-proclaimed pacifier manager. She stands ready over the bassinet. Each time it falls out, Erin quickly slips it back in with her giant hands.

“Gently,” Anne says in the background in her I’m-trying-to-be-supportive-and-patient Mom voice.

“I know,” Erin insists. She slides her blonde hair behind her ears. “He’s going to have blue eyes just like me,” she predicts.

“Nobody knows that yet,” Zak argues with big brother certainty. His own large brown eyes are wide with indignation. “Maybe he’s spitting out the pacifier because he doesn’t want it anymore,” he suggests, and I suspect, as usual, he has an ulterior motive, He does. “Can I hold him now?” he asks.

“Just a minute,” I say, trying to balance the needs of Will and the needs of the doting family. “He might be falling asleep. Babies need their sleep.” I’m also trying to resist the urge to pick him up myself and see if I can get him to smile.

“I need to feed him soon,” Anne adds.

Oblivious, Will sucks away at the pacifier, working up a good rhythm, rocking it back and forth, achieving a meditative calm I envy.

Will is Anne’s and my third child, born four weeks ago Sunday. We have forgotten a lot since Erin and Zak and Erin were born six and eight years ago. We forgot some of the suffering, chiefly the sleep deprivation, and we forgot some of the joy, of holding your baby in the crook of your elbow, and we forgot about the great “is it a smile or just gas?” debate. (It’s a smile if he’s in my arms and gas in anyone else’s.)

But plenty has changed too: we’re older, there’s new technology (Diaper Genie, super light-weight strollers with ten adjustments), but the biggest difference is Zak and Erin. They’re older; they’re involved. They’re parents number three and four. Will may be my third child, but he’s the first child the four of us have had together.

We have each settled into a clear role. Anne is in charge of worrying and sustenance. Erin has moved from her early denial to Chief Logistics Engineer. Zak is the comforter and teacher. I mediate and try to make sure he gets enough sleep.

Erin took some time to come around to the idea of Will. Her first reaction when we told her Anne was pregnant was, “Stop it! You’re scaring me! Tell them we don’t want it.” We weren’t allowed to use the “P” word in public for the first six months. Will was definitely a threat. In a preemptive strike, she began sleeping in the guest room after we told her it would become Will’s room.

Zak was excited from the beginning. “My mom’s having a baby!” he announced to his second grade class when we were still keeping the news quiet. He also told the principal, the neighbors, and complete strangers in the supermarket. He asked questions, eavesdropped on the details, and examined neighborhood babies with a new enthusiasm. As the oldest, he has always seen or marriage as a threesome – he keeps his toothbrush in our bathroom and climbs into our bed in the middle of the night. It’s nothing Oedipal, just, in his view, an equilateral triangle.

Anne has had three miscarriages since Erin was born. She has learned that bad things can happen to us. During Will’s pregnancy, any sensation was a possible disaster. She lost sleep worrying that she was sleeping enough. She worried she was worrying too much. We had nine sonograms, a CVS test for chromosomal abnormalities, tests for blood compatibility, glucose intolerance and AFP for spina bifida. Each test came with a disclosure statement of increased miscarriage and birth defect risks and new reasons for worry.

I think Anne’s worrying is preventative. If you worry something thoroughly enough, it can’t happen. It’s her own preemptive strike.

I tried to remain cool and calm, to keep everyone on an even keel and do what I always do when under stress; make jokes and sleep a lot.

Fortunately, as the due date approached, Erin began to get excited by all the baby things. Anne began to transfer her worries to childbirth and beyond. Will he arrive too early? Will I arrive in time for an epidural? Can e get a new mattress for a bassinet? Zak began to be excited by all the overheard details.

“Mom’s two and a half centimeters dilated,” he told his friend Frank after Anne’s eight and a half month doctor’s visit.

“Oh,” Frank said. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.” Zak shrugged.

When I called home from the hospital during early labor, Zak asked, “How are the contractions? Is she more than to and a half?” He never let lack of comprehension keep him from holding up his corner of the triangle.

Now that Will is born, the four of us can’t stop staring at him, but it’s sometimes hard for me to get a good look with all the other heads in the way. When I can get close, I try to be positive, pronounce him healthy and give him some physical space. I tell him jokes and model effective sleeping techniques. He’s going to the doctor today so I slipped a few weights in his diaper. If he doesn’t gain enough weight, his other parents will be worried.

First published in the Dad’s View column of Connecticut’s County Kids: June/July 1988