I have a lot to say about it. I've been writing about it a lot, snippets and snaps of thought before it felt safe and right to tell the world. I want to let you in on those letters to my Little One, even though they are up and down and all over the place. This whole deal is crazy, full of so many emotions and thoughts. I'm moving through all of them.
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Hi little baby.
Pregnancy test says you're here, inside my belly, growing away. I love you, but I'm just having a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that you're real. After I sat in this same spot and wrote how deflated I was that you weren't, yet. And now two pink lines are saying yes, you're pregnant. It's such a strange feeling--I expected to be elated, but it's so surreal I don't know what to think. I'm excited, though. I think I'll be more excited when the doctor says for sure, it's happening, you're due on may or june.
I just want you to be here so I can meet you. but when you come, we'll live in a different house in a different city. I'm just antsy for you, and at the same time overwhelmed because i have no idea what to do with you. I'm afraid of small things like i won't feed you enough, whatever. but you are going to be my baby, the baby i made with the man i love the most, and then we will take care of you. we love you, little one.
i'm here again, and today is a day after yesterday. i feel intense and sad and tears are comin outta my eyes. maybe for the love i have for little one, or maybe for the things i don't know how to feel yet because it's only been two days but it feels like a freakin eternity. and will i let little one say freakin?
i have a lot of questions and no one to ask them to.
i don't know what i'm afraid of.
not knowing what i'm doing, needing so very much help?
it's day 2 of officially knowing and i feel helpless. it's already hard to bend over and i already feel uncomfortable. maybe i'm making that up, huh, little one? but you're in there, in a teeny tiny form, right?
it leaves me feeling pretty alone in the world, this whole pregnancy thing. needing people to help me out, wanting advice and the nitty gritty of their experiences, and feeling like i can't tell them because for some reason i'm not allowed.
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I feel so tired, and it's 8:34. Pregnancy brain is setting in, I'm making this up, and i'm trying to think of all the outlandish things i could crave in the next 9 months.
is this real?
i want to get it, but i just don't, right now.
i can't be pregnant--i'm just brooke.
old people get pregnant, mommy-ish people, mature people, bookish clairish kaylieish people. not free spirits trying to find their place in the world.
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I need to say things.
Things about this unborn baby, so teeny tiny, growing inside me every day. Every day I wonder if something will go horribly wrong. I try to have faith that it won't--but in the same breath, I don't expect that it will be all just fine.
I guess I could have the same fear about Jared dying or getting into an accident or something, but I think about how vulnerable this little body is, nested inside mine, hardly anyone even knowing about its existence yet, and I want to give my whole heart and blood and brain to this baby to have, to use, to live!
Oh how I want my baby to live! To live so full and long and happy and free, to enjoy so many rich experiences and the feeling of sand and the taste of homemade meals, the heartache of loss but only a little, and I want to protect this little one from any danger or pain and keep it tucked safely inside me forever.
It's hard, every day, for me to think about Little One not being completely safe. Being so vulnerable to any small thing that could go wrong. It's hard for me to think of not being able to make sure Little One is completely safe. So I guess I avoid, and nurture myself in the belief that this can't be quite real yet. Because I have no way of knowing if my little baby's heart has already stopped beating, or if it will stop tomorrow, or if it will somehow have something horrible happen to it, for no apparent reason or for something I could control.
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We walked together and imagined you wrapped up on my torso, little one. We imagined pushing you in a stroller, in one of those backpack things on dad's back.
Your dad loves you so much, little one. He rubs my belly twenty times a day and talks to you. You're only three inches long and one ounce, but OH MY GOSH HOW WE LOVE YOU!
Your dad and I look at each other with love deeper than we ever thought possible because you're coming into our lives. We don't know if you're a boy or a girl baby yet, what your name will be, or for sure where we'll be living when you'll be born. But we know we love you fierce, and we'd do anything for you.
Like throwing up a delicious breakfast this morning. Thanks for letting me get through most of life normally, though, sweetheart.
Your dad is so anxious for you, and so am I! April 28 seems like it will never come. But we're already a family. We're already growing close, getting to know you in the smallest ways. Sometimes I think I feel you, even though the internet says I'm not supposed to yet. We insert you wherever we are: snuggling with us in bed, lying on a blanket in your pajamas, getting ready for a bath. Grandma Schultz already bought you a toy--so many people are so thrilled that you're coming into our lives! It's beautiful to see how this cycle works: parents have empty houses but get fresh new little souls to love, and we start the journey.
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This is today, November 4th, 2012.
Little One!
1. I'm obsessed with hooded towels for your bath time.
2. I love going to stores and feeling all the fuzzy soft clothes and imagining you in them. We decided whatever you are for Halloween next year, when you are 6 months old, it has to be fuzzy.
3. You're not a fan of dessert, like your Uncle Cameron.
4. You love and have always loved: raspberries, eggs, bacon, cheese, and hamburgers. Mom's eating all kinds of things she never loved before cause your growing self wants them.
5. You are growing very slowly. I am so anxious for you! Come faster!
