For my unborn child

Dear D,

Soon I will see your face for the first time. Soon I will hold you in my arms instead of in my belly. Soon I will introduce you to our family and our friends.

I’ll admit that these last days, these last hours, are bittersweet for me. You will be my last child. I will never be pregnant again. As much as I’ve complained about my discomfort, I’ve still enjoyed being pregnant.

I dreamed of you for more than two years. My third child, my last child, whom I was beginning to believe would never materialize.

Most of the time I’ve been too busy to pay much attention to your flips and rolls across my abdomen. That is the nature of being a mother to two other children. I have not had the luxury to linger over your every move, every flutter, every hiccup. But the times that I have been able to focus on you are that much more precious for their rarity.

I know you, yet I do not know you.

I wonder if you will have blue eyes or brown. Will you be blond or brunette? Will you nurse voraciously or reject nursing in favor of a bottle? Will you be cautious or adventurous? What will be the thing that defines you, distinguishes you?

In truth, none of those things will matter. You will be loved; you ARE loved, no matter what your personality is or what you look like.

Soon.