xtcian

HEY! CONGRATULATIONS!

ps -- I too was born at NYU medical center, as I imagine this new one will be (from the picture of the ultrasound. if it's a boy, I don't recommend naming him CP.)

Congratulations Everyone! The farm is going to be more exciting every year! Our Easter trips to Uncle Fred's farm with my cousins were the greatest.

LOL. I had to laugh at your long list of cousins with very white, preppy names. I think we would have adopted Vince. My cousins Gaetano, Lina, Franca, Rosaria, Gianfranco, Pasquale, Anna Maria, Giuseppina, and I were separated by thousands of miles and saw eachother about once a decade; You and the future Williams' are so lucky!

Congrats to the other Williams family!

Josie -- if there's anything our family is not, it's preppy. Except Ian, of course, who actually went to Norfolk Academy. Vince's dad is a Hawaiian theatre director, Mark's dad is from Sandy, Utah, and Jana's dad has a catering business and drives hotrods in the 4th of July Parade.

Congrats to one and all!

Ian, this will sound picky, but I balked at this phrase of yours in emphasizing family ties: "there is a shared experience in your DNA..."

Our adopted kids and their brother (our biological son) and all of their cousins have amazing times together and are very close (they are now ages 14-20). Shared experience derives from shared experience, period, not from genes. I never realized until we adopted kids just how genetics-mad this society is. None of our three children are related to one another biologically, but I bet they know each as thoroughly and love each other as fiercely as any three bio-siblings. Plus, they all laugh at the same stuff and bond over tales of their silly mom. (me)

At any rate: good luck to Sean and Jordana with this most welcome pregnancy. Family: it's all good.

Anne D - you're so right. It was just a turn of phrase, but upon reflection it sounds stupid, so I changed it.

I only have two first cousins and they live in France, so I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen them in my life (and when we saw them when I was younger, the two of them would start speaking in French so I wouldn't understand what they were talking about and it really pissed me off.)

But my two children (ages 5 and 3) have five first cousins (ages 22 to 10) and it amazes me to see their natural affection and love for each other even when they don't see each other very much. What a wonderful realtionship it can be.

Congrats to Sean and Jordana (and the entire Williams family) for the new son/daughter (niece/nephew; cousin/cousine; grandson/daughter).

thanks, ian and kindly commenters!

breeders and babies! big up!!

My 5 year old doesn't quite "get" what cousins are completely yet, but she knows they are something "better" than friends. Funnily enough the other day she was insistent that Emma's kids were her cousins and she was having none of my explanation that they were "just friends". Not sure what that means, but I think it's a good sign for cousins (and for your kids Emma!).

Neva - In some cheesy Greek sorority sense, we can tell our kids that they are cousins. Now, that may cause some problems ten years down the road when Frederick wants to ask Eden out on a date:)

Thanks for changing that, Ian. I was thinking the same thing as a person about to adopt a baby, but also wondered if I was being hyper-sensitive.

But back to cousins- you do have a great crop of em! And Lucy is gonna have a blast!

It's also really cute how Mark has the exact same expression on his face that he had as a little kid!

Anne D. - I don't know if you saw the Times article about how your siblings are more responsible for how you turn out than your parents, but I can guarantee that Kent and Steve (with whom I share less DNA) screwed me up as much as Ian and Michelle.

Y'see, I was a middle child, and, when I wasn't being beaten, was largely ignored.

That's right. Ignored. Ignored and beaten. By a preppy.

Anywhoodle, we're very excited about Esteban House MD, but we also can't wait to have another so we're off the hook when either of them becomes a menace.

Congratulations Sean and Jordana!

not to nitpick, but on the DNA thing...

it's just a different type of bond is all. that's not to say that anne's kids and their cousins who don't share the same genes aren't capable of loving each other as much or more as people from the same gene pool, or that they can't have shared behaviors/characteristics which come from the shared experience of being in the anne d. family that even biological cousins/siblings who might not be as close don't have. still, I recently had a night out with my cousins from the east coast and europe (whom I don't know all that well), where I was struck not only by the odd behavioral quirks which come from being around our family (let's call that nurture), but also the sheer physical resemblance and fact that much to my surprise, like me and my sister, none of them are able to stomach anything even remotely sour (weak example but let's call that nature.)

again, for what it's worth, my two cents is that's absolutely right about shared experience being shared experience and family in all forms being family (family trumping everything), regardless of gene pool. but this doesn't discount the fairly significant role mother nature and our genes play, even if it's but one part of the equation. now, nature/nurture is a very tricky debate from all sides since it's often used as a tool to promote whatever agenda one group has against another based on race, class, nationality, sexual orientation, etc. (please refer to the film trading places and vile anti-gay rhetoric for more on this.) bottom line, like anne said, it's all good when it comes to family (and btw, anne -- MAJOR PROPS for adopting as well as breeding. very cool. same to lee.), and neat to see someone I may not know all that well have the same physical reaction to something far too sour/acidic/cirtrusy for all of our shared DNA to handle. not talking about royal european bloodlines and hatfield vs. mccoy and studhorses, just someone with my similar dashing good looks, stupid sense of humor and nervous stomach.

(big ups to our great-great-grandfather the priest, who was excommunicated for marrying a christian to a fetching muslim named fatima so the story goes, and gave our family our last name.)

(also to my cousins on the other side from texas and arizona, who I saw a few years ago and was like: I'm fucking related to THESE people?!? I am. they're alright.)

As Ian&Sean&Michelle's older brother, I would have to say that the relationship I had with them was in no way diluted by being half-sibs. I held them, diapered them, taught them their numbers and letters -- well me & Big Bird. I watched the first episode of Sesame Street with Ian. I have had nearly every one of their bodily ejecta on me at one time or another. I know what their pillows smell like.

Conversely, my full-sib Steve doesn't feel closer to me in any way not tied to the extra ten years we've known each other. Growing up, I was as close to the cousins with which I shared no germ plasm as the 'real' cousins.

Sharing genes is kinda a cool thing, but I think that a lot of human misery comes out of the clannishness based on blood relationships.

We-all all are related via a small cohort of women who lived in Africa thousands of years ago. If everyone saw everyone as a blood relation and extended the courtesies that relationship traditionally entails, the world would be a better place.

i've got to agree with CP's point about different but also good. i think society is definitely skewed in favor of defining kids by biology rather than experience, otherwise lgbt adoption would be a helluva lot easier.

but at the same time, society has also denegrated the act of childbirth by treating it as a "medical condition" which is something i also oppose. i'm fiercely proud of the fact that i made the choice to procreate with my body, and to me, that choice has a strong personal and political implications as a feminist.

here is an example of what i mean that might provoke some thought:

http://shapeofamother.blogspot.com/

and i won't even post a link to the childfree anti-breeder movement, you don't even want to know about that one.

all i'm sayin is on a day of a pregnancy announcement, that just deserves straight-up big-ups hugs and support. i'll give the big-ups to adoption on the day lee announces theirs. :)

One thing is certain.

The baby will have luscious hair.

Congratulations to all the Williamses! What wonderful news. Is it a boy? Or is Esteban just a favorite name? Could it be Estebanie? After all, a girl would get some killer hand-me-downs from Lucy.

Having cousins is awesome, especially when your siblings are, ummmm... not your type of people. I have a cousin that I saw only at Christmas each year growing up. Now we live an hour apart (3000 miles from our families) and I feel incredibly close to her. She has kids that are both a year younger than my youngest 2, and it's great to get the kids together. My children may never have first cousins, but these second cousins will do just fine.