Baby proof

have a boy,' she chirps innocently. 'Besides, that's the only way to carry on the family name!'

I can feel myself tense up as I marvel at how she can care so much about a name that belongs to her ex- husband. But I just say, 'I wouldn't know what to do with a boy, either… Or a girl for that matter!' Then I laugh as if I've just made a very clever joke.

Everyone joins in with a polite chuckle.

Except Ben, who squeezes my knee and says, 'You'd figure it out, Claudia. We would figure it out.'

The joy in the room is palpable. His family practically applauds, they are made so giddy by this comment from their only brother and son.

Lucinda leans forward and says, 'Do you have something to cell us?'

Ben smiles and says, 'Not yet.'

I restrain myself until we're in the car alone, driving home. 'Not yet?' I shout. Then I tell him that I've never felt so betrayed.

Ben tells me not to be so dramatic, that it was just a turn of phrase.

'A turn of phrase?' I say indignantly.

'Yeah,' he says. 'Jeez, Claudia. Chill out, would you?'

I decide right then that it's time to talk to one of my loyal triumvirate-either my two older sisters, Daphne and Maura, or my best friend, Jess. After some consideration, I rule out my sisters, at least preliminarily. Although they always have my best interest at heart, I am pretty sure they won't stand by me on this one.

Maura's motivation will have more to do with not wanting me to lose Ben than thinking I should have a baby. She respects my decision not to have a baby. She has three children whom she loves dearly-and whom I love dearly-but I think in some very quiet, introspective moments, she might nearly regret her decision to have them. Or at least have them with Scott. I have often heard her say that the biggest decision a woman can make in life is not who to marry but who should be the father of her children. 'You can't undo it,' she says. 'It bonds you for life.' Although the truth is, I think Maura made a bad decision on both fronts. She is a good example of someone caring too much about passion and excitement and surface appeal rather than being with a solid, good, honest man. I call it the 'high school girl phenomenon.' Most girls in high school discount the nice, quiet, slightly nerdish boy and instead seek out the flashy, popular jock. If they somehow land the latter, they truly believe themselves to be the luckiest creatures on the planet. They got the big prize. Yet when they return to their twenty-year reunion, they see the error of their ways. The nice, quiet, slightly nerdish boy has bloomed into the perfect husband, wholesome father, and loyal caretaker while the flashy, popular jock is off in the corner playing grabass with Misty, the slutty ex-cheerleader.

This is, more or less, the Cliff's Notes version of Maura's misguided relationship history. She dated a guy named Niles throughout her late twenties, and came very close to marrying him. But when Niles started asking her about rings, she freaked out and decided that he was 'too boring and predictable.' She said she couldn't marry someone who didn't give her heart palpitations on a daily basis. At the time I was very supportive of her decision. I was all about finding true love and not settling-which is something I still believe in wholeheartedly. But with hindsight, I really think Maura was confusing love with lust-and nice with boring. Niles treated her well and was eager to make a lasting commitment. Thus, she assumed he was somehow unworthy-or at least wholly uninteresting. Frankly, I also think Niles's looks factored into her decision, although she would never admit it. Maura was attracted to Niles, but he wasn't the sort of guy who other women took note of in a bar. And Maura wanted hot. Maura wanted to impress. So it wasn't surprising when her first boyfriend after Niles was tall, gorgeous, life- of-the-party Scott. And although I'm sure there are plenty of tall, gorgeous, life-of-the-party guys who are also true to their wives, I happen to believe that a disproportionate number of them are cheaters.

In any event, Scott is a cheater, and I think Maura's views on my relationship will be colored by the fact that she picked wrong. That, in Daphne's words, she went with 'Suave Scott' over 'Nice Niles.' To this point, Maura has spent years being envious of my relationship with Ben, a relationship that is pretty ideal on the inside, and thus looks even more perfect from the outside.

She is never begrudging of my happiness, but Ben is still a constant reminder of what she could have had-and what she desperately wants me to appreciate and protect. So I am certain that she will tell me that I should have a baby in order to keep Ben. That I should do anything to keep him. And that is something I really don't want to hear.

Daphne's reasons for telling me to stay with Ben will have less to do with my relationship and everything to do with her baby obsession. It is the filter through which she observes the world around her. She and her husband, Tony, have been trying to get pregnant for nearly two years. They tried for a year the old-fashioned way: drink a bottle of wine, hop in the sack, pray for a missed period. After that, they progressed to buying fertility monitors, making ovulation charts, and bickering about peak times in the month. She is now taking Clomid and researching fertility clinics.

It pains me to watch my sister's monthly heartbreak, to see the way the struggle has changed her, how she has become increasingly bitter as her friends, one by one, all have babies. She is particularly resentful when other people have an easy time of it, and she went so far as to write off her girlfriend Kelly altogether when Kelly got knocked up on her honeymoon with boy-girl twins. When Maura told Daphne she should be happy for Kelly (which might be true but was certainly an unnecessary comment), my sisters got in a huge argument. Daphne hung up on Maura and promptly phoned me, trying to enlist me to her side. Then as Maura beeped in on my other line, eager to share her version of the spat, Daphne yelled, 'Don't you dare answer call-waiting!' and then frantically argued her point. She insisted that the fallout with Kelly had nothing to do with her blessing of twins, and everything to do with Kelly's proclamation that she was naming her daughter Stella. 'That's my name,' Daphne must have said ten times. I resisted the urge to crack myself up with a, 'No, your name is actually Daphne,' and instead assured my sister that I wasn't a big fan of alliteration in naming anyway (Daphne's last name is Sacco). I told her Stella Sacco sounded like a stripper-and that if I received a 'Stella Sacco' resume at work, I would instantly toss it aside and never even see that she was a Fulbright scholar. A long conversation about baby naming ensued, a topic I find to be ridiculous and tiresome unless you have a nine-month deadline in the works. Discussing baby names when you're not even pregnant is almost as ridiculous as laying claim to a name. Of course, I shared these observations with Maura when I finally called her back, but told her that we should nonetheless try to support Daphne. I am very accustomed to brokering a delicate peace between my sisters, although they might say the same. Perhaps that's just the natural dynamic of three sisters. We are all very close, but we are frequently two against one and the alliances constantly form and re-form.

So, anyway, the mere thought that my sisters might side with Ben, and try to talk me into having a baby, is just too much to bear. I need an unconditional, unwavering supporter. Someone who will put aside her own bias. That's where my best friend, Jess, always comes in.

Jess and I met our freshman year at Princeton when we bonded in our distaste for our respective roommates, both strident theater majors named Tracy. One night right before Thanksgiving break, Jess plied the Tracys with vodka and cranberry juice and talked them into a roommate swap. She was so effective that she made the Tracys think it was their idea. My Tracy even wrote me a note of apology-in calligraphy. The next day Jess schlepped her clothing, books, and comforter across the hall in plastic crates and garbage bags, and we ended up living together for the next fourteen years (nearly as long as we lived at home), throughout college and then into our first crummy Manhattan apartment on Ninety-second and York.

We upgraded several times over the years, until we nabbed our spacious, sunny loft on Park Avenue South that, due to Jess's kitschy style, drew many comparisons to the apartment on Friends. We each had a few boyfriends along the way, but none that we considered ditching the other for.

Until Ben came along.

Jess and I were both teary the day I moved in with Ben, and then joked that our separation felt like a divorce. We continued to talk every day, sometimes several times a day, but there was a definite change in our friendship. In part, it was just that we saw each other less. We no longer had those late-night and early-morning chats that can't really be duplicated over the phone. In part, it was an inevitable shift of loyalty. Ben became the person I talked to the most, the one I turned to first in crisis or celebration. I've seen married women put their girlfriends over their husbands, and although I admire this brand of female fidelity, I also believe that it can be a dangerous dynamic. Certain things should stay sacred in a marriage. Jess and I never discussed the changes in our