Thursday, May 19, 2011

A Third-Trimester Love Letter

Dear Baby,

Very soon, I will have to share you with the rest of the world. For almost nine months, you have been my constant companion, growing in a private little world that only you and I were privy to.

While I will miss your kicks and somersaults within, and the feeling that I am never alone, I cannot wait to see your face. I cannot wait to call you by your name and see the look on your daddy's face and watch the sure-to-be-interesting reactions from your sister and brother.

As selfish as it is, I am also anxious for your arrival simply for the normalcy that will return. Soon, I will not obsess about the next time I will have access to a pickle, or five or six. Soon, I will be able to eat more than the somewhat more "ladylike" portions that I've been consuming lately. And soon, very soon, I will be able to sit on my back porch in the summer sun and eat a hot dog straight off the grill and wash it down with a cold Stella Artois.

These last weeks are the longest, as I struggle to sleep and you struggle to find space, and as we both prepare for your life in the outside world. For me, life will resume a more familiar rhythm, with the added blessings that a newborn brings, but for you, life will transform. You will see things like sunlight and colors and faces, and I wonder what will spiral through your little mind as you process all the newness.

Throughout all these changes, I will be a constant for you. I will look and feel different, and you will adjust to a new way of eating, just as I am adjusting back to an old way, but I promise you will know me, even in this brighter, colder world.

So finish up in there, and when you are ready, come out to meet us. Your family is waiting.

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