I just learned this week that I'm going to be an aunt! My younger sister (by a little less than a year and a half) is very newly, successfully pregnant after in-vitro fertilization. She's an older mom, 44, but she didn't marry until just a couple of years ago. So they're getting a bit of a late start, but we're all thrilled that there's going to be a baby in the family again. It could even be twins because they implanted two embryos, but it's too early to tell.

This takes care of the last remaining vestiges of my own baby fever. I have on some level held out hope for all these many years that I would get pregnant and have a second baby, but that isn't going to happen and my body and heart couldn't support a pregnancy anyway. Now I can be an aunt, and then by the time my sister's baby gets grown, I hope I'll be heading in the direction of being a grandparent.

This has been especially good news for my family because we lost my older sister to cancer exactly four months ago. Welcoming a new baby into the family later this year will be a lovely renewal of the circle of life.