Dear Beautiful Baby,

It’s early in the morning here, and I can tell you are working hard to prepare to join us. I keep trying to imagine what it must feel like to be stirred from the cozy, calm space where you’ve rested and grown for your whole life up until now. This has been such a process for us both–me, anticipating you, and you, tucked inside, not knowing what is to come in these next days or weeks or months or years. I wonder if it’s scary to be making your way, or if it just feels right, as all good things do in their time.

Each day I wake up thinking this might be the day we meet you and hold you and begin loving you with our eyes and hands and gentle care. I have envisioned the moment I see you for the first time, over an over again.

Will you have an abundance of hair on your sweet head, or almost none? Will you curl your fingers and toes tightly together, or will they open wide to stretch and greet the world with your first cry? Will you stare, eyes wide open, adjusting to the bright light and chilly air, or will you blink back to sleep as you snuggle in quickly next to me? My heart bursts at the thought of discovering all of these moments with you.

This journey toward the day you are born has been the most mysterious one yet for me as a mama. I have never really known all along just who you are or who you are going to be. All of the speculating and guessing has kept me fixated on hope and the anticipation of really getting to meet you–this tiny person God has created and grown to come and join our family soon. Will you be a busy baby, or a quiet, curious one? Will you tip the scales for the boy team to your brother’s delight, or will you enthrall your sister with the news of your being a baby girl? No matter, we will all love you with a deep and fierce love that is just waiting to burst forth. God has prepared a place for you here.

I have no way of knowing what the next days or hours will hold, but as the sun rises this morning, turning the sky all shades of pink and purple before coming into view, I can’t help but think that your arrival will be much like the sunrise…expected, but unexpected; predictable, and yet, unknown. Breathtaking, both of you. You are every bit as wondrous as this day and the unmistakable beginning of something beautiful and amazing, stamped with the indelible image of God in ways I can’t possibly know but will take the utmost delight in discovering.

I love you, sweet baby, in all of your mystery and miracle. Come when you are ready. For now, I’ll hold you safely right here.

always and always,

your mama