When my dad was in his late 40's and my step-mom was about 30, she decided she needed to have a baby. She also had ovarian cysts and a 12 year old daughter. She just announced it to him one day and I suppose that's about when she stopped using birth control.

She had surgery for the cysts, and they removed one ovary. My dad actually went to the hospital to visit her while she was recovering, which was absolutely miraculous to those of us who knew him before the step-mom. They tried and tried to have a baby. Somewhere in here they got married. They kept trying. Somewhere in here my grandfather died and I was so battered by the injustice of having my gandpa gone that I began to think that there may actually be a rhyme and reason to this world we live in.

Meanwhile, my dad and stepmom were trying. They found a loophole in the insurance policy that paid for 20% of their fertility treatments. My dad borrowed money to pay for the rest. She had to have a baby. There was no stopping her. They went through drug treatments, they went through fertility treatment option after option. They ate only organic food, stopped drinking. She tried to convince every woman she knew that prenatal vitamins were important for every stage of a woman's life.

As part of the treatment, my dad gave her injections every morning and night. She screamed each time. The medication was expensive, and sometimes she would move just as he was giving the shot and the medicine would end up wasted. Then they would fight about the cost of the medicine and how much the shots hurt and how much she hated getting the shots and how much he hated giving the shots. But she had to have that baby.

I went with them to Albuquerque to see the fertility specialist. I sat in the car while she was injected with little fertilized eggs. They came out of that appointment looking absolutely beaten. There we were, on a hot summer day in Albuquerque trying to force something that didn't want to happen. My grandfather was dying and we couldn't control that, why were we trying to control conception too? I was confused. I was angry. I hated the pain they were enduring, and that they were forcing themselves to endure that pain.

I was also naive. I didn't understand the overwhelming itch for baby that a woman can go through. I thought to my self then that she already had a baby- my step sister. I didn't understand why she felt she had to have this baby too. In some ways, I still don't understand this. I believe now that the issue is too complicated and deep for me to even think about without getting very very upset.

Eventually, the end of that horrible summer of the dying grandfather the egg stuck. I was 21. My dad was 52. My step mom was 34.

I was a senior in college that year, and very involved in my life at school. I emotionally removed myself from my family so I could deal with losing my beloved grandfather. I would get reports every now and then about the pregnancy, but I really didn't care to hear about it. By this point I was disgusted with the whole mess. My step-mom endured almost nine months of morning sickness and was a general pain in the butt the entire time. At least, I thought so. But then, I was not at all aware of the multitudinous issues a pregnant woman has to deal with, especially a high risk pregnancy like this one. I just remember her being so incredibly unhappy for the duration of the pregnancy.

My little sister came just a few days after my 22nd birthday. The first year of her life was amazingly restorative for my entire family. We all enjoyed having a baby around. Well, I suppose we all did. I was in europe that year and didn't really know what was going on at home. I didn't find out until the little girl was almost two that there were problems brewing.

The first problem was that the little girl wasn't talking. She has some problem that prevented her from speaking until she was about four, and now at eight still has a pretty pronounced speech impediment. She had incredible behavior problems. She had and still has problems with gross motor movement, for example she still can't tie her own shoes. She's not cognitively delayed, she just has some issues.

The other problem is that her mother is incredibly protective of this child. It made sense at first, but the longer it went on, the more unusual it seemed. At 8 years old, the little girl is not allowed to walk through a parking lot without holding someone's hand. Don't even talk about crossing the street. She must have constant adult supervision. She still sleeps with her mom. I recognize that a mother knows her child best, but I also know this little girl as my sister. She's a smart, caring person who is allowed to be lazy by the smothering her mother does.

I love my little sister and believe that my life has been enriched by knowing her. I enjoy the responsibility of having a little sister. I love getting to know her more each time we visit.

I have to admit, there will always be that nagging wonder in everyone about whether her development problems are the lesson to be learned from trying to intervene when nature has already made a ruling. It is terrible to say this, I know. But this is my diary, and this has been lurking in my brain for awhile. My dad and step-mom are in the midst of a not-so-pretty divorce right now, fighting about those same issues that they fought about years ago when all she wanted was to have this baby. In the end the baby didn't make things right. In the end the baby changed everyone's lives so much more than they bargained for. In the end we lucked out and got a fabulous, wonderful, beautiful little girl. But we also got something else.