Six years ago, at 3 a.m. on night, I woke to find my water had broken and I was in labor with my son. My husband and I, as first time parents, were completely unprepared. This was not the due date! Our baby boy was early! Ok, not very early, but we're procrastinators, both of us, and in spite of the doctor's warnings that he could show up any time, we never thought, being our son, that he'd be anything but late. We didn't have a bag packed or a name picked out or a car seat installed.

Still off to the hospital we drove, calmly, at 80 miles per hour, timing contractions (three minutes apart) and deciding on a name. When we arrived, we calmly called for help when we couldn't gain access to Labor and Delivery. (We had calmly overlooked the large red button next to the door labeled, "If door is locked after hours, press this button to open.") After we did arrive, safely, in Labor and Delivery (thankfully still in labor, having not delivered yet), a nurse asked us what room number we would prefer. "Pick your lucky number," she said, "It's a light night. They're almost all free."

"Five!" I replied.

"Taken," she said.

"Oh, then three," my husband and I agreed, "since once this little guy arrives, there will be three of us."

And so our son made his entrance into the world in Room 3. Three was our magic number.

By the time he was three years old, we knew our son was autistic, and we knew he loved the number three. He would watch Schoolhouse Rock and tell you that he was three, and that three was a magic number. He would eat food in threes or multiples of three: three cups of applesauce, six cookies, nine crackers, twelve Cheerios... At bedtime we would read three books. He liked trains with three wheels on each side.

Today he will tell you, quite insistently, that his favorite number is not three, but I know that he still keeps to to his magic multiples of three when he eats and plays and goes through his bedtime routine. And every day, from his breakfast threes to his bedtime threes, my son reminds me of that morning when I first held him in my arms in Room 3: he reminds me that ever since he entered my life, it has been magic.