Dear Baby,
By now you probably know the sounds and tones of my voice pretty well. There have been so many songs, so many little check-ins to ask how you're doing, and maybe a few desperate requests to sit still for just one moment so I can walk to the kitchen for a snack without feeling like someone is poking me with a jagged stick from the inside. I'd like to think those have been limited in comparison to all the "I love yous" and "I can't wait to meet yous". Yes, you know your Mama's voice quite well, and your Dad's too (by his own admission, he barely pauses for breath when he's around). What you don't know is everything you have already done for us simply by being your tiny, wonderful self.
I am a different woman than the one who less than a year ago sat nervously in a tiny, sterile room and told her doctor in a shaky voice that she wanted to try and start a family. A different woman from the one who lived even a single day without knowing you existed. You see, there was so much I couldn't understand before you. I thought of pregnancy as this sci-fi-y, alien experience. It seemed too strange and mysterious to actually be real. Now, while I'm still amazed and full of wonder, it no longer seems foreign. How could it? It is the most natural thing in the whole world, it is the thing that moves the world forward. Every kick, punch, and roll feels so profoundly normal, and most of the time I can even anticipate when it's coming. You're miraculous, but you were always meant to be. I'm talking about this particular you, not the one who could have been conceived on any other day, in any other year, at any other point in our lives. I know now why parents think their kids are so darn special - it's because they know that everything had to align just so for those particular little people to exist. Every child is so precious, so rare, so mind-blowingly individual; it's incredibly humbling to stand in the face of it and to know the gravity of the role you have played, but it also feels right, and organic, and like everything you've ever done with your life has lead you to it.
Although I've never been in charge of the well-being of a newborn before, I'm amazingly confident in my ability to do so (time will tell how that pans out, but based on evolution and how much I already love you more than most other things and people in my life, I think we'll all be okay). You have given me incredible confidence in my ability to follow through on things that are important to me. I notice it in the little things, like actually finishing the books I start, or powering through all the thank you notes after my baby shower in a single sitting (okay, maybe I stopped for lunch). It's in my desire to make our home welcoming and beautiful for you by planting flowers on our balcony and making sure they flourish, and creating a Pinterest-worthy name sign to hang above your crib with my own two hands. Perhaps most surprisingly, it's in my newfound passion for getting rid of things I don't need, reducing clutter, and keeping the apartment clean (although don't expect me to keep that up once you're here). I see it in your Dad too. It's in the way he excitedly put together your crib and changing table in a single afternoon, but only after dismantling his man cave without a single grumble, taking boxes upon boxes of his beloved but less-than-baby-friendly treasures to a storage unit all on his own so his 7-months-pregnant wife didn't have to lift a finger. It's in the way he did all of the housework during the first trimester when I was sick and exhausted, even on days when I wasn't working and he would come home completely drained from a 12-hour shift. It's in the way he has religiously told me how beautiful I am every single day that you've been in my belly, and the way I really believe he means it, even when I can't see it. It's also in the big things, like our plans for the future, and how we both know we'll do absolutely everything we can to make sure you have the best life possible.
You've already done so much for us, sweet girl. We can't wait to meet you so we can start returning the favor.
